📚 Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, including their Origins and Flavours

Author: Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, & José Vouillamoz
Published: Allen Lane (UK), Ecco (USA), 2012
https://www.jancisrobinson.com/learn/booksDVDsapps/wine-grapes-a-complete-guide-to-1368-vine-varieties-including-their-origins-and-flavours

This is probably as complete and authoritative a guide as is possible to find to the many different wine grape cultivars grown globally

🏛️ Musée du Vin de Bourgogne, Beaune

Address: Hôtel des Ducs de Bourgogne, Rue d'Enfer, 21200 Beaune, France
https://www.bourgogne-tourisme.com/musees/ferme-temporairement-musee-du-vin-de-bourgogne

Temporarily closed as of February 2027. A small but fascinating museum showcasing the history of wine production in Burgundy

🏛️ La Cité des Climats et vins de Bourgogne

Address: Beaune, Chablis, and Mâcon
https://www.citeclimatsvins-bourgogne.com

A new museum I have inexplicably yet to visit, and perhaps Burgundy's answer to Bordeaux's Cité du Vin

🏛️ La Cité du Vin, Bordeaux

Address: 134 Quai de Bacalan, 33300 Bordeaux, France
https://www.laciteduvin.com/

A large, interactive, and interesting museum that serves as a good introduction to the world of wine in general, and Bordeaux in particular. The ticket includes the chance to taste a few wines, and there is a good wine shop on site. Les Halles Bacalan, acrros the road, is perhaps the best bet for lunch locally, however.

📚 Milady Vine: the Autobiography of Philippe de Rothschild

Author: Joan Littlewood
Published: Century Publishing, 1958
https://archive.org/details/miladyvineautobi0000roth/mode/2up

While maybe worthwhile even just for Philippe de Rothschild’s reminiscences about life at Mouton Rothschild and the Bordeaux wine world in general, this book is more than that. Baron de Rothschild was a scholar (translating Elizabethan English poetry into French was a hobby of his), a gentleman, and an unrepentant rogue with a self-deprecating sense of humour that all shine through in this book. It is also worthwhile for its account of France and London during the war, and the minor role de Rothschild played in the French resistance.

💭 Philippe de Rothschild on the world of wine

Everything connected with wine is very subtle, especially in Bordeaux where so many are suspicious, envious, over-conservative and reactionary. That doesn't mean, however, that we're not polite to each other

— Baron Philippe de Rothschild, 'Decanter' magazine, Nov 1975 (quoted in the Nov 2015 issue)

💭 Gallileo on wine

Wine is sunlight held together by water

— Galileo (probably apocryphal)

A useful metaphor for thinking about terroir.