The Art and Science of Wine: The Subtle Artistry and Sophisticated Science of the Winemaker - Hardcover

James Halliday; Hugh Johnson

3.82

38 ratings by Goodreads

9781845332365: The Art and Science of Wine: The Subtle Artistry and Sophisticated Science of the Winemaker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1845332369 ISBN 13: 9781845332365

Publisher: Mitchell Beazley, 2006

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Explains the complicated hows and whys of wine-making, describing how the countless different options available to the modern wine-maker influence the character and taste of the final product.

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About the Author:

Hugh Johnson is the world's pre-eminent writer on wine. First published in 1977, his Pocket Wine Book sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year. His winning formula of insight, critical appraisal of the world of wine, plus valuable vintage news and wine recommendations has been often-imitated but never bettered. With the publication of his first book, Wine, Johnson established himself at the age of twenty-seven as the most refreshing and authoritative voice on the subject. During the past four decades he has written books that have become landmarks on the subject, including his classic The World Atlas of Wine, co-authored with Jancis Robinson, his Wine Companion, first published in 2003, The Story of Wine and Hugh Johnson on Wine. In his spare time he writes about gardening from his home in London.

[excerpt] A Propos

By Hugh Johnson

The rusty cannon gives the Moutardes' yard, divided from the village street by iron railings, its faint air of a comic opera set. It was last fired in 1964, when a cloud the color of a decomposing eggplant and exactly the size of the vineyards of Muligny, hanging poised above the slopes of Chassard, the next-door commune, began to roll ominously toward the Clos du Marquis.

Monsieur Moutarde had towed the weapon into the vineyards behind a borrowed tractor, loaded it with a canister of grapeshot of the vintage of 1815, leveled it at the heart of the threat and plucked up his courage to apply the taper. The explosion was thunderous. Nobody in Chassard was sure whether what clattered down on several roofs was a flurry of hail or straying grapeshot. The cloud rolled on, menacing but still costive, over Muligny and three more communes before suddenly dumping its gumball-size hailstones on the scruffy oak woods on the hill above Beaune.

The oaks were shredded; not a leaf was left. But in Chassard relief for the spared vines was tempered by unneighborly feelings toward Monsieur Moutarde indeed toward Muligny as a whole. The two villages had never exchanged more than civilities; not in 2,000 years. One must not put too much weight on the cannon incident; it was merely a symbol of the rivalry that had existed since the Romans.

Things were different then, in the early 1960s, in several ways. For a start, nobody had any money -- or if there was any cash in the mattress it meant a harvest mortgaged to a merchant in Beaune.

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