The best wine books for Christmas

Who’s Afraid of Romanée-Conti? A Shortcut to Drinking Great Wine by Dan Keeling

£21.39, Quadrille

A casual, accessible streak has permeated wine writing of late, aimed at demystifying an at-times intimidating drink. In the past year we’ve had the likes of Corker: A Deeply Unserious Wine Book from Hannah Crosbie, which makes reading about wine fun, while Neil Ridley’s recently released The Crisp Sommelier looks at pairing wine (and other alcoholic drinks) with our favourite snacks.

For over a decade, the Noble Rot magazine has been part of this movement. Though it covers plenty of serious topics, it does so with an irreverent tone. As William Kelley writes in the foreword to Who’s Afraid of Romanée Conti?, its editors and contributors ‘took wine deadly seriously but not themselves.’ For many intimidated but intrigued newbies like me, it was a welcome introduction to the weird and wonderful world of wine.

This new coffee-table book from Noble Rot co-founder Dan Keeling continues in this tradition and serves as a brilliant entry point into what can be a confusing sector. It takes readers on a journey to celebrated and lesser-known regions, championing unheralded spots like Savoie and Switzerland. Keeling’s writing is funny and informative, and though Noble Rot has come to epitomise the height of sophistication in both wine writing and restaurant wine lists, never snooty: ‘Experts do not feel Chablis more intensely,’ Keeling writes – in other words, there’s no correct way to enjoy wine.

The book is divided into themes that may or may not relate to the reader – what to pour for people who couldn’t care less; how to find a great house wine – but is always entertaining. It offers top picks in each category, ranging from under £15 to over £1,000 (I would have appreciated a few more suggestions in the lowest price bracket). There’s plenty of technical stuff for those interested in yields per hectare of fine wine and lots of humour too. Who’s Afraid of Romanée Conti? (after watching the documentary Sour Grapes, I certainly am) is a worthy addition to any wine lover’s bookshelf, no matter their level of knowledge.

Tomé Morrissy-Swan

On Tuscany: From Brunello to Bolgheri, Wine Tales From the Heart of Italy

£35, Académie du Vin Library

The fourth of the Académie du Vin’s region-based anthologies is a delightful book that has tapped up experts living and dead for smart and sometimes whimsical contributions. The foreword is by David Gleave MW, founder and chairman of Liberty Wines and importer of several of the region’s best producers, including Isole e Olena and Fontodi; Gleave has also contributed several articles, including a fascinating mini-biography of Luigi Veronelli, the outspoken and visionary food critic and activist who can claim to be, as Gleave quotes Jancis Robinson MW saying, ‘the man who invented Italian wine’.

There are also several entries by Gleave’s late mentor, the much-missed Nicholas Belfrage MW, as well as contributions ranging from the writer Hester Thrale in the 18^th century to River Café owner Ruth Rogers in this one. The significance of Chianti Classico’s black rooster, the gallo nero, is explained in an excerpt from Bill Nesto MW and Frances di Savino’s seminal book on those wines – and elsewhere, the sad tale is told of the Consorzio’s failure to register that trademark and subsequent loss, to the proprietary American Gallo family, of the right to use it.

There is history, poetry and art, as there surely must be when the cradle of the Renaissance is the place under discussion, although even here the focus remains on wine: Michelangelo is mentioned not for his sculpture but for his passion for Trebbiano. There’s room for the odd gentle poke between the discussions of soil types and DOC rules, grape varieties and winemaking, such as Jane Anson’s provocative questioning of whether the time for international varieties – the foundation of the so-called Super Tuscans – in this region is over. Room also for some delicious food, including Victoria Moore’s evocative yet simple snack of bread, unsalted as is traditional in Tuscany, toasted and drenched in fresh olive oil and crunchy salt. Accompanied, naturalmente, by Sangiovese.

Nina Caplan

Wine London: An Opinionated Guide by Tom Howells

£10.29, Hoxton Mini Press

Whilst London has never been short of places to drink the good stuff, the recent explosion of wine bars across the city is hard to miss. Mostly modelled on the Parisian cave à manger, such drinking dens have spread far beyond their East London stronghold, making this the right moment for a guide like this one.

