Certificate for Paul Strang's South West France – The Wines and Winemakers

Paul Strang's recently published book on South West France: The Wine and Winemakers was named as the 2009 world's best wine atlas/ wine tourism book at the Gourmand Awards on 11th February.

For previous report on Paul's book see here.

Richly ironic that UK company Grub Street declined to publish this, so it went to the University of California.

It is also ironic that as usual it is impossible to find the full results on Gourmand Awards website. You would have thought that an organisation that give awards on communication would have sorted out their own communications – apparently not!

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15th February

Keith Grainger with his trophy

Congratulations also to Keith Grainger on winning the award for the ‘Best Wine Education Book in the World’ for his Wine Quality Tasting and Selection published by Wiley-Blackwell.

I only learned about Paul and Keith's awards because they contacted me – still no response from Gourmand for a complete list of winners and on their site the winners appear only to be listed by country but no convenient list of overall winners.

Harry Karis: The Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book
Paul Strang: Vins et Vignerons du Sud-Ouest, Editions du Rouergue

Although Jim's Loire is chiefly dedicated to the Loire, I will also be highlighting recently published books that cover other wine areas. This is because wine book publishing is in such a parlous state – particularly in the UK – that I'm happy to do what little I can to give some publicity and coverage to books with merit that do get published. Increasingly this means the author publishing the book at their own expense. There was a time when this was sneered at as vanity publishing – this is now an outmoded view. Think of Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter's book on Portuguese wine and food, Stephen Skelton MW on the vineyards of the British Isles, Peter May's book on Pinotage and the David Moore and Philip Williamson's Wine behind the label and it is clear that a number of the most interesting recent wine books have been self-published.


Harry Karis: The Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book, Kavino, 72.95€ with map booklet + delivery, 69€ without booklet + delivery, 488 pages, hbk, col pics and maps
Photos by Phil Karis and forewords by Robert Parker and Michel Blanc
Although I have only recently received Harry Karis' Châteauneuf book, it seems set to become the reference work on the appellation for a number of years. The first section covers the history geography, geology, climate, the vineyard – grape varieties, rootstocks, etc – and wine making. This is followed by 300 pages of profiles of the Châteauneuf producers. The book finishes with vintage charts , wine and food and a visitors' guide.

The book can be ordered from here.



Paul Strang: Vins et Vignerons du Sud-Ouest, Editions du Rouergue, 29€, 374 pages, col pics, sketch maps
Photos by Jason Shenai
The French version of Paul Strang's new book was published in August, while the English version from The Unversity of California Press is expected in October/November. Paul made his reputation with his meticulously researched Wines of South-West France, which was published in 1994. This new book covers the same region but 15 years on.