The Wandering Vine: Wine, the Romans and Me

Description

'I could and would forgo any other liquid forever as long as I might drink one humble wine with my daily bread' - MFK Fisher England is a nation of wine lovers and wine drinkers - but how much do we know about the wine we drink, how it got here and where it came from? What are the stories behind each glass of Bordeaux, Rioja or Gewurztraminer that we find ourselves quaffing happily in the country's wine bars? Nina Caplan, award-winning wine and travel writer, goes in search of the founding myths of our oenophilic civilisation. Her journey takes her from a very personal case of her father's champagne arriving at her doorstep in Essex in 2003, through Northern France, Champagne, the Rhone, into Northern Spain, Andalucia and on into Sicily, and finally to Rome where it all began - when the Romans cultivated the first vines, eventually brought to England by their Celtic adversaries, the Gauls. Following the Roman Empire she sets out from England, one of the best places to buy wine in the world but only now beginning to make fine wines ourselves - from there to Burgundy, home of the Aedui tribe; on to the French medieval monasteries where the monks' need for wine for the Eucharist led to a profound knowledge of viticulture; through Avignon, home for many years to wine-loving popes in exile; Bordeaux, where English tastes were fed by French vines; Barcelona and Granada where one of the oldest parts of the Alhambra still contains the Puerta del Vino or 'Wine Gate'. Finally Nina arrives in Rome, seat of wine-loving Emperors and birthplace of an Empire that conquered half the known world. A heady blend of history, culture, food & drink - this is narrative travel writing at its absolute best.

Nina Caplan is the 2014 Fortnum and Mason Drink Writer of the Year and Louis Roederer Wine Columnist of the Year. She was Directories Editor for the Guardian and Features and Arts Editor for Time Out before going freelance. She now writes regularly for the Sunday Times, Conde Nast Traveller, New Statesman and Decanter. Nina lives in London and Burgundy.

Thank heavens for Nina Caplan, who brings a bit of hinterland to this often dry subject ... The Wandering Vine, her first book, is about much more than wine. It's a heady blend of travel, literature, memoir, history and what I can only describe as psychogeography ... The Wandering Vine has a depth and soul lacking in most wine books * Spectator * A travel journal like no other I've ever read: evocative, intelligent, beautifully written, a pilgrimage of the soul through a love of wine and the vineyards that produce it. * Elisabeth Luard * A lively journey from the vineyards of antiquity to the modern dining table. You'll savour every last drop. * Daisy Dunn * Rich and multi-layered, full of love and family, erudite and dense with fascinating detail while being as deliciously gluggable as a fine pinot noir. Intoxicating stuff. * Marina O'Loughlin * Nina Caplan and I share a family tree; I had no idea, until I read this marvellous book, that it was a vine. I am drunk with her passionate knowledge * Maureen Lipman * [Caplan] blends her wide knowledge of wine with a rich sense of its pleasures, as she retells the story of Europe and her own family history through a bottle ... she guides us from the upstart vineyards of England, through France and Spain, and to the heart of the empire in Rome, Caplan's knowledge always enhances and never obscures the flavours ... delicious * Mail on Sunday * An enthralling account of her journey of research into the history of vino, reaching back to ancient Rome, her liquid capital * Jewish Chronicle * The Wandering Vine is ultimately both a wine and a travel book. Wine writing has descended to reams of indigestible tasting notes ... travel writing appears to be mostly composed of gobbets about spa treatments ... somebody needs to rescue both. Caplan is surely on the right path. * New Statesman * A profoundly philosophical book that has a weightless energy ... deep, yet whimsical * Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com *