The Noble Rot Book: Wine from Another Galaxy

The Noble Rot Book: Wine from Another Galaxy is a guide to wine by the founders of the London magazine and restaurants of the same name.

An alternative to the standard introduction, written by Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew, who kept the useful parts — how to read a region, what to buy, which growers are worth the money — and dropped the ceremony. Producers are covered estate by estate across the classic regions and several less obvious ones, in the same opinionated register the magazine runs on. Jon Bonné credited the pair with draining wine of its nonsense while still mapping the bottles that matter. It took the Guild of Food Writers Drinks Book Award in 2021 and The Times named it drink book of the year in 2020.

The one to give somebody who has decided to take wine seriously and would be put off by a textbook. It holds up as a reference for people already deep in it, too, since the producer entries are where the real information lives.