The Oxford Companion to Wine

Published in 1994 to worldwide acclaim, the first edition of Jancis Robinson's seminal volume immediately attained legendary status, winning every major wine book award including the Glenfiddich and Julia Child/IACP awards, as well as writer and woman of the year accolades for its editor on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining meticulously-researched fact with refreshing opinion and wit, The Oxford Companion to Wine presents almost 4,000 entries on every wine-related topic imaginable, from regions and grape varieties to the owners, connoisseurs, growers, and tasters in wine through the ages; from viticulture and oenology to the history of wine, from its origins to the present day. Now exhaustively updated, this fourth edition incorporates the very latest international research to present almost 400 new entries on topics ranging from globalization and the politics of wine to brands, precision viticulture, and co-fermentation. Hundreds of entries have undergone major revision, among them yeast, barrel alternatives, climate change, and virtually all wine regions; and useful lists and statistics are appended, including controlled appellations and their permitted grape varieties, and wine production and consumption by country. Illustrated with maps of every important wine region in the world, useful charts and diagrams, and stunning colour photographs, this Companion is unlike any other wine book, offering an understanding of wine in all of its wider contexts - notably historical, cultural, and scientific - and serving as a truly companionable point of reference into which any wine-lover can dip and browse.