It’s written by London-based writer and editor Tom Howells, who promises something for everyone, from the hardcore traditionalists to funk-chasing natural wine fanatics. There’s a handy guide at the beginning that does exactly that, with suggestions for those ‘visiting on a budget,’ those after ‘rare finds’ or hoping to discover ‘enlightening tastings’. It also makes room for those less focused on the liquid and more on ambiance, with suggestions for ‘old-school charm’, ‘unusual surroundings’ or ‘hipster cache’. Though Howells’ descriptions of wine are very accessible, there’s also a handy guide to wine-speak at the back to help the novice navigate tannins, terroir and vigneron.

Arranged geographically, Howells’ witty prose snappily captures the essence of wine drinking destinations in different parts of the city and includes everything from wine-focused restaurants all the way through to old school vintners and new-wave bottle shops. He has a knack for capturing the spirit of a place and the idiosyncrasy of some of London’s most cherished spots.

Despite admitting to some ‘conspicuous omissions’ (what guide is ever complete?), with 60 spots in London and an additional five of the UK’s top wineries in nearby counties, it’s a comprehensive resource for any wine-loving Londoner.

Joel Hart

Wine Confident: There’s No Wrong Way to Enjoy Wine by Kelli A White

£25, Académie du Vin Library

If you think of your ideal friend, what are they like? Warm, fun, intelligent, engaging and down to earth? And what if you added ‘sommelier’ to that list? Reading Kelli A White’s words is like chatting with a best friend who also happens to be a wine pro — it’s honest, engaging, entirely without pretension, totally relatable and utterly fascinating.

That’s because, as White says, ‘There is no wrong way to enjoy wine’ — and there should be no barriers to anyone falling in love with the world of wine for the first time or reacquainting themselves with the joy held inside the glass. Wine Confident will leave you super-charged and equipped with all the tools to be fully adept at navigating a world which can sometimes seem aloof and distant. White gently encourages us to ‘relax into the total experience of the wine’ and ‘let those memories and emotions in’, and believe me, you can’t help but surrender.

White’s passion for helping people find wine exciting rather than overwhelming is truly infectious and evident on every page. She has punctuated the subject with ‘pro tips’ and real-life anecdotes of her own journey of discovery, which sweep you up into her love of the subject. She manages to cover an exhaustive list of all aspects of wine, from the humble grape through to the people who sell wine to us and everything in between.

Detail is encouraged and celebrated, with not a whiff of dumbing down — she deliberately avoids ‘baby talk’, as she refers to it. The glorious mix of science, socio-economics and fun around wine makes this a truly unique book that is perfect for both the wine-curious and the wine-converted alike. I just hope I get to sit down with White one day to share a glass — I have a feeling that she’s just the sort of friend I would love to have.

Rosamund Hall

One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine by Pascaline Lepeltier

£34.73, Mitchell Beazley

Within a few pages of this doorstop book, you will read about philosophy and anthropology, history, botany and taxonomy, plus a sly misquoting of Simone de Beauvoir (‘one is not born but rather becomes a sommelière’). Pascaline Lepeltier became a Master Somm – she works at Michelin-starred Chambers in New York, as well as receiving the prestigious decoration Meilleur Ouvrier de France in her native country – after seriously considering a career as a philosophy lecturer. This is the background that inspires her to look differently at vines: not asking how we can better master them, but how we can cohabit with them. Even the discussion of natural wine is calm and balanced – not words frequently associated with that polarising subject, and Lepeltier, who has co-authored a book with Alice Feiring, is far from neutral.

This is a deeply serious book, its pedagogy lightened but never lessened by beautiful maps and diagrams on everything from usage of different words for wine to the stages of vinification to the results of wine auctions, and pull-out paragraphs sweetly decorated with bunches of grapes. The amount of information can feel overwhelming: one spread features Louis XIV’s First Minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, establishing the first centralized forest code in 1669, a map of the main French oak forests used in cooperage and their aromatic profiles, and a sentence relating to lees where I had to look up three words of 22. (Want to know what a thiol is? Hit me up.) But it is never dull, and the section on food pairing, unsurprisingly given her metier, is joyous. Lepeltier writes that her impassioned curiosity about the world was aroused by the books she read as a child, an illustrated encyclopaedia in particular. I’m sure there will be young wine-lovers who will, in future, say the same about her own awesomely encyclopaedic work.

