The Wine Atlas Of France

In this detailed study of the wines of France, one of the world's leading authorities on wine discusses every appellation and explains its character and the best growers. He uses a star system to identify the finest estates. More than 40 specially commissioned maps show the main appellations and wine villages of France.

Welcome to your tour of the wine-growing world. Wine has rolled its barrel from the shores of the Black Sea to the mountains of the Andes, following humans and their dreams. But just how did a Pyrenean grape variety end up in Uruguay? And by what means were grapevines able to reach Japan? This book goes back through time to retrace the grape's conquest of the world, stopping in each winemaking country, from the oldest to the most recent, to discover wines past and present, while also looking to the future.

"The most useful single volume on wine ever published... If I owned only one wine book, it would be this one." - Andrew Jefford, Decanter Few wine books can be called classic, but the first edition of The World Atlas of Wine made publishing history when it appeared in 1971. It is recognized by critics as the essential and most authoritative wine reference work available. This eighth edition will bring readers, both old and new, up to date with the world of wine. To reflect all the changes in the global wine scene over the past six years, the Atlas has grown in size to 416 pages and 22 new maps have been added to the wealth of superb cartography in the book. The text has been given a complete overhaul to address the topics of most vital interest to today's wine-growers and drinkers. With beautiful photography throughout, Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, the world's most respected wine-writing duo, have once again joined forces to create a classic that no wine lover can afford to be without. "The World Atlas of Wine is the single most important reference book on the shelf of any wine student." - Eric Asimov, New York Times "Like a good bottle of wine, you'll find yourself going back to it again and again... Perfect for anyone who has a thirst for greater wine knowledge." - Edward Deitch, NBC/today.com "The World Atlas of Wine belongs on your shelf... The essential rootstock of any true wine lover's library. A multi-layered snapshot of wine and how it has evolved." - Dave McIntyre, Washington Post

This comprehensive wine atlas leaves no centimeter of terroir unexplored. After a thorough introduction to France, French winemaking and the concept of terroir, Jefford (Wine Tastes Wine Styles) gets to the heart of the matter with lengthy chapters on each of France's 14 regions. Each of these consists of an overview of the region and its history, profiles of the area's major winemakers, a description of the land and listings and descriptions of the local wineries. Some of the latter are lengthy, while others are brief, but all include an address and phone number, making this book useful as a guidebook as well. Jefford is refreshingly opinionated: the Loire Valley is in the throes of a "long and refined stone age," while Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace is the domain "most emblematic of the New France as a whole." The effort here is encyclopedic, but the writing rises above the usual dry discussion, comparing the quest to understand Burgundy to doing crossword puzzles. Even the most matter-of-fact information is presented with a certain flair: in a description of the Rhone Valley, Jefford explains that the area's mistral wind is both destructive and useful, in that it blows away "fugs and fungal diseases." Numerous maps and photographs-including portraits of the winemakers profiled-and a full list of vintages round out this entertaining addition to its field.

When Adventures on the Wine Route was first published, Victor Hazan said, "In Kermit Lynch's small, true, delightful book there is more understanding about what wine really is than in everything else I have read." A quarter century later, this remarkable journey of wine, travel, and taste remains an essential volume for wine lovers. In 2007, Eric Asimov, in The New York Times, called it "one of the finest American books on wine," and in 2012, The Wall Street Journal pro-claimed that it "may be the best book on the wine business." In celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, Adventures on the Wine Route has been thoroughly redesigned and updated with an epilogue and a list of the great wine connoisseur's twenty-five most memorable bottles. In this singular tour along the French wine route, Lynch ventures forth to find the very essence of the wine world. In doing so, he never shies away from the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that have made him one of our most respected and outspoken authorities on wine. Yet his guiding philosophy is exquisitely simple. As he writes in the introduction, "Wine is, above all, about pleasure. Those who make it ponderous make it dull . . . If you keep an open mind and take each wine on its own terms, there is a world of magic to discover." Adventures on the Wine Route is the ultimate quest for this magic via France's most distinguished vineyards and wine cellars. Lynch draws vivid portraits of vintners—from inebriated négociants to a man who oversees a vineyard that has been in his family for five hundred years—and memorably evokes the countryside at every turn. "The French," Lynch writes, "with their aristocratic heritage, their experience and tradition, approach wine from another point of view . . . and one cannot appreciate French wine with any depth of understanding without knowing how the French themselves look at their wines, by going to the source, descending into their cold, humid cellars, tasting with them, and listening to the language they employ to describe their wines." Here, Kermit Lynch assures a whole new generation of readers—as well as his loyal fans—that discussions about wine need not focus so stringently on "the pH, the oak, the body, the finish," but rather on the "gaiety" of the way "the tart fruit perfume[s] the palate and the brain."

For centuries, France has been the world's premier wine-producing country, and her vineyards are justly renowned. This book offers a detailed history of French wine and the factors determining the development of wine growing in specific regions. Photographs.

The remarkable untold story of France’s courageous, clever vinters who protected and rescued the country’s most treasured commodity from German plunder during World War II. "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." –Claude Terrail, owner, Restaurant La Tour d’Argent In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown–until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them. Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.