Hugh Johnson OBE[1] (born 10 March 1939) is a British author and expert on wine. He is considered the world's best-selling wine writer.[3] His 1964 tasting of a bottle of 1540 Steinwein from the German vineyard Würzburger Stein is considered to potentially be one of the oldest wines to have ever been tasted. Johnson became a member of the Cambridge University Wine and Food Society while an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge in the 1950s, reading English.[3] On describing his introduction to wine-tasting Johnson has recalled: my room-mate Adrian Cowell, committee member of the University Wine & Food Society came in after dinner with two glasses and said, "Come on, Hugh, are they the same? Both were, I am sure, red Burgundy, but one was magic and one was ordinary. This caught my imagination. It was my Damascene moment. Johnson has been writing about wine since 1960, was taken on as a feature writer for Condé Nast Publications upon graduation,[3] and started work on Vogue and House & Garden , becoming in 1962 editor of Wine & Food and in the same year wine correspondent of The Sunday Times, of which in 1967 he became Travel Editor.

From 1968 to 1970 he edited Queen magazine in succession to Jocelyn Stevens. He has published a wide array of books, starting with the publication of Wine in 1966. The publication of The World Atlas of Wine in 1971, was considered the first serious attempt to map the world's wine regions, described by the director of the INAO as "a major event in wine literature". Since its launch in 1973 Johnson has been President of The Sunday Times Wine Club, part of Laithwaites, now the world's largest mail-order wine merchant. From 1986–2001 he was a Director of the Bordeaux First Growth Chateau Latour and in 1990 was a co-founder of The Royal Tokaji Wine Company in an attempt to rebuild the foundering Tokaji industry after Communism. In 1986 he started The Hugh Johnson Collection, which sold (until 2010) wine glasses and other artefacts related to wine,mainly in the Far East, with a shop in St James's Street, London. His vintage – The Story of Wine – an authoritative 500-page compendium was first published in 1989 by Octopus, and re-edited in 2004 as a fully illustrated edition published by Mitchell Beazley.

It also was made into a 13-part TV series for Channel 4 and Boston P.B.S., first airing in 1989. Since 1977 he has compiled his annual Pocket Wine Book, selling many million copies in up to 14 languages. In a parallel career, in 1973 Johnson wrote The International Book of Trees, in 1975 became Editorial Director of The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society (The Garden) and its columnist, 'Tradescant'. wine to give for christmas'Trad's Diary', now in its 37th year, appears online and in Hortus magazine. wine clubs uk offersIn 1979 he published The Principles of Gardening and in 2010 a new rewritten edition of Trees . new age wine for saleTrad's Diary has twice been anthologised as Hugh Johnson on Gardening (1993) and Hugh Johnson in the Garden (2009).where to buy wine kits

He was selected Decanter Man of the Year in 1995, was promoted Officer in the French Order Nationale du Mérite in 2004 and Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 'for services to wine-making and horticulture'. Johnson is known as one of the wine world's most vocal opponents to awarding numerical scores to wine.best type of italian red wine[3] In the autobiography A Life Uncorked, Johnson also expressed regret over the wine critic Robert Parker's influence on the world of wine, which has in his view moved winemaking in many regions towards a more uniform, bigger and richer style.best australian wine deals[7] In 2005 Johnson stated, "Imperial hegemony lives in Washington and the dictator of taste in Baltimore[a]".city best wine london

a.  ^ Robert Parker resides in Monkton, a small town in Baltimore County, Maryland. ^ a b c d e ^ G. Harding "A Wine Miscellany" pg 22, Clarkson Potter Publishing, New York 2005 ISBN 0307346358 ^ H. Johnson Vintage: The Story of Wine pgs 284 Simon and Schuster 1989 ISBN 0-671-68702-6name for wine professionalUh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.glass of wine with bottle For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. How to Brew: Everything You… by John J. Palmer See All Formats& Editions For The Love of Hops: The… Designing Great Beers: The… Make Mead Like a Viking:… Brewing Classic Styles: 80… The Complete Joy of… The New Cider Maker's Handbook… The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible… by Leon W. Kania Sacred and Herbal Healing…

by Stephen Harrod Buhner The Kings County Distillery… From Vines to Wines, 5th… Clone Brews: Recipes for 200… by Tess and Mark Szamatulski Brewmaster's Bible: The Gold… The Way to Make Wine: How to… Homebrew Beyond the Basics:… The Homebrewer's Garden, 2nd… Brew Like a Monk: Trappist,… Making Wild Wines & Meads: 125… See All Formats& EditionsThis year’s harvest of the best new wine books includes works on Barolo and Barbaresco, a nefarious scheme to destroy precious vines in Burgundy and a book so lovely you will crave wines from Vermont, of all places. All would make great gifts. Even better, buy one for yourself. Among the world’s great wine regions, the Piedmont in northwestern Italy, home of Barolo and Barbaresco, has lagged far behind in focused English language appraisals. Kerin O’Keefe’s “Barolo and Barbaresco: The King and Queen of Italian Wine” (University of California Press, $39.95) goes a long way to fill the void.