Nina Caplan

Wine: Taste Pair Pour by Charlotte Kristensen

£16.97, Mitchell Beazley

Wine: Taste Pair Pour is the debut book from the Mail on Sunday’s wine columnist Charlotte Kristensen, who might also be familiar to readers as @thelondonwinegirl on Instagram. It’s a full-colour, beautiful little hardback with chapters on production methods, grape varieties, wine regions, how to taste and food pairings. Her approach makes an often-complicated subject seem unthreatening and fun.

I particularly like the little boxes tackling specific questions readers might have such as ‘does sulphur dioxide cause headaches?’ – spoiler alert: almost certainly not. The back section, where Kristensen explains what to buy for certain occasions, is probably the best part of the book. She clearly knows what her readers like, as the page on crowd-pleasers like Rioja and Argentine Malbec demonstrates, and while she’s no wine hipster, there is a section entitled ‘something different’, where she recommends broadening your horizons with wines like Vin Jaune, Txakoli and a Pet Nat.

Wine: Taste Pair Pour also functions as a cookbook, with some mouthwatering recipes like crab pasta (paired with Provence rosé), slow-roast lamb (a good fit with Syrah from the northern Rhône, according to Kristensen) or asparagus and goat’s cheese tart (Sauvignon Blanc, naturally.) My one criticism is that the attempt to cram so much into 200 pages necessarily involves making some quite broad brushstrokes, meaning this book probably isn’t one for the confirmed wine bore in your life. But for that friend who wants to get into wine but doesn’t know where to begin, it’s a great introduction.

Henry Jeffreys

The Wine Flavour Guide: How to Pick the Best Wine for Every Occasion by Sam Caporn MW

£15.99, Square Peg

Wine is about conviviality and pleasure; it’s about the joy of time spent with the people you love, celebrating the simple pleasures of life. And this is at the heart of Sam Caporn’s charming new book, The Wine Flavour Guide. It focuses on wine as an integral and wonderful part of life’s celebrations throughout the year, whether they are big or small, inviting us to think about the people we’re sharing the bottles with and the occasions that bring us together.

It’s a perfect book to give to someone starting out on their journey of wine discovery, being both clearly written by a highly respected Master of Wine and beautifully laid out. Its two sections — ‘Wine 101: Your Guide to All Things Wine’ and ‘A Wine for Every Season and Occasion’ — will leave the reader brimming with useful information and tips to help them find the perfect wine.

But the real joy of this book is the brilliant infographic that Caporn has designed to help readers visualise and learn about wine — her fantastic ‘Wine Flavour Tree: The Ultimate Grape Guide’. It is an incredibly simple yet effective tool to help you identify aromas and build a strong visual knowledge of over 40 distinct flavours found in wine. Equipped with this know-how, she gives us the clarity to think about wine, its varied characteristics, and how we can embrace them throughout the seasons — from the deep, warming fireside reds of winter to the fresh, herbal whites of spring. This seasonal and joyful approach to enjoying wine makes you want to pause and create moments to celebrate life.

My only hope is that Sam Caporn makes a print of the Wine Flavour Tree available for purchase too, as I would love to gift it alongside her brilliant book to adorn the walls of all my friends’ kitchens.

Rosamund Hall

Behind the Glass: The Sensory & Sensorial Terroir of Wine Tasting by Gus Zhu MW

£20, Académie du Vin Library

I’ll be honest, I was expecting this book to go over my head. Perhaps it was the rather portentous-sounding subtitle. Yet not only does Zhu, China’s first Master of Wine, manage to make some in-depth science (mostly) intelligible to me, he writes with wit and perception, making this book a pleasure to read. Like a 19th century polymath, he ranges across subjects including chemistry, biology, and psychology to explain how our senses perceive wine, starting with sight and moving onto taste and smell.

I had no idea that there was so much you can learn from just looking at a wine. Bright red wines are often a sign of high acidity, whereas a purple colour suggests the opposite. He’s also the first person to explain the difference between total acidity and pH in a way I understand – though don’t ask me to attempt a summary here. Throughout the book, Zhu emphasises how our responses to wine are unique. For example, an individual’s saliva levels determine how tannins feel in the mouth. One person’s pleasantly tannic Barolo might be unpleasantly astringent to someone else. Wine appreciation is always subjective.

