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Jancis Robinson is unquestionably the greatest expert in the field of grapevine wines. She has already written several books in this field, which have also been published in German. After a small paperback that was only published in English, her other works were published in the "Oxford Wine Lexicon", where she also got the idea to write a large, comprehensive work.

With the help of Julia Harding, also a Master of Wine, and the Swiss oenologist and scientist José Vouillamoz, she sat at the "desk" for two years and created what is indeed a comprehensive book on the subject of vines, grapes and wine: "Wine Grapes". The three authors present 1,368 grape varieties on 1,242 pages, plus 80 grape variety portraits from Viala and Vermorel's "Ampélographie" by painters Jules Troncy and Alexis Kreyder, which are also included in the three-volume Italian work "Ampelografia Universale Storica Illustrata", published in spring 2012.

Jancis Robinson (centre)% Julia Harding (left) and José Vouillamoz (right) with their work. (Source: winegrapes.org)

"Wine Grapes" has a classic layout and, in addition to the portraits, also contains an index with synonyms as well as tables of the grape varieties of individual countries and 16 family trees on grape variety families: how Chardonnay came about, for example, and so on. Each variety is characterised with a short sentence and then presented in different chapters, with the authors taking the liberty of giving their opinion and, where there is doubt about certain statements, quoting them.

It has become an amazing collection of grape varieties, and newer species are also mentioned, with the appropriate indication as to their quality. And where they are rare, the name of the winegrower who still makes the wine is also mentioned, for example Tauberschwarz.

"Wine Grapes" is different from the three Italian volumes mentioned above, which contain a total of over 550 picture plates. The book, which is only available in English - a German translation is not in sight - is also decidedly cheaper, but this should not speak against the Italian work, which deals more with the aspect of ampelography. "Wine Grapes" does, however, contain a large chapter listing other books on the subject. At the same time, a slightly different version was published in the USA in the title, but there is no difference in the text.

The book was published in a British version (left) and an American version (right) which differ only visually% but not in content. (Source: winegrapes.org)

The book is a milestone and masterpiece. It has the makings of a classic in recent wine literature. Only Pierre Galet, the "Zeus" of ampelography, has described more varieties: around 9,600 in his encyclopaedia twelve years ago. This book was only published in French.

It would be good for the English work to find a local publisher. You could throw away all her other books on the subject, says the author in the preface with British understatement.

Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, José Vouillamoz
Wine Grapes
Penguin Books (UK), Harper Collins Publishers (US)
ISBN 978-0-06-220636-7
€ 146,- / £ 120,- / $ 175,-

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