This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Winemaker’s Bookshelf


There are thousands around the world, but this book describes the origins and the characteristics of those grown commercially.


and Wines. It was a pleasure to read her narrative style, yet the book contained a huge amount of information illustrated with a great collection of water colours of most of the best known grapes of the world. Wine Grapes is not a sequel. It’s not even remotely like her previous book. For this article, I reviewed the tablet version. Here is the full reference: Robinson, J., J. Harding, J. Vouillamoz. 2012. Wine Grapes. A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours. Harper Collins. ePub edition 2013 ISBN 9780062325518. 1,414 pp. Robinson and her colleagues have assembled a huge amount of information into an easily assimilable format. It’s important to read the introductory chapters in order to understand the consistent way in which each grape variety is described. The reader may well wonder how the number 1,368 was chosen from among the thousands of known grape varieties. Based on the authors’research, this was the number of worldwide grape varieties producing commercial quantities of wine in 2012. They merged all of the most recent census data from known


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wine-producing countries. There are many varieties that changed name when grown in different countries or regions. The authors overcame this problem with DNA analysis, which provided the true identity of each grape classification. The principal name of each grape was chosen according to the region of origin, and other names were listed as synonyms. Fourteen pedigree


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Summer 2015 31


’ve been a fan of Jancis Robinson ever since I read her classic (now out of print) book, Vines, Grapes,


By Gary Strachan Grape varieties listed in great detail


diagrams, listing many grape varieties, are posted online at www.winegrapes.org. If one considers the way in which


grapevines and wine migrated with human migrations through several


millennia, it is not surprising that grape variety relatedness has boiled down to 16 family groupings, which fall into three broad ampelographic classifications.


The first 20 pages or so outline the way in which the book is organized and the conventions used throughout the book. One point that had to be clarified is that prior to DNA testing of relatedness, grapes were classified according to their physical appearance or the wines they produced. There are also many grape varieties with similar or identical names, yet are completely unrelated. On the other hand, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc have a different appearance and produce quite different wines but are almost identical genetically.


I enjoyed the introductory discussion


of the way in which public awareness of grape varieties evolved since the mid- 20th century.


During the long history of wine consumption the emphasis was placed on the region of production and there was little awareness of which grape variety contributed to the wines of a region. Wines were often


produced from a field blend of grapes with several grape varieties grown together. New World producers started to designate wines


according to grape


variety as a means to


communicate wine styles and flavours to the consumer. With a few exceptions, such as Germany and Alsace, the Old World wine authorities resisted this trend, but varietal labelling has now been recognized world wide.


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