The most recommended French wine books

Who picked these books? Meet our 3 experts.

3 authors created a book list connected to French wine, and here are their favorite French wine books.
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Buveurs de Kava

By Patricia Siméoni, Vincent Lebot,

Book cover of Buveurs de Kava

Lamont Lindstrom Author Of Tanna Times: Islanders in the World

From the list on kava (piper methysticum).

Who am I?

I first tasted kava in the colonial New Hebrides (Vanuatu today) in early 1978. Since then, I have returned to Vanuatu many times to carry out ethnographic and linguistic research on Tanna Island on a range of issues. Although firmly incorporated within global systems since explorer James Cook visited in 1774, Islanders have fiercely maintained their island culture and languages. In addition to kava and other traditional drug substances, I have published books and articles about local knowledge systems, “cargo cults,” contemporary chiefs, Islander experience in the Pacific War, urban migration, and early Pacific photography. Currently, I am Kendall Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa. 

Lamont's book list on kava (piper methysticum)

Why did Lamont love this book?

For those who read French, Vincent Lebot and geographer wife Patricia Siméoni offer a “coffee table” kava compendium filled with beautiful historic and contemporary illustrations—both classic kava engravings and contemporary photographs. Although focused on the origins and use of kava in Vanuatu, the authors range widely and discuss kava production and consumption across the Pacific. Appendices gather all known kava origin myths and stories, and island names for kava bowls, drinking cups, filters, and other preparation equipment. Maps depict kava’s historical and contemporary range, and the authors discuss cultivation techniques within suitable ecosystems. They advocate that Pacific Islanders concentrate on marketing the “noble varieties” of the plant, grown in its traditional terroir, along the lines of high-quality French wine. 

By Patricia Siméoni, Vincent Lebot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Buveurs de Kava as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Le kava est un trait culturel majeur du Pacifique insulaire dans la mesure où il le distingue du reste du monde. Il existe là et nulle part ailleurs. Il est le dénominateur commun aux Mélanésiens, Polynésiens et Micronésiens qui le cultivent, le transforment et le boivent selon leurs préférences culturelles. Cette plante emblématique d’une vaste zone géographique est aussi l'expression d'identités locales diverses. Le kava est une porte d'entrée de choix pour aborder la complexité des îles du grand océan, il est aussi au coeur de l'évolution de ses sociétés. Tant pour son rôle dans l'histoire des îles du Pacifique…


Wine and War

By Don Kladstrup, Petie Kladstrup,

Book cover of Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure

Sarah Rowlands Author Of The Periodic Table of Wine

From the list on how history has influenced wines.

Who am I?

I became intensely interested in wine while working in a Michelin Star kitchen where understanding how flavours work together, developing nuances in my palate, and an interesting wine list combine. Enthusiasm and passion led to success in wine examinations at the highest levels, working in wine retail, travelling the globe visiting amazing vineyards, and wineries, meeting iconic winemakers, influential vineyards managers, as well as other luminaries in the world of wine. The greatest benefit being many new friends and lifelong special memories. Along with the wine tastings I give, The Periodic Table of Wine is a way to share discovering wine and the joy it brings to new audiences.

Sarah's book list on how history has influenced wines

Why did Sarah love this book?

You don’t need to know about wine or WWII to enjoy the story of how French wine was ingeniously protected from pillaging Germans during the Occupation. It reads like a war movie, about wine. Some anecdotes with a touch of James Bond about them, with others more Allo Allo. Sadly, the heroism involved continues to this day, but now with Lebanese wine producers. Indeed, there is another more recent book covering this very topic too.

By Don Kladstrup, Petie Kladstrup,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wine and War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the vineyards, wine caves, and cellars of France as war and occupation came to the country winemakers acted heroically not only to save the best wines but to defend their way of life.

These are the true stories of vignerons who sheltered Jewish refugees in their cellars and of winemakers who risked their lives to aid the resistance. They made chemicals in secret laboratories to fuel the resistance and fled from the Gestapo when arrests became imminent.

