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Wine Books

This page has four sections:

Toronto Bookstores & Online Purchase

See below for shopping options.  Follow the Publications link for magazines. 

Chapters Indigo have a number of stores in the Toronto area including The World's Biggest Bookstore at 20 Edward Street.  The Beer & Wine section is upstairs next to the cookery section.  If you are looking for a specific book,  try online first to check availability.  Enter the full name of the author in the SEARCH box and hit the OK button. 

The Cookbook Store at 850 Yonge St has a good assortment of wine books 

Amazon.com is an line alternative to Chapters Indigo, using the same search process.

 

   

Book Starter Kit

The books listed below below are what I consider to be the classics, particularly those by Jancis Robinson, the first lady of wine, and Hugh Johnson, the doyen of wine writers.  My top three are "The Oxford Companion To Wine" as the ultimate reference guide, The World Atlas of Wine" for geographical information, and Wine Tasting as the best description of the process.
   
First Name
Last
Name
Bio
Title
Publisher
Year
Michael Broadbent MB Winetasting Mitchell Beazley 2006
Oz Clarke OC Grapes & Wines Sterling Epicure 2010
Hugh Johnson* HJ World Atlas of Wine 6th Edition Mitchell Beazley 2007
Hugh Johnson   Wine Companion 6th edition Mitchell Beazley 2009
Jancis Robinson JR Concise Wine Companion Oxford University Press 2001
Jancis Robinson   How To Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine Simon & Schuster 2008
Jancis Robinson   The Oxford Companion To Wine Oxford University Press 2006
    Follow the link under the "Bio" heading for a biography of an author.
* Co-edited with Jancis Robinson.

Canadian Reading

Here are some Canadian publications worth acquiring:

  • Tony Aspler                      Canadian Wine for Dummies
  • Tony Aspler                      The Wine Atlas of Canada
  • Richard Best                    Lexicon of Wine Tasting
  • Geoff Heinricks               A Fool and Forty Acres
  • R. Kitowski / J Klemm    Clueless About Wine
  • Natalie MacLean             Red, White and Drunk All Over
  • Rod Phillips                     Ontario Wine Country
  • John Schreiner                The Wines of Canada
  • Vines Magazine              Buyers Guide To Canadian Wine

 

Wild Cards & Movies 

If you are in the market for gifts, I list three books and three DVDs as possibilities below.  For some more off-beat book titles, try Sterling Epicure.


Benjamin Wallace: The Billionaire's Vinegar

The Billionaire's Vinegar tells the story of a Bordeaux 1st growth that supposedly was acquired in the 1780's by Thomas Jefferson, the USA's founding father, who was living in Paris at the time, and then "discovered" some two hundred years later and sold at auction for a record price in 1985. The book leads the reader into the rarified atmosphere of high end wine collecting and the potential for counterfeiting.  As a result of a successful legal suit, this book is now unavailable in the UK.   

 

Ralph Steadman's Untrodden Grapes
Ralph Steadman: Untrodden Grapes.  Steadman is an English graphic artist with a wicked sense of wit.  He used to feature regularly in Private Eye, the English satirical magazine, and he has done work for Hunter S. Thompson (books), Pink Floyd (album covers), and illustrated a number of wine bottles.  This book features commentary  and sketches of the people and places he's visited in his pursuit of great wine.

 

The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste, by Elin McCoy.

Robert Parker is commonly regarded as the USA's leading wine authority.  His ratings are extremely influential and are quoted world wide.  His supporters claim that he is responsible for improving winemaking standards.  His critics fear that his influence leads to a homogeneous approach in wine making.  Read the book and make your own decision.

 

MondovinoMondovino by Jonathan Nossiter - DVD (2004)

Mondovino takes a hard look at the world wine business, and the tension between the internationalists with their globalized approach and the craft wine makers.  Nossiter's movie has been characterized as the Fahrenheit 9/11 of the wine world in so far as he takes potshots at well known figures including Robert Parker, the wine critic, Michel Rolland, the "flying wine maker" and Wine Spectator's James Suckling.

 

SidewaysSideways by Alexander Payne - DVD (2004)

A wine tasting road trip to salute Jack’s (Thomas Haden Church) final days as a bachelor careens woefully sideways as he and Miles (Paul Giamatti) hit the gas en route to mid-life crises. The comically mismatched pair, who share little more than their history and a heady blend of failed potential and fading youth, soon find themselves drowning in wine and women (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen). Emerging from a haze of pinot noir, wistful yearnings and trepidation about the future, the two inevitably collide with reality.

This movie was the sleeper of the year in 2004 and was up for several Oscars.  It is essential viewing for any wine lover.

Bottle Shock by Randall Miller - DVD (2008)

A  wine competition which came to be known as the “Judgment of Paris” was organized in Paris on May 24, 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, in which French judges carried out a blind tasting of top-quality chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon wines from France and from California.  France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines at this time so it was assumed that the French wines would win hands down.  However to the surprise of onlookers and the horror of the French wine industry, a California wine rated best in each category.

Although Spurrier had invited many reporters to the original 1976 tasting, the only reporter to attend was George M. Taber from TIME magazine, who promptly revealed the results to the world.  The horrified and enraged leaders of the French wine industry then banned Spurrier from the nation's prestige wine-tasting tour for a year, apparently as punishment for the damage his tasting had done to its former image of superiority.  The tasting was initially ignored by the French press.  However after nearly three months, Le Figaro published an article describing the results as "laughable," and said they "cannot be taken seriously."  Six months after the tasting, Le Monde wrote a similar article.

 The “Judgment of Paris” resulted in a considerable increase in the prestige of wine made in the New World and led to substantial increases in production.  It also resulted in some considerable soul searching by the French and a thorough review of their wine making traditions.  Bottle Shock dramatizes the 1976 wine tasting and debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.


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                                                                    Last Updated:    Dec 13, 2011