Confessions of a Wine Lover

Francis Robinson

Even the French admit that Jancis Robinson is ‘the undisputed mistress of the kingdom of wine’
(Figaro). Renowned for her work in both television and print, she is the editor of the magisterial
Oxford Companion to Wine and has won over two dozen major awards around the world. Confessions of a Wine Lover is her compelling account of a passion which began at university.
On leaving Oxford with a degree in Maths and Philosophy, the author didn’t dare follow her nose
into wine and food, such interests then being regarded as frivolous. But since the early 1970s
Britain has evolved from a cautious sipper of safe clarets and sulphurous Lutomer into the world’s
most dynamic and catholic wine market. Jancis Robinson has evolved with it, and in this
book she takes us on a bibulous, and occasionally bloating, journey through the wine world: from
booze-soaked, five-hour lunches in the insular wine trade of the 1970s, through the 1980s and their obsession with ‘big wines, varietals and oak, to our more balanced, mature relationship with wine today.
Along the way we meet scores of colourful, wineloving characters, including John Arlott, Baron
Philippe de Rothschild, Francis Ford Coppola, Hugh Johnson, Julian Barnes, Robert Parker and
Bordeaux’s best-kept secret’, Madame Descaves. We accompany the author on a punishing trawl
through the world’s finest cellars, on arduous tours of beautiful vineyards and sumptuous restaurants from Seattle to Sydney, and on surprising detours, including a trip to the coffee plantations of Colombia.
There are many books about producing and rating wine; this one is about enjoying it. Witty,
revealing and knowledgeable throughout, in Confessions of a Wine Lover Jancis Robinson has
distilled twenty years in the wine world into a hugely entertaining, vintage read.