‘The definitive Christmas present for wine lovers’ recreated

A new book called In Vino Veritas “is the recreation of the definite Christmas present for anyone who loved wine when I was in my 20s,” according to wine writer Steven Spurrier.

Published by The Académie du Vin Library, the book, which has been edited by Susan Keevil, is inspired by Cyril Ray’s The Compleat Imbiber – a guide first published in 1957, and one that prompted Spurrier to make the remark.

Spurrier, who founded the Académie du Vin Library, described this latest book from the business as “my baby”, adding that In Vino Veritas would be “launching onto the worldwide market something that we haven’t seen for 25 years,” again, speaking about its similarity to Ray’s book, which was published intermittently in Britain from 1957 to 1992.

Among many extracts featured within In Vino Veritas, which is described as ‘a collection of fine wine writing past and present’, Spurrier picked out an entry called ‘A Viking in the vineyard’ by Peter Vinding-Diers as a particular favourite.

Spurrier commented, “It is a translation from the first chapter of his book that has only been published in Danish… and I thought I went to smart places, but Peter beats me hands down, this really is the life of an aristocrat.”

In Vino Veritas is the fourth book in the Académie du Vin Library and can be ordered online by clicking here.

We are pleased to published some extracts from the book, which can be viewed over the following pages.  

H Warner Allen (1951) 

In my last year as an undergraduate, when I was dead broke, as all fourth-year men were in those unregenerate days, I led myself into temptation one afternoon and dropped in at Jones’s, the wine-merchants in the High. A wily salesman with a reverend white beard made a casual remark that there was just one dozen of 1864 Lafite left in the cellar. I was tempted and fell. One hundred and twenty shillings a dozen seemed, in those days, a fantastic price to pay even for the best claret the world has ever seen. This wine was reposing under my window seat in the recess which was the nearest approach to a cellar in my digs, when certain sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine, paid me a visit as they were wont to do, and, finding me out, hunted round for something to devour. Some of them helped themselves to whisky as was right and proper, but more enterprising members of the gang explored the cavity below my window seat. [ or just this last sentence] To this day I shudder to think of what followed. They laid sacrilegious hands on my best claret, and when I came in I found them drinking Château Lafite 1864 out of tumblers with no better excuse than that it seemed to them quite decent red ink.

Michael Broadbent (1981)

Glamis. What this name evokes! Scenes from Macbeth; the birthplace of Elizabeth the Queen Mother; and the resting place of the most famous collection of magnums ever to find its way to (and occasionally revisit) the saleroom: 1870 Lafite…Clearly Claude Bowes Lyon, the 13th Earl of Strathmore, was a keen wine buff. But the 1870 Lafite must have proved an immense disappointment. It was an enormous wine, black as Egypt’s night, severe, tannic – undoubtedly like red ink when young. The 13th Earl died before the wine had matured enough to drink; indeed it took half a century (as did the 1928 Latour) to come round. We opened one magnum before the sale – absolutely essential, for had it not been up to scratch the whole collection would have been suspect and its value negligible. To make the most of the occasion I invited some of the best English ‘literary palates’ to diner in the Christie’s boardroom, including Hugh Johnson, Cyril Ray, Edmund Penning-Rowsell and Harry Waugh. Naturally, we had some interesting wines, the pièce de resistance being immediately preceded by one of the most exquisite of clarets: the 1900 Léoville-Las-Cases. With bated breath I drew the cork of the magnum of 1870 Lafite: the original cork was perfect, the level of the wine amazingly high. As for the colour, it was so deep and so red that it could almost have been mistaken for a 1959. The nose was equally miraculous: not a hint of old age, of oxidation or over acidity – just gentle rich fruit. It was a lovely drink: full yet soft and velvety, with great subtlety and length of flavour; still tannic, with years of life left. The greatest of great clarets. It just seemed to get better at every sip….

George Saintsbury (1920)

In fact, despite the wonderful first taste of the great Auslese wines, I think both hock and Moselle best as beverage drinks; for in these lower qualities, the overpowering and almost barbaric volume of flavour does not occur…

For the red hocks, however, I must put in a word, both in justice to them and in charity to my fellow-creatures. They – not merely Assmanshäuser, which certainly is the best, but Walporzheimer, Ober-lngelheimer and others – are specifics for insomnia after a fashion which seems to be very little known…

…white sparkling Bordeaux is an anti-natural perversity, the invention of which deserved Dante’s circle of the fiery rain.

Peter Vinding-Diers (2019)

The vineyards of Beaune popped up almost suddenly, the vines standing to attention like small trees. Back then, at the beginning of the 1960s, they were still bush trained and made a wonderful sight. I remember being completely taken-in by the charm of them, and my old dream of becoming a forester suddenly became the stepping-stone to something new. Why not become a vigneron instead? … 

Almost opposite was a small grocer’s shop and here I found some unlabelled burgundy that came from the vineyard of one of the grocer’s friends. The wine was full of violets, creamy and velvety, and, even better, the bottles were very cheap indeed. I must have drunk most of this stock of heavenly burgundy that summer…

As we were drinking the bubbles Dennis took me aside: ‘I see that you like champagne,’ he said. ‘So do I. Why don’t we buy the entire stock on board?’ What a devilish idea! And why not indeed. So we did just that….

There is nothing like being young and in love, and even if we didn’t have salt to an egg, it didn’t seem to matter… we talked about my idea of growing vines and making wine. Nobody thought it strange and I got all the encouragement I needed from both my friends and family. But the benediction I really needed came from Susie, and throughout it all she stood by me.

About the Compleat Imbiber – Kathleen Burk (2013)

Published intermittently in Britain from 1957 to 1992, the Compleat Imbiber was the quintessential late-evening or bedtime book for those who liked wine. It comprised short essays, both fictional and autobiographical, occasional limericks and poems, and wonderfully drawn illustrations (and less good photographs) from journalist contributors, including wine specialists and a number of the best-known writers of the period… It appealed to members of the public who shared the growing interest in wine that manifested itself in the postwar period. It was often witty, it was easy to read, it was occasionally instructional, and it could give the reader the impression of being part of a literary and gastronomic culture shared by a knowledgeable few.