Le goût du vin (5th Edition)

One of the most significant books on wine appreciation published in the last five decades, Le Gout de Vin was the work of Émile Peynaud. As a professor of oenology at the University of Bordeaux, Peynaud used scientific investigation to propose many changes to traditional French wine production, including shorter maceration times, and stricter temperature controls during fermentation.

Le Goût du Vin first appeared in 1983 and unlike much of Peynaud’s work about making wine, it addresses a general audience interested in enjoying wine. The book is inescapably informed by Peynaud’s scientific research into everything from how human senses operate to the role of memory, and there will be those who feel it is too mechanistic. 

But it is clearly the work someone who passionately enjoyed wine, and it has been updated several times since Peynaud’s death by a longtime colleague.

There was an English-language edition, now sadly long out of print. But the French still recognize Peynud’s significance and this fortieth-anniversary edition is handsomely formatted and well suited both for reading and reference.