A YEAR IN THE VINEYARD (for holiday gifts!)
Château d’Yquem, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France. Photos: Courtesy of Château d’Yquem
This year saw the publication of A Year in the Vineyard (Cultureshock, 2024), the stunning coffee-table book I co-authored with the wine writer and environmental artist Bob Chaplin.
The book has been a labor of love. Having spent more than a decade visiting vineyards the world over, interviewing winegrowers and reporting on wine and the environment, I had a story I needed to tell — one that immerses readers in the dirt-under-your-fingernails aspects of vineyard life to provide an experiential understanding of the axiom “wine is made in the vineyard” and of the notion that fine wines are achieved in tandem with nature, not through triumph over the elements.
We are honored and delighted that the book has been shortlisted by the international Gourmand Awards for Best Wine Book of the Year and for Best Introduction, the latter being for the book’s foreword on the vineyard as a garden, by the always engaging and erudite Hugh Johnson. The book also just received a stellar review in the December issue of The World of Fine Wine, by Jon Wyand, the venerable vineyard photographer and Burgundy specialist, who (full disclosure) generously contributed photography to the work. He writes:
Like characters in an opera, there is a cast of voices from the world of wine—some familiar, some new — as we are introduced to the new world of the vineyard and the anti-hero: climate change. I say “opera” because the words are accompanied by design and illustration akin to music and stage-setting, to unify the whole rather than representing three separate skills.
Each double page offers a different character’s voice, be it Frédéric Lafarge or Cathy Corison, Filipa Pato or Giovanni Gaja. From Austria via Rioja to Champagne…
It is more than the life’s work of a vigneron to make wine — he or she must maintain the vineyard as its temporary custodian. How do we begin to approach it? Well, here is a very good place. Sophie Menin’s writings brings us into conversation with winemakers around the world, and we share something of their thoughts. This is how our journey starts: through overheard wisdom that comes to us like a series of intimate short stories.
We are grateful to everyone who helped bring this project to life, and we hope you will consider sharing the work with friends and family this holiday season.
If you purchase the book directly from us at sophiemenin.com, we are happy to include a personal note to whomever you may be sharing it with. Of course, it is also available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Wishing you all a joyous holiday season and peace & love in the New Year.
