THE WANDERING VINE

An enchanting journey into European culture and civilisation through our love of wine

In her lyrical and charming travelogue The Wandering Vine, award-winning food and travel writer Nina Caplan goes in search of the founding myths of our wine-loving culture. From the chalky terroirs of Champagne, where prestige winemakers produce the most expensive bottles available on earth, to the rocky outcrops of Spain, via plucky English vineyards at their mere beginnings and modern craftsmen employing ancient methods of winemaking in Roman amphorae, she blends history with personal discovery, uncovers Jewish customs and Roman, and, of course, pairs fantastic wine with delicious food.

Like Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow, this is a new departure in gastronomical writing with a profound sense of place, replete with the sounds, smells and tastes of European culture. History readers will find much to delight them here, as will gourmets and armchair travellers. Nina Caplan shows us we should think of wine as indivisible from our understanding of civilisation, and demonstrates that this sometimes humble, sometimes rarefied drink offers a window on our past and into ourselves. This is narrative travel writing at its absolute best.

Nina Caplan is an arts, food and travel journalist and Louis Roederer International Food and Wine Writer of the Year, 2016. She was Directories Editor for the Guardian and Features and Arts Editor for Time Out before going freelance. She now writes regularly for the Sunday Times, Conde Nast Traveller, New Statesman and Decanter. Nina lives in London and Burgundy.