Wine Grapes By Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, Jose Vouillamoz
97 out of 100

Published Thursday, November 15, 2012

Overview

The cover tells us what this huge book is all about A complete guide to 1,368 varieties including their origins and flavours and it is very well presented in a rather nice sleeve containing a whopping 1242 pages and weighing in at 2.8 Kg! The stats lead you to think that this tome is for research and without a doubt it is a research tool, which leans heavily on Dr José Vouillamoz, a Swiss botanist and grape geneticist who has worked extensively in the field of grape DNA profiling. With some unusual and never before published relationships, the book helps bring grape taxonomy to a new level and has genetic tree diagrams of a number of important grape varieties. This is important as unlike many books it base its taxonomy on genetics rather than appearance. As an example is Pinot Noir, or in the book Pinot, as the Pinot Family, including Blanc and Gris, are genetically identical, they are minor mutations of the same clone.

While in alphabetical order, often grapes are not in the section you may first expect. Grenache is considered a synonym for Garnacha because it is the main name given to it in its Spanish place of origin, before spreading to France and being renamed. This is excellent, as someone who has struggled with categorising grapes and their synonyms in the past it gives me a definitive reference point.
Obviously to define a grape variety by origin requires a decision on what the origin of a grape must be made. Here the book publishes a list of grapes of origin by country, with Italy being in the lead by far with 377 followed by France on 204 and Spain on 84. Surprises for me include Greece on 77 the USA on 76, and the UK on 1 with Muscat of Hamburg, which according to the book is now planted around the world mainly for table grapes but also for wines in eastern Europe.

Grape colours are covered as well as areas under vine, where available. Perhaps the biggest missing element is a pronunciation guide of the grapes. With grapes coming from all over the world it would be great to have this, but this gives the book room for improvement in subsequent editions. The last other detractor is the book's title is misleading it says Wine Grapes a complete guide to 1368 vine varieties including their origins and flavours. It is the last point I have some problems with. While sometimes giving brief descriptions of style it less often gives descriptions of flavours. Even for key wine grapes, Pinot Noir's flavours are only described as “cherry, strawberry and in age autumnal and savoury... hints of truffles and fungi”. Not exactly a complete guide and, while the book goes on at length about the different regions, it does not give flavours differences.

But it is hard to criticise a book that has now set the benchmark for books on wine grapes. By pulling together much of the work on DNA fingerprinting it is a book that could not have been written before now and will get better with subsequent editions.

It is certainly not a book for everybody. Best suited to academics, those studying their MW and possibly for WSET Diploma students or absolutely hard core wine geeks. It would make a brilliant Christmas present for them but event at the special offer price of £75 (£120 full price) it isn't cheap.

For the right audience I would rate this book 97 out of 100. A very high score indeed.