In the words of winemaker Randall Grahm, Andrew Jefford is “the most thoughtful person we have writing about wine”, so for many wine lovers, a new Jefford is the equivalent of the release of a new iPhone to Apple fanatics. In this beautiful and varied volume of essays, opinions and articles spanning 2007 to 2022, the author shares his fascinating observations gathered over decades of discovery. Jefford listened to and admires wine, wherever it comes from; old-school pretensions are turned on their heads, style points are disdained, stellar prices are dismissed and questions are asked... The book includes an edited copy of Andrew’s transcendental lecture to the Wine Communicators of Australia in May 2012: Wine and Astonishment. The aim of this, Jefford writes, “is to make wine strange for us again, and in so doing to freshen or re-make our mental relationship with it”. There is no other book on wine like it, except perhaps, one of the author’s previous works.

On Champagne brings together a compendium of thoughts, opinions and conclusions of the world’s finest Champagne writers under a single roof. Eight sections divide 41 essays into themes including the brands, styles, history (the ‘Eleven eras of champagne’), terroir, innovation and future (from Sherman tanks to spaceships). Complied and edited by the richly talented Susan Keevil, the essays—written between 1882 and 2022—weave together a tapestry of tales presenting the reader with a vivid and multi-layered collage of the region. It’s a journey that starts and ends with capturing that sparkle in a bottle and, along the way, tutors us with the nuances of its chalky terrain, the determination of rebels from Ambonnay to Avize, and the mystery of a Champagne cellar under the sea. We meet the pioneers who created the great Champagnes of the past and the personalities who are greening this landscape, nurturing it through climate change to shape the exquisite Champagnes of the future. Bringing levity, the compendium’s heavyweight narrative is punctuated by historical essays such as Evelyn Waugh’s Fizz, Bubbly, Pop in the Swinging Sixties (“Gruesome attempts have been made in New Jersey to produce an equivalent”). Simply, On Champagne is an essential volume for every Champagne lover’s bookshelf.Contributors include Tom Stevenson, Essi Avellan MW, Hugh Johnson, Serena Sutcliffe MW, Peter Liem, Tyson Stelzer, Andrew Jefford and Robert Walters, with the ‘modern era’ welcomed in by Evelyn Waugh.

An expertly curated collection of essays written over 50 years between 1971 and 2021, On California captures the essence of the state’s spectacular wine country. Across 39 articles by 35 authors, it delves into the hopes, fears and dreams of the 18th-century pioneers who first shaped it, and what motivates 21st-century visionaries who currently pave the way. It charts the triumph over phylloxera and Prohibition, the mighty influence of the Pacific, and the plus points of a seismic hot zone. Then how, at the whim of one modest English wine merchant, a simple blind tasting in 1976 made the world sit up and notice the wines this extraordinary region was creating. California wine boffins, whizz-kids and scientists tell their stories on its pages—some via precious archive material, others through their thoughts mid-pandemic. We particularly enjoyed the articles from William Kelley (“Nowhere has the definition of ripeness been explored more thoroughly, or pushed to greater extremes, than in California’s Napa Valley”) and Randall Grahm’s penetrating essay on sustainability and a future made uncertain by climate change. But between the covers there is no dead weight.The book includes contributions from Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Steven Spurrier, Paul Draper, Warren Winiarski, Dr William Kelley, Jane Anson, Elaine Chukan Brown, Karen MacNeil, Esther Mobley, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Liz Thach MW and Kelli White, Hugh Johnson and Fiona Morrison MW, Harry Waugh, Harry Eyres, Adam Lechmere, Brian St Pierre and Natasha Hughes MW.