The Colour of Wine isn’t just another book about picturesque Cape vineyards. Instead, it tells the remarkable story of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy through the personal journeys of black winemakers. Woven through their stories are interviews with wine producers and politicians, chefs and sommeliers, connoisseurs and teachers, drinkers and tasters.

The book, twinned with the documentary film The Colour of Wine (included on DVD), explores the turbulent history of winemaking in South Africa, and the varied careers the industry has to offer. Wine doyen John Platter offers insights into where South African wine is now, and where the industry needs to go. You’ll also discover a rich array of local recipes that complement South African wines.

The Colour of Wine gives a taste of the changing world of South African wine.

Winner of Best Wine Book at the 2018 WCA Wine Communicator of the Year Awards Australia became known as a wine drinking nation in the 1970s, and our national love affair with wine continues. Yet Australian winegrowing is as old as European Australia. While the Hunter Valley is not the ideal place to grow grapes climatically, it's the only Australian wine region planted in the nineteenth century to continuously host vineyards. Hunter Wine profiles the people, history and technology that have shaped the region's wine from vine to glass, including families like the Wyndhams, McWilliams, Lindemans and Tyrrells. It traces the evolution of Hunter winegrowing, and its winegrowers, from frontier violence in the 1820s and early British and German-born wine producers, to the development of large-scale vineyards and wineries in the early twentieth century, and the new style Hunter wines produced since the 1960s and 70s. Sales Points: first history of Hunter wine for many years; covers the industry, the people, the success and the setbacks. includes the history of many of the big families in the Hunter wine industry such as the Wyndhams, McWilliams, Lindemans and Tyrrells. packed with images, many not been seen publicly before Julie McIntyre is one of Australia's foremost wine historians and an expert on the Hunter Valley.

Madeira wine is currently experiencing a renaissance. It is a wine that behaves like almost no other. Heat and air, the sworn enemies of most wines and winemakers, conspire to turn madeira into one of the most enthralling of the world's wines as well as the most resilient. Madeira wines from the nineteenth and even the eighteenth centuries still retain an ethereal, youthful gloss. Once the cork is removed, the wine comes to no harm, even if the bottle is left open and on ullage for months on end. If ever there was a wine to take to a desert island, this is it. Although Madeira was only discovered in the fifteenth century, the island and the wine trade have a long and involved history. After a short historical introduction Madeira: The islands and their wines rounds on the present: the physical character of the archipelago, the state of the vines and vineyards and the way in which the wines are made. A guide to the current producers follows along with a detailed appraisal of their range of wines. There is also a chapter for collectors of older wines, many from shippers that no longer exist but whose names live on in bottles of wine that are still found in cellars all over the world. Wines dating as far back as the eighteenth century are featured in the book, along with quality appraisals. Madeira is without doubt one of the most difficult wines to describe but it is certainly the most uplifting. There is a short section on the language of tasting madeira as well as information on buying, keeping and serving the wines. The book concludes with a travel guide for anyone visiting the islands. This unique book on the islands and their wines explains what it is that makes madeira so special. Madeira: The islands and their wines was shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Awards 2015.

English wine has greatly changed in recent years. Royalty and heads of government drink it and pour it for foreign dignitaries, and it is sold to some thirty wine-drinking nations and even beats champagne in blind tasting challenges. Its main grape varieties are major international names and its makers are skilled professionals. From a largely amateur-instigated cottage industry it has become an increasingly serious, quality-led commercial proposition - one that regularly makes news at home and abroad. This book explains why and how that has come about, telling the story of winemaking in England from the Romans to the present era. Most of all, it celebrates the wine itself and the people who make it. Its pages takes readers on a virtual tour of many of the UK's most significant vineyards, long established or comparatively new, in the southern heartland of vine growing, on the western and northern fringes or at points in between. The reader will meet men and women whose expertise, character and belief have created wines of which all Britons can be truly proud. Foreword by Oz Clarke.