There were treacheries too, as some of the nation's winemakers supported the Vichy regime or the Germans themselves and collaborated.

Donald Kladstrup…


Book cover of Wine Drinking Culture in France: A National Myth or a Modern Passion?

Mack P. Holt Author Of The Politics of Wine in Early Modern France: Religion and Popular Culture in Burgundy, 1477-1630

From the list on French wine, history, and culture.

Who am I?

I knew nothing about wine and drank it only rarely until I went to Paris as a graduate student in the 1970s. Even then, I couldn’t afford more than basic plonk. It was not until I started doing research in Dijon every summer in the 1980s, making great friends in the process, eating and drinking at their dining tables, and visiting their favorite vignerons with them for dégustations, that I began to appreciate wine, not just as a fantastic beverage, but as a social and cultural creator. And as a historian, I appreciate that drinking wine that comes from vineyards planted in the Middle Ages connects us with our ancestors in the past.

Mack's book list on French wine, history, and culture

Why did Mack love this book?

At some basic level, the drinking culture in eighteenth-century taverns has survived in Parisian wine bars and cafés today. Yet, as a social anthropologist, Demossier shows us that wine-drinking culture has changed into something different today. Since 1980 the number of French people who drank wine every day has plummeted from over 50 percent to barely 20 percent. Yet at the same time, wine has taken on a larger cultural role in French identity as a nation even for those who drink wine less regularly. All the TV programs, books, wine blogs, wine tourism, and consumers flocking to wineries for a degustation at the source demonstrate that drinking wine is now as much a part of what it means to be French as speaking French.

By Marion Demossier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wine Drinking Culture in France as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book provides a new interpretation of the relationship between consumption, drinking culture, memory and cultural identity in an age of rapid political and economic change. Using France as a case-study it explores the construction of a national drinking culture -the myths, symbols and practices surrounding it- and then through a multisited ethnography of wine consumption demonstrates how that culture is in the process of being transformed. Wine drinking culture in France has traditionally been a source of pride for the French and in an age of concerns about the dangers of 'binge-drinking', a major cause of jealousy for the…


Book cover of Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Mack P. Holt Author Of The Politics of Wine in Early Modern France: Religion and Popular Culture in Burgundy, 1477-1630

From the list on French wine, history, and culture.

Who am I?

I knew nothing about wine and drank it only rarely until I went to Paris as a graduate student in the 1970s. Even then, I couldn’t afford more than basic plonk. It was not until I started doing research in Dijon every summer in the 1980s, making great friends in the process, eating and drinking at their dining tables, and visiting their favorite vignerons with them for dégustations, that I began to appreciate wine, not just as a fantastic beverage, but as a social and cultural creator. And as a historian, I appreciate that drinking wine that comes from vineyards planted in the Middle Ages connects us with our ancestors in the past.

Mack's book list on French wine, history, and culture

Why did Mack love this book?

Taverns and public houses have long been accused by the pious and elite guardians of public welfare as being primarily dens of iniquity where the poor could get inebriated, misbehave, and escape their misery in drunken disorder. Brennan shows very clearly that despite the obvious problem of drunkenness for some, for the majority drinking a glass or two of wine together with friends and neighbors was really about sharing, belonging, sociability, and above all, a place for social exchange. Wine can be a lubricant, to be sure, but it is also an astringent that binds us together.

By Thomas Edward Brennan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Adding a new dimension to the history of mentalites and the study of popular culture, Thomas Brennan reinterprets the culture of the laboring classes in old-regime Paris through the rituals of public drinking in neighborhood taverns. He challenges the conventional depiction of lower-class debauchery and offers a reassessment of popular sociability. Using the records of the Parisian police, he lets the common people describe their own behavior and beliefs. Their testimony places the tavern at the center of working men's social existence. Central to the study is the clash of elite and popular culture as it was articulated in the…


Puligny-Montrachet

By Simon Loftus,

Book cover of Puligny-Montrachet : Journal of a Village in Burgundy

Mack P. Holt Author Of The Politics of Wine in Early Modern France: Religion and Popular Culture in Burgundy, 1477-1630

From the list on French wine, history, and culture.

