Jullien, André (1766–1832), seminal wine writer, Parisian wine merchant, and one of the first explorers of the world of wine, venturing even as far as ‘Chinese Tartary’ in order to discover and assess all international wine regions and their produce. His was an extraordinary outlook, and it must have been a demanding journey, in an era when his peers barely ventured beyond the threshold of their wine shops. He had clearly read the contemporary literature of wine, which, until that point, concerned itself almost entirely with the details of how to grow vines and how to make wine (see chaptal, for example). His aim was to discover and categorize the characteristics of as many different crus as he could find, travelling throughout eastern Europe, along the Silk Road to Asia, as well as discovering the vineyards of Africa. There can be few contemporary wine writers today who are as well travelled. The result was the publication in Paris in 1816 of Topographie de tous les vignobles connus, a substantial volume full of useful detail which includes the most comprehensive wine classification (into five classes according to quality) ever undertaken. Much of it was translated into English and published, in abridged form, as ‘a manual and guide to all importers and purchasers in the choice of wines’ in London in 1824. In effect, Jullien’s work set the style for a high proportion of modern wine writing.
