Wine Books

The earliest books on wine in America were either practical (John Adlum, A Memoir on the Cultivation of the Vine in America, 1823) or promotional (Agoston Haraszthy, Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine-Making, 1862). Such encyclopedic books of European origin as André Jullien’s The Topography of All the Known Vineyards (1824) and Cyrus Redding’s A History and Description of Modern Wines (1833) were influential authorities. Their tradition continues in the present day through such works as Frank Schoonmaker’s Encyclopedia of Wine (1964) and Alexis Lichine’s Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits (1967). The discussion and appreciation of wine for the general reader rather than for the wine maker or merchant was begun by the Englishman George Saintsbury, in his Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920). What he started was carried on by other English writers such as Warner Allen and Maurice Healy and by the Anglo-French André Simon, who wrote more than a hundred books on food and wine between 1905 and 1973. Saintsbury himself enjoyed all sorts of wines, but his followers took a narrower view: for them, wine meant the grands vins of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne, and that view powerfully influenced American ideas about wine for many years.