What’s reliable yet fun to read? What’s indispensable? We may inhabit a dominantly online (dis)information environment, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise considering how frequently new wine books keep appearing. I wouldn’t pretend to have read even one tenth of them. But I have read excerpts from at least that large a share, and many of the authors are familiar to me, if not personally (though that is true of several dozen), then from others of their publications. I therefore make so bold as to not only suggest books that offer expert guidance plus inspiration, but to suggest that among book-length publications in English, it would be a shame your spending time with any others on wine before making use of those I recommend.

Read David's recent World of Fine Wine column on this topic.

Astute, seasoned wine journalist Jon Bonné, who recently released the amazing and expansive two-volume The New French Wine, shares the confidence of Champagne Louis Roederer’s chef de cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon that “the best Champagne doesn’t currently exist.” “ I’d apply that,” says Bonné, “not just to Champagne but to any wine culture that purports to be enacting its quote-unquote ideal. Just because a region has reached a wonderful state of grace doesn’t mean there isn’t room for growth and improvement.” One way of interpreting this is as a claim that the best wines of any given type or region have yet to be bottled. I am encouraged by Jon’s optimism ... but not convinced to share it.

Ten or fifteen more minutes on this seemingly hackneyed subject, anyone? Let’s abstract from the obsessiveness, snobbery and self-delusion that infect the ranks of professional sommeliers or wine writers and address some basics that apply to anybody who enjoys eating and drinking in whatever venue.

Six years ago, my friend and phenomenal wine journalist Jon Bonné published a slim book whose title – The New Wine Rules – rightly implies that many alleged rules of wine need shedding. Do they ever!    And sometimes, while the old “rules” need discarding, no useful new ones can take their place, because intuition and serendipity rule the domain in question. On the other hand, I can propose lots of useful rules that didn’t make it into Jon’s list of 89 (yes, eighty-nine!).

Locovorism is sometimes seen as in part a reaction to globalization. But when it comes to the core sense of globalization – namely widespread trade, and availability in one part of the world of products produced in another – I have to say that I am all for it in matters of both food and wine.