World Atlas of Wine

"What’s so amazing about the book is its compendious nature. It really covers so much. The descriptions are very to the point and I love the beautiful production values of the book. It visually captures the depth and range of the wine world. What I love best about all the illustrations are the maps. They are exquisite and so finely drawn, and really give you a strong visual of how small some vineyards are and yet how different they are in relation to each other. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The ones that are most amazing to me are the Burgundian vineyards, especially in the Côte de Nuits. When you see these maps, you appreciate how teensy these little appellations are in relation to their fame and grandeur. They are often two to three acre parcels which are world famous."

"Like almost any wine writer of my generation and those that followed, I realised that wine is nothing if not geography in a bottle. Geography is all-important to wine, and it is, therefore, natural to try and work out where each wine comes from: not least because nowadays wine producers the world over are trying to put the essence of smaller and smaller geographical units—like single vineyards or even, sometimes, single blocks within a vineyard—into each bottle. So it’s natural to look at a wine atlas. I, of course, consulted by far the world’s best-selling wine atlas, which is The World Atlas of Wine , first published by my friend Hugh Johnson in 1971. This was at a time when New Zealand only deserved a quarter of a page — the world of wine has evolved enormously. I remember going to see Pamela Vandyke Price, who was then the Times wine correspondent here in London. There, on her desk, was an open copy of The World Atlas of Wine. I think every wine writer has used it as a reference. It was definitely the Bible. I was thrilled when in 1998 Hugh sidled up to me, at a party, and said, ‘I’ve done four editions of The World Atlas of Wine ,’—it had gone into masses of different language versions and sold four millions copies or so—’and I’m getting too old. I’m not fresh enough with the knowledge. It would be lovely if you could take it over from me.’ Of course, my instinct was to say yes because I was so flattered. But I did think about it, and my husband said, ‘Oh, don’t. Don’t! It’ll be masses of work.’ But I did, because that’s my character. So from the fifth edition—we just published the seventh in 2013—it’s been by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. The World Atlas of Wine has unrivalled maps. Hugh did a fantastic job, the real spadework, of getting some top quality maps of the world’s classic wine regions and many of the new ones. The original editions had Hugh’s matchless prose, trying to encapsulate the spirit of each region in surrounding texts, but the maps are the thing, and some photographs. What was innovative, at the time, was a selection of labels, which had never appeared in books before. I changed it so the labels denote the best or favourite wines."