Who am I?

I knew nothing about wine and drank it only rarely until I went to Paris as a graduate student in the 1970s. Even then, I couldn’t afford more than basic plonk. It was not until I started doing research in Dijon every summer in the 1980s, making great friends in the process, eating and drinking at their dining tables, and visiting their favorite vignerons with them for dégustations, that I began to appreciate wine, not just as a fantastic beverage, but as a social and cultural creator. And as a historian, I appreciate that drinking wine that comes from vineyards planted in the Middle Ages connects us with our ancestors in the past.

Mack's book list on French wine, history, and culture

Why did Mack love this book?

If terroir is about place, Loftus shows us one particular place in rural Burgundy, and especially the people living there who grow the grapes and make the wine. These vignerons help us understand that good wine is made in the vineyard, not through any manipulation after the harvest in a fermentation tank or oak barrel. Loftus also shows how wine influences local politics, as in 1879 when the village elders petitioned the French government to add the name of their most famous vineyard—Montrachet—to the name of their town, Puligny, thus allowing their Grand Cru vineyard name to appear on the label of humbler bottles bearing just the village name, following in the footsteps of Nuits-St. Georges, Chambolle-Musigny, Aloxe-Corton, and dozens of other Burgundian villages.

By Simon Loftus,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Puligny-Montrachet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The sleepy village of Puligny-Montrachet produces the greatest white wines in Burgundy, famous throughout the world, but the place itself is unknown to outsiders. The lives of its inhabitants are shaped by the rhythms of the agricultural year, punctuated by the intense activity of the harvest, when the noise of tractors echoes down the narrow streets as the grapes are carried to the cellars.

This vivid and evocative journal of everyday life in rural France takes us through the cycle of the seasons, from the bonfires of the winter prunings to the celebrations of the feast of St Vincent. We…


French Wine

By Rod Phillips,

Book cover of French Wine: A History

Mack P. Holt Author Of The Politics of Wine in Early Modern France: Religion and Popular Culture in Burgundy, 1477-1630

From the list on French wine, history, and culture.

Who am I?

I knew nothing about wine and drank it only rarely until I went to Paris as a graduate student in the 1970s. Even then, I couldn’t afford more than basic plonk. It was not until I started doing research in Dijon every summer in the 1980s, making great friends in the process, eating and drinking at their dining tables, and visiting their favorite vignerons with them for dégustations, that I began to appreciate wine, not just as a fantastic beverage, but as a social and cultural creator. And as a historian, I appreciate that drinking wine that comes from vineyards planted in the Middle Ages connects us with our ancestors in the past.

Mack's book list on French wine, history, and culture

Why did Mack love this book?

This is the best general survey of French wine in English, from someone who not only teaches the history of modern France at his local university, but who also reviews and writes about wine for his city’s newspaper. As both an academic historian and a journalist, Phillips has written a riveting account of how wine was first introduced to France under the Romans, how many of the vineyards later came under the control of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages, how the French state attempted to control and regulate the production of wine in the nineteenth-century, and how smaller wineries are now trying to cope with the global commercialization of the wine industry. Just a great primer on French wine.

By Rod Phillips,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked French Wine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For centuries, wine has been associated with France more than with any other country. France remains one of the world's leading wine producers by volume and enjoys unrivalled cultural recognition for its wine. If any wine regions are global household names, they are French regions such as Champagne, Bordeaux, and Burgundy. Within the wine world, products from French regions are still benchmarks for many wines. French Wine is the first synthetic history of wine in France: from Etruscan, Greek, and Roman imports and the adoption of wine by beer-drinking Gauls to its present status within the global marketplace. Rod Phillips…