Behind the Glass is one of those rare books that will make you think differently next time you open a bottle of wine. It will certainly make me more precise in the way I talk about the subject. Zhu’s insights will be of particular use to wine professionals of all types looking to expand their knowledge but it’s also highly recommended for enthusiastic amateurs.

Henry Jeffreys

How to Drink Wine by Tom Surgey

£12.75, Seven Dials

An extremely pretty cover graces this hardback by Tom Surgey, which is amiably sized and friendly to read. It’s an ideal stocking filler for the nascent drinking partner whose interest you may have stirred but not yet nailed. Why not let Tom do the bagging work for you?

Tom and I are of differing vintages, so I cringe when he ‘shouts out’ or uses ‘fun facts’ but that’s the life-hardened, cynical, wizened curmudgeon in me. Tom is bouncy and gleeful – much like an amorous pup. I am quite the opposite. I endeavoured to ‘get down’ with this because despite my misanthropic tendencies, I like Tom and it is a lovingly written, friendly bid of a book; Tom is inviting you in to curl up on his softly yielding sofa and share his love of wine. There is no catch.

I enjoyed the chapter on fermentation, a pertinent read that conveys the wonders of yeast in our food and delivers us gently to its pleasurable by-product – booze. Tom has a lightness of touch that effortlessly informs the reader. I like to see where 30-somethings like Tom sit on bacteria and gut health, and I’d say he knows his onions.

I wish the publisher had colour-coded the pages to match the cover because indented colour-coded pages and pictures would have made this charming tome even prettier and more functional. But I’m sure the means for superfluous flourish cannot not be found in today’s straightened publishing arena. Let’s therefore file that comment under ‘just saying’.

Tom is not right on, he isn’t pretentious. I’d say he’s a very smart chap. His book is extremely enjoyable and light on its feet. Crucially, it resists dogma and dances through fascinating facts without tiring the reader. I had to refuse to review a recently published book written by an author in Tom’s demographic because it detonated my BS detector. It set off my ‘performative allyship’ alarm too. This is a very different animal, a book which does what it says on the tin without a hint of sociopathic agenda. I like Tom and I like his book – I think that you and your friends will too.

Lisse Garnett

Wines of the Loire by Beverley Blanning MW

£35, Académie du Vin Library

At the end of last summer, I was sitting in a small restaurant in the town of St Marc-sur-Mer, not far from Nantes. The town itself is largely unremarkable but it has a beautiful coastline dotted with fin-de-siècle clifftop properties and is famous for being the location of the French classic film Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot – a film I have watched too many times to count. I was devouring a steaming bowl of moules, washing them down with a salty and invigorating Muscadet, marvelling at the mighty Loire as she reached the end of her journey, melding into the majesty of the Atlantic Ocean.

I can think of no other river in the world that weaves its way through such a vast number of wine regions, all of which are creating exciting and varied wines over a multitude of landscapes. What I was desperately missing, as a lover of this most wonderful anchor stone in the world of wine, was a contemporary, detailed book that quenched my thirst for further knowledge. Beverley Blanning MW has written just that in the form of Wines of The Loire Valley. She presents a rich narrative, starting with the history of the region and sweeping us right up to the present day with detailed descriptions of the land – which includes 87 appellations growing 33 different grape varieties – all under the fluvial watershed of France’s longest river, in one beautifully written and highly informative guide.

The depth of her knowledge and experience of the region and its growers is evident on every page. It serves as the perfect reference point for arguably the most dynamic wine region in France, if not the world, which at the latter part of the 20th century shifted towards higher quality and more sustainable wine production. The Loire is a region that bucks trends and is attracting vibrant young talent. This ‘producer-focused book’ highlights approximately 100 growers (over 80% of whom are organic, as they are making the ‘best decisions’ for the vines) and the inherent drinkability of their wines.

I fully intend to lean heavily on my copy of Blanning’s guide in planning my next trip to the region, not least as she helpfully includes places to stay and eat too. The mix of the practical and educational with a real sense of love for the region is a gift that will keep giving for many years to come.

Rosamund Hall