This thousand-plus-page monument combines 21st-century science with the ambition, scale and authority of 19th-century scholarship. It may be the nerdiest wine book ever published (and, trust me, that's a competitive title) but it's also a work of astounding scholarship, and as a piece of book-making, is an outright masterpiece

Features extraordinarily detailed profiles of close to 1,400 vine varieties employed in the production of wine around the world ... I learned a huge amount ... What struck me most, though, was how engaging and passionate it was. This wasn't a dry cataloguing of grapes, a microscopic look at their DNA; this was a heartfelt exploration of wine history.

This book is a thing of beauty - classic, well written and splendidly illustrated - and will be a point of reference for decades to come. With Christmas coming it may well be worth considering as a present for those wine enthusiasts amongst your friends and family. I am going to put it on my list when I write to Santa that's for sure!

A fantastic Christmas present for any wine geek, and one that will provide an endless source of fiendish questions for quiz-setters

A magnificent achievement: colossally informative, illuminating and intriguing

A phenomenal book in its detail and research ... the definitive guide to grape varieties ... an incredible piece of work, detailing 1,368 varieties (out of a possible 10,000 worldwide) with 80 beautiful colour plates - essential for all wine students, wine lovers, wine growers keen to experiment with new grapes - and anyone with a passing interest in grapes

This has got to be the wine reference book to top all such guides

Definitely the WINE BOOK of the decade, if not the century!

Even for the already knowledgeable and deeply well versed, the book offers countless new discoveries, surprises about grapes' true origins and kinships, and a plethora of varieties you've never even heard of

It is almost bible-like, which is perhaps quite fitting. I found the overall appearance quite beautiful. I was especially pleased to see many varieties have a description of the taste of their wines. From a drinker's perspective this must be the most important information

Wine Grapes sets a new standard; it is a seminal new work

Oenophiles, you have here the ideal book to give others (and yourself!) this Christmas

Every wine lover MUST have this on their shelves

Amazingly informative and insightful ... Wine Grapes is an essential reference that belongs on every wine lover's bookshelf, right up there next to The World Atlas of Wine. One of the biggest pleasures of wine is its diversity. Wine Grapes will inspire you to stick your nose and tongue into new aromas and flavors

There have been books on grapes before, but we were badly in need of a bang up-to-date properly researched book, and we indeed have it in the new Wine Grapes. To me it is already indispensable ... I can already see that this big fat book is a fabulous resource and essential for all serious wine lovers to own

Wine Grapes is an invaluable resource destined to find a fascinated, albeit niche, audience

What seemed at first like a prim reference tome to crack when I needed to sort out the 13 different varieties of Lambrusco has a more compelling mystery underneath ... The thoroughness (Listán Negro and Listán Prieto? Not the same thing, Canary Island fans) is matched by a sense of purpose, mostly because equal space is devoted to the esoteric (Grillo, Menu Pineau, Parellada) as to the obvious ... Along the way, it nullifies most simple homilies that litter the world of wine, instead offering a more complicated and interesting tale, one that reinforces wine as one of history's great culturing forces

It is very rare for me to buy a wine book but I had no hesitation in buying it from Amazon for £78, and cheap for this amount of scholarship and research

The ultimate reference work on wine grapes

I am impressed by the depth of scientifically justified and clearly formulated answers to a wide range of origin-related questions ... Wine Grapes gains an extra dimension for its attention to the diversity of grape-names ... With this book Jancis Robinson and her team have not only enriched our genetic knowledge of grape varieties, but also made it accessible to all wine enthusiasts who would like to know more about their names, ancestors and characteristics ... The most important wine book since The Oxford Companion to Wine has arrived, and with it Jancis Robinson has universally established her name as wine educator

It will undoubtedly race to its place ahead of the few other 'must stock' books in any serious winey-person's library ... the book genuinely breaks new ground, which is (a) quite rare for wine books, and (b) always a joy to fact-nerds like myself. Its main premise is to genetically trace the origins and ancestors of these grape varieties, and there are some surprises here

The most important wine book in years ... I am presented with a tome that will garner my attention for the rest of my life, make me smarter and give me pause to reconsider every time I imagine I might have done something of significance ... this book could easily pass for any writer's proudest moment, the culmination of a life's work

Wine Grapes - the new book from the @JancisRobinson team - incredible! Staggered by the detail. Seminal work, am speechless, thank you

In 'Abbuoto to Zweigelt' describes the book as one 'that I think any wine-lover would want to own'

An extraordinary new book ... an impressive new encyclopedic doorstop

Some things you know you just have to have ... What a book!

[the] book is for me a sine qua Doon

The most important event of the century so far... In its way this book is the equivalent to Diderot's Encyclopedie, Johnson's Dictionary or Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

...a beautiful object and a work of scholarship... an essential Christmas present for wine lovers

The grape book to end all grape books

The only important new standard work of recent times; revolutionary!

Despite its density, a page-turner... An epic book

In short, if you are only going to have one wine grape book, then this is it

Setting aside the book's beauty and reference value, there's a lot of good reading here... Wine Grapes is awesome, a reference that anyone interested in wine, botany, culture and history should have on hand

According to Wine Grapes, the Pinot family, Noir, Meunier, Gris and Blanc, are genetically identical. In fact more than one type of Pinot has been found in the same vine. It's one of the things I love most about wine is that just when you think you've grasped something, it slips out of your grasp. Buy this amazing work of scholarship and you'll realise quite how little you know.

The most complete guide ever to grapes, vines and the bottles they produce. A wine buff's bible

A masterly work ... not only timely, but overdue ... a must-have

Graced with lavish color plates depicting dozens of important grape varieties, this trusty encyclopedia will inspire novel wine match-ups for favorite recipes and settle wine trivia debates around the dinner table. History buffs, like your reviewer, will absolutely love how the book examines the earliest written references to their favorite grapes; for example we learn that Cabernet grapes trace back to ancient Basque varieties in northeast Spain; who knew!

For anyone serious about wine, this is an endlessly fascinating volume - and a beautifully designed one too