The Drinking Hour podcast: Jancis Robinson OBE MW on a half-century of wine writing
The World Atlas of Wine has been a guiding light for drink enthusiasts for well over 50 years and is about to unveil its ninth edition. Who better to introduce the latest tome than co-editor and esteemed wine writer Jancis Robinson OBE MW, who joins host David Kermode on episode 286 of The Drinking Hour podcast.
The pair discuss the dramatic shifts in winemaking within that period, and Robinson shares how she inherited such an epic editorship from its founder and first author Hugh Johnson, who she says continues to work on the project as a ‘guiding spirit’. Every single edition needs serious revision, says Robinson, with a team that includes cartographers as well as editors, 90 regional consultants and close collaboration with co-editor Julia Harding MW. Though she loves the words on the page, Robinson reveals her deep obsession with the maps that are included. ‘You know they say a picture is worth 1,000 words? I think a map is worth 2,000, probably. Because it shows you context and how things fit together,’ she says.
Last year, Robinson celebrated 50 years in wine writing and 25 years since the founding of jancisrobinson.com – and so Kermode takes the opportunity to ask her about the changes in wine she has witnessed in that time, from the extent of the winemaking world (which today she describes as ‘tentacular’, with climate change making its impact) to the rise of tasting knowledge among the drink’s consumers. The conversation touches on the toils of tasting, the most beautiful wine maps in the world, and on sharing memories of the late wine writer Matthew Jukes.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is Robinson’s ceaseless dedication to wine, something she attributes to being ‘interested’, and to the ‘interesting people’ of the wine world that have kept her engaged in her career for all this time.
