Vinotheca
prijat'lji, vince nam sladko,
ki nam oživlja žile,
srce razjasni in oko,
ki utopi vse skrbi, v potrtih prsih up budi.
And here sweet wine makes, once again,
Sad eyes and hearts recover,
Puts fire into every vein.
Drowns dull care Everywhere And summons hope out of despair.
kozarce zase vzdignimo,
ki smo zato se zbrat'li,
ker dobro v srcu mislimo;
dókaj dni naj živí vsak, kar nas dobrih je ljudi!
To us the toast! Let it resound,
Since in this gay communion
By thoughts of brotherhood we're bound.
May joyful cheer Ne'er disappear From all good hearts now gathered here.
Wine rewards close attention. A bottle is a piece of geography, a piece of history, and a personal opinion about taste — and the more ways you can look at it, the more it gives back.
The wine world is full of scores and full of prose, but surprisingly short of works that help an enthusiastic wine explorer see patterns, find connections, and keep honest track of what they have tasted. The works collected here try to fill that gap. Each one answers a specific question a wine-curious person actually asks: where are the great sites for the grape I love; which lesser-known varieties are likely to win me over next; why do some regions on opposite sides of the world feel like cousins; which small communities of shared character link winemakers across continents; and which of my own tasting notes can I actually trust?
An atlas of great vineyards and an atlas of estates. Instruments for moving through grape and winemaker affinity. A study of what gives a region its character, and a reading of winemakers as fellow travellers. And, held apart from the rest, a personal record of bottles tasted. Maps where maps help; charts where charts help; language where neither will do.
The Library
Maps
The Grand Cru Atlas ↗
Monte Bello for Cabernet. La Belle Hélène for Syrah. Clos Saint-Urbain for Gewürztraminer. An illustrated atlas of the sites that set the standard — grouped not by country or appellation but by the grape they happen to make most beautifully. Browse by variety, download the full volume, or simply wander.
Open the atlas →The Estate Atlas Forthcoming
A curated global atlas of some one hundred and sixty wine estates across the principal producing regions. Anchored in the WSET 3 and 4 curriculum, balanced for geographic and grape coverage, and presented as a clickable world map with a downloadable companion volume. A curated reference, not a ranking — the sister volume to the Grand Cru Atlas, organised by place rather than by grape.
Tools
Grape Affinities ↗
If you love Nebbiolo, which lesser-known grape is likely to win you over next? If Syrah from Côte-Rôtie is a fixed point on your map, what else should you be exploring? Grape Affinities plots 101 varieties as a network — each grape a node, each connection a shared sensory signature — and lets you wander the constellations. Six natural neighbourhoods emerge from the data: the floral aromatics, the dark structural reds, the mineral whites, and three others waiting to be found. Built on the TasteRank signature, a careful measure of how each variety's sensory character compares to every other.
Open the network →Winemaker Affinities Forthcoming
Pick a winemaker; see who stands close to them in character, and why, with the textual evidence that puts them near each other. The navigable form of the Winemaker's Constellation — the tool that makes the Constellation's geometry usable. Where the Constellation (in Studies, below) makes the argument and shows the method, this instrument lets a visitor ask a single, concrete question: who else thinks like this?
Studies
The Soul of Wine ↗
Alsace and Santa Barbara grow some of the same grapes on cool slopes near cool water, yet they could not feel more different: one rooted in centuries of inheritance and tradition, the other young, inventive, still writing its own story. Fifty-nine regions in sixteen countries, each one portrayed twice: once by its land, once by its spirit. The two portraits don't agree, and that disagreement is where the good wine stories live. Six distinct ways a wine region can have a soul.
Open the study →The Winemaker's Constellation Forthcoming
Some winemakers who have never met, work with different grapes, and live on different continents share a worldview — a way of talking about craft, terroir, tradition, and risk that marks them as quiet kin. The Constellation reads the words winemakers and careful observers use, and surfaces the small communities of shared character that run beneath the map of regions and grapes. A prototype corpus of thirty-two winemakers is in preparation; a companion essay on method will follow. The Constellation is the argument and the method; its sibling instrument, Winemaker Affinities (in Tools, above), will be its navigable form.
The Personal Codex
Codex Vini ↗
The working end of the library. A living record of every wine tasted, with filters for country, grape, colour, and rating, and a gentle statistical correction that keeps a single good bottle from crowning an entire country. The atlases of vineyards and estates, the affinities of grapes and winemakers, the studies of souls and constellations — and the book of what was drunk. Read together.
Open the codex →