Here are 62 books that Hugh Johnson's The Story of Wine fans have personally recommended if you like
Hugh Johnson's The Story of Wine.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I’m the daughter of a Californian grape farmer, and have driven tractor, picked grapes, and tied vines. Whilst at Berkeley, I travelled around Napa Valley tasting wines whilst riding pillion on a 750 cc motorcycle; at Oxford I discovered European wines. Thereafter, I was a professor of modern and contemporary history in London, writing nearly a dozen books, and continuing to explore wines with my husband. I have wine in my bones. I now travel around the world tasting it, writing about it, judging it, and leading tasting tours, all the while continuing to drink it. I am currently writing a book on the global history of wine.
I began my education in wine in small classes run by Michael Schuster; this book is the next best thing. The title makes it sound a bit tedious, but it’s not. Inside is the key – ‘Taste with your head, and drink with your heart.' It is a bit depressing to hear someone say that ‘I don’t know about wine, but I know what I like’ – it sounds as though the speaker is embracing ignorance. Rather, it should be ‘this is a wine that I like and this is why.’ Besides, what could be more fun than learning about wine: it’s both intellectually interesting and tastes so good! Using this book, you can do it alone or – even more fun - with friends.
An authoritative and inspirational winetasting course, from one of the world's leading wine educators.
'Explains the mechanics of taste and tasting better than any book I've seen.' - Richard Ehrlich, Independent on Sunday
Learn how to taste wine, with one of the world's leading wine educators.
This book offers a particularly clear and precise means of teaching yourself how to taste and how to get more out of your wine, whatever your level. All the major grape varieties are explored, and their key characteristics in different regions. Ten practical tastings then cover core tasting techniques. Do you want to explore…
I’m the daughter of a Californian grape farmer, and have driven tractor, picked grapes, and tied vines. Whilst at Berkeley, I travelled around Napa Valley tasting wines whilst riding pillion on a 750 cc motorcycle; at Oxford I discovered European wines. Thereafter, I was a professor of modern and contemporary history in London, writing nearly a dozen books, and continuing to explore wines with my husband. I have wine in my bones. I now travel around the world tasting it, writing about it, judging it, and leading tasting tours, all the while continuing to drink it. I am currently writing a book on the global history of wine.
Gerald Asher is a wine writer who is celebrated for his range, his knowledge, his ability to see below the surface of things, and his compelling writing style. This book of essays about wine is one of my favourites, ranging as it does from wines with food, in which he goes in unexpected directions, to whether or not and how to decant wines, to drinking wine in Greece surrounded by the gods, to wines from Portugal and California and Oregon and Italy and France. He takes me to places I’ve never been and to wines I’ve never drunk, all with no effort on my part. Along the way, I learn and I enjoy. What a pleasurable book!
A Napa Valley Cabernet, a French Burgundy, an Orvieto Classico shared among friends in the Umbrian hills—every wine has a story, and Gerald Asher tells it best. Asher, longtime wine editor of Gourmet magazine, has an unsurpassed knowledge of vineyards, wineries, and wines. He also has the refreshing ability to write about wine informatively and entertainingly, without technical jargon. Now in paperback, Asher's delightful Vineyard Tales evaluates wines from around the world—from secret sun-drenched vineyards on Crete to the celebrated Champagne houses of France—setting each wine in the context of a region's history and culture. In addition, Asher offers an…
I’m the daughter of a Californian grape farmer, and have driven tractor, picked grapes, and tied vines. Whilst at Berkeley, I travelled around Napa Valley tasting wines whilst riding pillion on a 750 cc motorcycle; at Oxford I discovered European wines. Thereafter, I was a professor of modern and contemporary history in London, writing nearly a dozen books, and continuing to explore wines with my husband. I have wine in my bones. I now travel around the world tasting it, writing about it, judging it, and leading tasting tours, all the while continuing to drink it. I am currently writing a book on the global history of wine.
This is fiction masquerading as non-fiction. Published in 1893 but now re-published – do try to get a copy with the original illustrations – the story is about two upper-class female cousins from Ireland who receive a letter commanding them to go to Bordeaux to tour the vineyards. They know nothing about wine, except that a glass and a half of Château Lafite caused one of the cousins to snore quietly over her dessert. Nor do they know about Bordeaux or how to use the Kodak camera they were given to take photographs. Nevertheless, off they go, two intrepid young women braving the French hotel-keepers, the carts, the country people, and the owners. It is witty, historic now, and fun to read.
