Your Best Wine Books of 2025

WINE TALK
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I tried searching a few different ways but couldn’t find a topic like this. Always looking for new book recommendations to give people as options for Christmas (so they don’t give me any more electric corkscrews and supermarket wines).

What are folks’ favorite wine books they’ve read in 2025? Probably a preference to newer releases, but a decent chunk of my favs from this past year are fairly old. To share my top 3 in no particular order (if anyone needs recommendations of their own):

Puligny-Montrachet: Journal of a Village in Burgundy by Simon Loftus (an oldie) - A wonderful, if dated, exploration of all the other context that goes into legendary terroir that never makes it into a tasting note or a review. Curious to try his new book from this year.

Port and the Douro (5th edition) by Richard Mayson - The best book to own on Port if you’re going to buy one. A bit of a cheat, since I also own and love three earlier editions, but an excellent blend of engaging read and good, deep information in a manageable size. If you want the full nerd-out, Port Vintages (2nd ed) by J.D.A. Wiseman is the doorstopper of a reference tome you need. I consult mine often.

The New French Wine by Jon Bonne - This puppy took me two months to get through both tomes, but I do really appreciate deep dives written by folks that fell in love with wine writing AFTER they became excellent writers. There were points I feel were a bit glossed over, but even in 800+ pages you’re not going to contextualize all of French winemaking. Well worth the read for someone who wants to curl up with a glass for some evenings of deep reading.

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I recently finished reading At Poupon’s Table by Kermit Lynch which is a novel with lots of descriptions of wine. It’s not anything that’s going to win the Pulitzer, but I found it very fun and easy to read.

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Working my way through The Wines of California which came out earlier this year from Elaine Chukan Brown. I love the way she approaches wine as a sociological and economic subject that has been affected by a shifting current of attitudes.

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I have the New French Wine book(s). I suppose it could have only turned out like this, but the choices of which producers to highlight is perplexing. Particularly in Burgundy — I found myself saying ‘why would they possibly shine the spotlight on this guy?!’ And then ‘how could they possibly have missed this guy, is this author blind?!’

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I read both of Dan Keeling’s books this year and really enjoyed them (Owner of Noble Rot). For someone who has a pretty simplistic approach to wine - aka I drink a lot of White Burg / Oregon Chard with some Red Burg, these books are a great reminder that there is a whole world of epic wines out there. Plus they are written in a fun light hearted style that is easy to digest while winding down in the evening - highly recommend!

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