Book review: Jane Masters and Andrew Neather, Rooted in change: the stories behind sustainable wine
Jane Masters (a wine buyer) and Andrew Neather (formerly wine columnist and journalist on the Evening Standard) hardly knew each other when they embarked on this book project, but they’ve pulled it off brilliantly. It’s a breezy trawl through the varied issues relating to sustainability in wine, with the authors taking the stance of neutral observer rather than advocates. As a result, this is readable and informative. As you might expect when a professional journalist is involved, there are lots of quotes and concrete examples of the issues being discussed. And it’s bang up to date.
The structure is as you might expect. We begin with climate change, which is the topic that has put many of these issues into focus in the last decade. Then we look at the sustainability of viticulture and winemaking. Next up is bottling and packaging, and then the supply chain issues. Finally, the important topic of social sustainability is tackled.
So it’s a circular approach, and the balance is impeccable. It would be so easy to make this a dry, worthy-but-dull book, but the pace of the narrative coupled with lots of good examples to bring some colour to the topics discussed have made this an excellent addition to the wine literature.
The printing of the book has a page right at the end: efforts to make the book itself more sustainable have been well thought out. But the book, like many, is heavier than it needs to be, with a hard cover.
This is currently on Amazon for £16.95 and will be released on 27 October. It’s already for sale on the Acadamie du Vin library at £20