"Hands down the wine book of the year." -David McIntyre, Washington Post
"...paints a glorious picture of Bordeaux as seen through the skittish and mischievously observant eyes of Somerville and Ross - cousins and writing partners." -Victoria Moore, The Telegraph
Journeying through the Medoc in the autumn of 1891, Anglo-Irish cousins and travelling companions, Edith Somerville and Martin Ross (aka Violet Florence Martin) bring their distinctive melange of wry wit, acute observation and unabashed horror at the barefoot treading of Cabernet Sauvignon to this delightful account of vendangeurs lofty and low-born as they bring in the harvest in time-honoured fashion.…
I’m the daughter of a Californian grape farmer, and have driven tractor, picked grapes, and tied vines. Whilst at Berkeley, I travelled around Napa Valley tasting wines whilst riding pillion on a 750 cc motorcycle; at Oxford I discovered European wines. Thereafter, I was a professor of modern and contemporary history in London, writing nearly a dozen books, and continuing to explore wines with my husband. I have wine in my bones. I now travel around the world tasting it, writing about it, judging it, and leading tasting tours, all the while continuing to drink it. I am currently writing a book on the global history of wine.
If I had to choose only one wine book to own and use, this would be it. It contains thousands of entries of varying lengths and complexity, all clearly written: do you want to know where the wines of Cadillac come from and what they taste like in fewer than a hundred words? Here it is. If you want to know how climate change is affecting vines and wines around the world, its three big pages will tell you. What is the wine called PX? Would you like to know all about California and its wines? France? China? What is biodynamic agriculture? Who are the most famous wine writers and what did they write about? Almost anything you might want to know about a wine-related subject is in this book. There is nothing else like it.
Published in 1994 to worldwide acclaim, the first edition of Jancis Robinson's seminal volume immediately attained legendary status, winning every major wine book award including the Glenfiddich and Julia Child/IACP awards, as well as writer and woman of the year accolades for its editor on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining meticulously-researched fact with refreshing opinion and wit, The Oxford Companion to Wine presents almost 4,000 entries on every wine-related topic imaginable, from regions and grape varieties to the owners, connoisseurs, growers, and tasters in wine through the ages; from viticulture and oenology to the history of wine, from its…
I’ve been passionate about wine since I was a teenager in New Zealand and I now teach and write about it, judge in wine competitions, and travel the world to visit wine regions. I teach European history and the history of food and drink at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a wine historian, I spend weeks each year in archives, studying everything from changes in vineyard area and the weather in specific years to the taxation of wine and patterns of wine drinking. Currently, I’m working in several French archives for a book on wine in the French Revolution. It will be my ninth wine book.
This bestselling book first came out long before my own global history of wine and it has gone through a number of editions as well as translations. It takes on the long history of wine ‘from Noah to Now’ in a readable, well-informed narrative – as we would expect of Hugh Johnson, who is one of the best-known English wine writers and authors. His richly illustrated book has global range and covers all the world’s wine-producing regions. It’s an excellent example of history written for a non-specialist readership and is probably the book that has done more than any other to bring history to the attention of wine lovers.
"Who better to supply us with our first comprehensive historical survey than the wine writer with the magic pen, Hugh Johnson?" - Jancis Robinson MW
Hugh Johnson has led the literature of wine in many new directions over a 60-year career. His classic The Story of Wine is his most enthralling and enduring work, winner of every wine award in the UK and USA. It tells with wit, scholarship and humour how wine became the global phenomenon it is today, varying from mass-produced plonk to rare bottles fetching many thousands. It ranges from Noah to Napa, Pompeii to Prohibition to…
I’ve been passionate about wine since I was a teenager in New Zealand and I now teach and write about it, judge in wine competitions, and travel the world to visit wine regions. I teach European history and the history of food and drink at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a wine historian, I spend weeks each year in archives, studying everything from changes in vineyard area and the weather in specific years to the taxation of wine and patterns of wine drinking. Currently, I’m working in several French archives for a book on wine in the French Revolution. It will be my ninth wine book.
This prize-winning book is an impeccably researched and very readable history of champagne, the only wine that’s a household name. Kolleen Guy traces the way champagne, even though a latecomer after the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, became more closely identified with France and Frenchness. Focusing on the period from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, Guy traces the way champagne houses carefully constructed an image of champagne that complemented the nation-building process that was underway at the same time. It’s a fine demonstration of the way that wine is often connected to broad political and cultural currents.
Winner of the Outstanding Manuscript Award from Phi Alpha Theta, this work explains how nationhood emerges by viewing countries as cultural artifacts, a product of "invented traditions." In the case of France, scholars sharply disagree, not only over the nature of French national identity but also over the extent to which diverse and sometimes hostile provincial communities became integrated into the nation. In When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity, Kolleen M. Guy offers a new perspective on this debate by looking at one of the central elements in French national culture-luxury wine-and the rural…
I’ve been passionate about wine since I was a teenager in New Zealand and I now teach and write about it, judge in wine competitions, and travel the world to visit wine regions. I teach European history and the history of food and drink at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a wine historian, I spend weeks each year in archives, studying everything from changes in vineyard area and the weather in specific years to the taxation of wine and patterns of wine drinking. Currently, I’m working in several French archives for a book on wine in the French Revolution. It will be my ninth wine book.
