Wine Science by Jamie Goode
95 out of 100

Published Thursday, May 1, 2008

Overview

Published 2005 by Mitchell Beazley

Jamie Goode is the man behind the website www.wineanorak.com and had been a science editor for over 12 years, along with his PhD in plant biology, he is perfectly suited to write a book about the science of wine. Jamie is an excellent communicator and this book tackles many of the technical topics in wine that many wine communicators simply do not understand.

Jamie manages to write about very technical topics in a way that is uncluttered and accessible. While the name implies you might expect pages of unfathomable equations, the truth is Jamie has pitched this book at the layperson. However, it is not a book for all wine lovers, but if you have a strong interest in wine and at least a passing interest in the science you will get a lot of value out of Jamie Goode’s Wine Science book. For those whose wine book collection consists of a couple of wine recommendation books then it is probably not for you. However if you own a decent wine atlas and perhaps the Oxford Companion or other high quality reference books and find these books useful, it is a fantastic book.

The book can be used as a reference book to dip into on a topic that you want to know more, but I found myself reading it cover to cover and getting a lot of value out of it. It is not a must read can’t put it down, but the information is generally factual, informative and exceedingly well written especially since the topic could have easily become boring and academic.

The book is divided into three key sections. Section one in the vineyard, section two in the winery and the third section is on our interaction with the wine. Within each section is a range of topics:

Section 1 in the vineyard covers some pretty standard stuff, such as biology, terroir and irrigation, but also includes some unusual topics such as GM grapes and biodynamics.

Section 2 in the winery, includes information on a number of wine making techniques, including micro oxygenation, barrels, reverse osmosis, spinning cones, sulphur dioxide and wine making problems such as microbes and Brettanomyces.

The final section, Section 3 covers how we taste wine, how our brains work, allergies and health.

The health section is perhaps too much on the positive side of wine, I would have liked to know more about the harmful effects of alcohol, which is not really covered at all. There are other topics I would have liked Jamie to have covered, but given the book comes in at a manageable 205 pages (excluding indexes) the balance on what has been included and left out is very good.

In summary, this is an excellent book for people into wine and science and want to understand a bit more about wine rather than regions and grape verities which so many books focus on. It is well written and accessible and was and still is my favourite wine book. It is not surprising that it won the Glenfiddich Drink Book of the Year Award 2006

I rate this book 95 out of 100.