Bordeaux books

[danzur]

Heading out on a 7 day vacation next week and am looking for something to read. Any good books on the Bordeaux wine region that you would recommend? Not super intensive like Clive Coates Cote D'or, but good reading on Bordeaux regions, wines, etc.

[tim]

Are you looking for entertaining or more encyclopedic?

On the entertaining side, "Jefferson on Wine", "Wine and War", "Noble Rot", "The Billionaire's Vinegar", "Judgement of Paris".

Encyclopedic, lots to choose from but heavy to carry.

[danzur]

Thanks Tim-more entertaining and informational. Encyclopedic might seem painful .

[Chateau Vin]

Wine and War is a dandy...Although it's not just about Bordeaux...

[DavidG]

I can second all of Tim's suggestions. Except Judgment of Paris, which I haven’t read.

"Emperor of Wine," Elin McCoy's treatise on Robert Parker, was fairly entertaining and an effortless read.

[DavidG]

Coincidentally, this was posted today by Ken Vastola on WB in a thread about pre-prohibition California wine. Not Bordeaux, but it’s going on my reading list:

Post #11 Unread postby Ken V » Wed May 23, 2018 5:01 pm
If you're interested in pre-porhibition California wine history, I would recommend "Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California" by Frances Dinkelspiel. As you can see from the description below, it is about much more than the Wines Central wine warehouse fire. She goes into quite a bit of detail on the early history of wine in California. Actually, to a point that was a bit annoying to me since I wanted to learn about the arson and its aftermath. It is thorough and well-written.

On October 12, 2005, a massive fire broke out in the Wines Central wine warehouse in Vallejo, California. Within hours, the flames had destroyed 4.5 million bottles of California's finest wine worth more than $250 million, making it the largest destruction of wine in history. The fire had been deliberately set by a passionate oenophile named Mark Anderson, a skilled con man and thief with storage space at the warehouse who needed to cover his tracks. With a propane torch and a bucket of gasoline-soaked rags, Anderson annihilated entire California vineyard libraries as well as bottles of some of the most sought-after wines in the world. Among the priceless bottles destroyed were 175 bottles of Port and Angelica from one of the oldest vineyards in California made by Frances Dinkelspiel's great-great grandfather, Isaias Hellman, in 1875.

Sadly, Mark Anderson was not the first to harm the industry. The history of the California wine trade, dating back to the 19th Century, is a story of vineyards with dark and bloody pasts, tales of rich men, strangling monopolies, the brutal enslavement of vineyard workers and murder. Five of the wine trade murders were associated with Isaias Hellman's vineyard in Rancho Cucamonga beginning with the killing of John Rains who owned the land at the time. He was shot several times, dragged from a wagon and left off the main road for the coyotes to feed on.

In her new book, Frances Dinkelspiel looks beneath the casually elegant veneer of California's wine regions to find the obsession, greed and violence lying in wait. Few people sipping a fine California Cabernet can even guess at the Tangled Vines where its life began.

[RPCV]

Not a pure Bordeaux (more Burgundy/Rhone/Southern France) but a great read for an old-school look at French wine from a distribution/import and wine-making point of view by Kermit Lynch. An easy read on vacation...fun and engaging.

"Adventures on the Wine Route: A Wine Buyer’s Tour of France"

[AKR]

Rosemary George and John Livingston Lermouth are also worth reading if you venture farther than Bordeaux.

I quite like to read wine books with a goblet of the study material at hand!

[tim]

Not wine related, but you might want to check out "Lisbon Street". I hear the author has an unhealthy obsession with Lynch Bages.

[danzur]

Great suggestions, I appreciate the help. I'm looking forward to 7 days of pools, beaches, wine, and drinks....and maybe some food every now and then. We've rented a house in Grand Cayman with another couple and their kids. Their kids (fraternal twins) are graduating high school tomorrow and this is their Graduation trip-so 4 adults, 4 kids. Kids are 18, 19, and 20 (2 boys, 2 girls)...all in college or heading there. Drinking age in GC is 18. I'm not exactly sure what we have signed up for, this will be an experience for all of us.