The 1855 Classification created quality tiers for wines from a number of districts in Bordeaux: the famous First Growth (Premier Cru) wines and their Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Growth counterparts. There’s been only one change since then (a Second Growth promoted to First) and people still pay high prices for these wines based on a ranking that is more than 150 years old. Dewey Markham’s book tells the story of the Classification and shows that the wines that topped the list in 1855 were also ranked highest in earlier lists and that the rankings were based on price rather than intrinsic quality. It’s a well-documented book that brings history to bear on the way we look at some of the most prestigious wines of Bordeaux.
The First Complete Guide to the 1855 Bordeaux Classification--A Fascinating Account for Wine Lovers and an Authoritative Reference for Wine Industry Professionals The 1855 Bordeaux Classification has been a fixture of the wine world for almost 150 years, yet the origin of the system and the thinking behind it have never been thoroughly researched and presented in detail--until now. How was the 1855 classification drafted? Who was responsible? What was the rationale for the cru classe rating, and what criteria were used to determine inclusion and ranking? 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification answers these central questions and more.…
I’ve been passionate about wine since I was a teenager in New Zealand and I now teach and write about it, judge in wine competitions, and travel the world to visit wine regions. I teach European history and the history of food and drink at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a wine historian, I spend weeks each year in archives, studying everything from changes in vineyard area and the weather in specific years to the taxation of wine and patterns of wine drinking. Currently, I’m working in several French archives for a book on wine in the French Revolution. It will be my ninth wine book.
Terroir is the notion that the environment that grapevines grow in is imprinted on the wine they produce. It was universally accepted for several decades but is now hotly debated, as scientists have debunked the idea that certain soils and rocks transfer flavour and texture to wine. In the 1920s Burgundy became the first region to embrace the idea of terroir and in her book, Marion Demossier examines the circumstances that gave rise to it and the way that terroir was adopted and adapted by wine regions throughout the world so that wine producers could claim that their wines expressed ‘a sense of place’. This excellent book cuts through much of the marketing nonsense about wine.
"Demossier's engrossing analysis of Burgundy-the wine, the place, the brand-should be imbibed (pun intended!) on many levels-and slowly, for best appreciation."-foodanthro.com
Drawing on more than twenty years of fieldwork, this book explores the professional, social, and cultural world of Burgundy wines, the role of terroir (the environmental factors that affect a crop's character), and its transnational deployment in China, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.
It demystifies the terroir ideology by providing a unique long-term ethnographic analysis of what lies behind the concept. While the Burgundian model of terroir has gone global by acquiring UNESCO world heritage status, its very…
I have been a journalist for over a decade, most frequently writing on the subjects of spirits, cocktails, and drinking culture for such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Playboy, and VinePair. I have written 12 books—6 of them on booze—my latest of which is Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits.
A booze book fit for the big screen, it follows eccentric wine collectors pursuing their unicorn of unicorns, a 1787 Château Lafite Bordeaux supposedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson. It eventually sells for $156,000 at auction, and then things get even stranger as mysteries unravel and con men enter the scene.
The rivetingly strange story of the world's most expensive bottle of wine, and the even stranger characters whose lives have intersected with it.
The New York Times bestseller, updated with a new epilogue, that tells the true story of a 1787 Château Lafite Bordeaux—supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—that sold for $156,000 at auction and of the eccentrics whose lives intersected with it.
Was it truly entombed in a Paris cellar for two hundred years? Or did it come from a secret Nazi bunker? Or from the moldy basement of a devilishly brilliant con artist? As Benjamin Wallace unravels the mystery,…
I’m a wine writer, winemaker, organic wine farmer, and an accredited wine educator with decades of experience. I have loved wine since my first sip as a university student and wine is one of my life’s passions. I love how wine can connect you to a place, how it is like travel in a bottle, to a vintage, a place, a person. I’ve written five books about wine; I offer wine courses, tours and vineyard walks in South-West France and I live on the organic vineyard and winery that I co-founded with my husband. In my writing life, I’m also wine writer for Living magazine.
This book is my favourite wine book in recent times. In it, Bianca Bosker follows her quest to become a sommelier.
We follow her wine-tasting experiences, which include tasting with a high-flying circle of New York sommeliers from top restaurants and learning about wine while having sex. How is the last part possible? You’ll have to read it to find out!
You’ll also learn about wine, wine tasting, how your brain works, and the underworld of restaurants and sommeliers. This book is entertaining and well-written; I laughed out loud many times.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK
"Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo elan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she's not wrong, though Bill Buford's Heat is probably a shade closer." -Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn't know much about wine-until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and…
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
wine,
France,
and
Paris.
