An intimate understanding of the world of wine filtered through the vast knowledge and experience of the recognised world expert.

Hugh Johnson, internationally famous as a writer and film-maker on the pleasures of wine, has written his first major new book for a decade. Stylish and opinionated, it is based on his enormous experience of the pleasures of wine: tasting, savouring, cellaring, choosing, understanding, comparing and buying - the world of wine filtered through the vast knowledge of one of the greatest writers and practitioners, renowned throughout the world.

As the author learns about wine, so do we in this book full of candour and wit and fine writing. What makes one wine better than another? and other fundamental questions, whether human or cultural, technical or historical, addressed in a wide-ranging and autobiographical book based on the author's enormous experience of the pleasures of wine.