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.

The Vikings called North America 'Vinland', the land of wine. Giovanni de Verrazzano, the Italian explorer who first described the grapes of the New World, was sure that 'they would yield excellent wines'. And when the English settlers found grapes growing so thickly that they covered the ground down to the very seashore, they concluded that 'in all the world the like abundance is not to be found'. Thus, from the very beginning the promise of America was, in part, the alluring promise of wine. How that promise was repeatedly baffled, how its realization was gradually begun, and how at last it has been triumphantly fulfilled is the story told in this book. It is a story that touches on nearly every section of the United States and includes the whole range of American society from the founders to the latest immigrants. Germans in Pennsylvania, Swiss in Georgia, Minorcans in Florida, Italians in Arkansas, French in Kansas, Chinese in California - all contributed to the domestication of Bacchus in the New World. So too did innumerable individuals, institutions, and organizations. Prominent politicians, obscure farmers, eager amateurs, sober scientists: these and all the other kinds and conditions of American men and women figure in the story. The history of wine in America is, in many ways, the history of American origins and of American enterprise in microcosm. While much of that history has been lost to sight, especially after Prohibition, the recovery of the record has been the goal of many investigators over the years, and the results are here brought together for the first time. In print in its entirety for the first time, "A History of Wine in America" is the most comprehensive account of winemaking in the United States, from the Norse discovery of native grapes in 1001 A.D., through Prohibition, and up to the present expansion of winemaking in every state.

For years, Prosecco has been waiting in the wings for the right time to make its sparkling appearance - and now it's taking the world by storm and putting the fizz into all social occasions! This book, packed with recipes, facts, trivia and tips on hosting the perfect sparkling-wine soiree, will make you even more mad about Prosecco than you already are!

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.