Ms. O’Keefe, an American wine critic who lives in Italy, offers a comprehensive look at the history, geography, geology and issues faced in the Piedmont, and opinionated profiles of the producers she feels are the best and most important.Ms. O’Keefe, who wrote a similar guide to Brunello di Montalcino in 2012, is thorough and authoritative. She is a critic in the best sense of the word, not shy with her opinions, which she offers without polemics or bluster. This book is not for novices; readers are expected to have an understanding of how wine is farmed and produced. But for those who have delved into Barolo and Barbaresco and want to know more about where the wines are made, the people who make them and the differences in terroirs, this book is inspiring and essential. I won’t mince words about “An Unlikely Vineyard: The Education of a Farmer and Her Quest for Terroir” (Chelsea Green, $35), Deirdre Heekin’s chronicle of establishing a farm and vineyard in Vermont. I love this book, which conveys beautifully why the best wine is, at heart, an agricultural expression.

While living in Italy, Ms. Heekin and her husband, Caleb Barber, fell in love with Italian food and wine culture. On returning to Vermont they established an osteria, then developed their small farm to provide vegetables, fruits, flowers and wine for the restaurant. Ms. Heekin is the sommelier and farmer. In her farming she takes a holistic approach, regarding wine as produce. She is naturally drawn to biodynamic agriculture, which views a farm as a self-sustaining unit in which the various elements all harmonize and reinforce one another. This method of farming requires meticulous powers of observation and attention to detail. It also imbues Ms. Heekin’s writing with a tactile, almost earthy quality and a well-grounded sense of wonder.The book is not solely about grape-growing. Ms. Heekin places wine in the context of a diverse farm, an alternative to the agricultural and critical view of wine as a monoculture. In the end, she writes, what’s most important is “the shared experience around the table that is defined by the culture of food, wine, friendship, ideas and heart.”

If you can find her soulful wine, produced in tiny quantities and labeled La Garagista, it resonates with every sentiment in the book.Ms. Heekin’s wines are what some might call “natural wines,” a phrase that has become one of the most contentious in wine culture, partly because it’s vague and undefined. That doesn’t bother me. In fact, the lack of definition is useful because it requires consumers to delve into its meaning for themselves. As a first step, they could do no better than Isabelle Legeron’s “Natural Wine: An Introduction to Organic and Biodynamic Wines Made Naturally” (Cico Books, $24.95). Ms. Legeron is a Master of Wine, a British honor that requires rigorous examinations and writing the equivalent of a dissertation. Even with this most conservative of credentials, she became a passionate advocate for natural wines, a hugely important insurgency that by implicit example criticizes much of what is conventional in modern wine. Yet her passion is not without substance.

Her training in the science of viticulture and winemaking gives substance to her arguments. In pages rife with photographs, she voyages through the processes of grape-growing and winemaking, detailing the many areas where modern winemaking has diverged from ages-old practices. This is not a finger-pointing book. It’s rather inspiringly enthusiastic and will encourage readers to seek out the wines she names in her generous-but-not-comprehensive guide to producers working in natural wine. A few years ago, somebody was trying to poison the great vines of Romanée-Conti, the peerless grand cru Burgundy vineyard. This is the subject of Maximillian Potter’s deftly told “Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World’s Greatest Wine” (Twelve, $27). It’s a rare book that transcends the narrow interests of wine lovers. Who would want to kill these vines owned by the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, perhaps the most exalted Burgundy producer? Mr. Potter uses this intrigue to tell the grander story of the domaine and its current proprietor, Aubert de Villaine, and by extension the story of Burgundy itself, a region that expresses all that is intellectually thrilling, aesthetically beautiful and soulful in wine.

That’s a challenging task but Mr. Potter has the skill to bring history and Burgundian culture to life and make it compelling.I had a few quibbles. It’s wrong of Mr. Potter to suggest that any consensus exists that Romanée-Conti is the world’s greatest wine. Many people prefer La Tâche, also made by the domaine but from a different vineyard, or they prefer another Burgundy producer or another sort of wine entirely. Similarly, I imagine the self-effacing Mr. de Villaine might grimace at the sense of adulatory respect conveyed in the book, even if warranted. Nonetheless, if you are not a Burgundy lover already, this book will make one out of you. Sherry has been on the minds of many consumers in the last few years. As interest grows outside the realm of wine geeks, Talia Baiocchi’s approachable new book, “Sherry: A Modern Guide to the Wine World’s Best-Kept Secret” (Ten Speed Press, $24.99) is a welcome addition to the modern sherry library that begins with 2012’s authoritative “Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla: A Guide to the Traditional Wines of Andalucía,” by Peter Liem and Jesús Barquín.

In contrast to that work, Ms. Baiocchi’s book is more personal and informal, less scholarly and detailed, but more accessible to the curious novice and no less reliable. She writes evocatively of sherry country in Andalusia, of how she fell in love with the wines and the culture, and offers pithy critical profiles of the leading producers and their wines. Recognizing that many younger people come to sherry through cocktail culture, she devotes a significant portion of the book to cocktail recipes as well as to recipes for classic Andalusian dishes. Ian D’Agata’s “Native Wine Grapes of Italy” (University of California Press, $50) is a deep dive into the vast selection of grapes with which Italians make wine. This blend of personal recollection and definitive scholarship is an essential reference. Curious about sake but confused or intimidated? John Gauntner’s “Sake Confidential: A Beyond-the-Basics Guide to Understanding, Tasting, Selection and Enjoyment” (Stone Bridge Press, $11.95) is a superb, easy-to-swallow overview of this fascinating, complex and subtle beverage, offered with pith and clarity.