The comprehensive work with the subtitle "A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours".on wine grapes or grape varieties was published in 2012 by Penguin Books Ltd (London). The 1,242-page book includes many pictures of vine variety colour plates from the famous work "Ampélographie" by the ampelographers Victor Vermorel (1848-1927) and Pierre Viala (1859-1936). The authors are Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz. Wine Grapes includes all commercial varieties (it omits those for which no wine producers have been found).
Use as a source
Wine Grapes was used extensively as a source in the present Wine lexicon, whereby the author (Norbert Tischelmayer) coordinated intensively with Dr. José Vouillamoz. The Lexicon also contains varieties that are no longer cultivated and extinct varieties with historical significance. In addition, the extensive DNA analyses carried out by the vine geneticists Jean-Michel Boursiquot, Javier Ibáñez, Thierry Lacombe and others from 2013 onwards were taken into account, which provided information about the ancestry (parentage) of many hundreds of grape varieties. Of course, these could not yet be used in the work "Wine Grapes" published in 2012.
Further information
On the subject area, see also under the keywords grape variety (with a ranking of the world's top 150), wine production volumes (wine volumes and vineyard areas of all countries), Kym Anderson (publisher of worldwide grape variety statistics) and a complete list of all grape variety-relevant keywords under wine grape.
Image: © Stephen Howse
