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Further Reading: Regional
deep dives
Published: 15/09/2025
We know our student community loves to learn, and we love to see them broaden their wine horizons and discover new favourite regions during WSET courses. So today we’re talking about ten books that focus on individual wine regions. These are all books we’ve read and adore. Some of them were required reading for the WSET Diploma and ignited our own passion for particular places and styles. Others were discovered ‘along the wine route’, recommended by friends and colleagues, and found their way to a permanent home on our bookshelves. We hope you enjoy them too!
We’ve previously published two reading lists under the ‘Further reading:’ category. You can check out Reading Lists for All Levels and Wine Reading for Pleasure by clicking the links.
Now, in no particular order, here are our favourite regional deep dives. Dive in!
- Sherry by Julian Jeffs is the definitive guide to our most preferred fortified wines. Sherry wines are very easy to enjoy, but not always to understand. Jeffs does a superb job of making the complicated crystal-clear. Includes history of this fascinating area and explanation of the wines’ origins, along with a definitive guide to how these wines are made and by whom.
- Inside Burgundy by Jasper Morris is chunky but delicious! A thick tome jam-packed with expert info on one of the world’s most geologically complex and prestigious wine regions. Along with detailed maps and info on every sub-region and vineyard, there are explanations of the history and hierarchy of Burgundy; and all important producers, their vineyard holdings and wines produced.
- The first of two books on the list by Simon J. Woolf, Foot Trodden is an ode to Portugal: a country and its wines that “time forgot”. Portugal truly is a wine geek’s dream. The diversity of styles it produces (from bracingly acidic, herbal-scented whites, to fortified wines of every colour and category) and the uniqueness of them mean there’s a wealth of wines to be discovered. Start here!
- Amber Revolution (also by Woolf) is about one of the trendiest wine styles around: orange wines. But are orange wines a new phenomenon? Absolutely not! Orange wines have been made as long as wine has been made, and their cultural home can be found in particular in Georgia, Slovenia, and the North-Eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. These three areas are the focus of this excellent book all about the love of the orange stuff.
- A French region close to our hearts is in the spotlight in Matt Walls’ Wine of the Rhône. This is a sweeping past-to-present journey, covering the origins, climate and geology of the region, and the changes and trends it’s been affected by up to today. Discover the incredible diversity of wines and style on offer, and check out around 200 producer profiles.
- Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine will be a book familiar to many WSET Diploma grads and bubble lovers around the world. There have been various editions published since the original in 1998, which means used copies are easy to get hold of. It’s a joyous book: easy to read, loads of useful info on production and producers, and makes you thirsty for Champagne. What’s not to like?
- A fairly recent addition to our bookshelves, On Tuscany is a collection of pieces edited and collated by Susan Keevil. Described as ‘From Brunello to Bolgheri, Wine Tales from the Heart of Italy’, each chapter is a love letter to one of Italy’s most important, most beautiful, and most inspiring wine regions. Guaranteed to have you booking a flight to Florence.
- Two recommendations in one here, Sarah Jane Evans MW’s twin books The Wines of Northern Spain and The Wines of Central and Southern Spain contain almost everything you might need to know on our resident country’s wines. While there’s an enormous wealth of information here, her writing style makes reading these books like sharing a glass of Cava and a chat with an expert. Full of great anecdotes from her extensive travels.
- Jura Wine by Wink Lorch dives into this little known, incredibly unique wine region in the East of France. The Jura produces Vin Jaune (yellow wine) aged under flor like Sherry, the indigenous Savagnin grape (delicious), light yet earthy reds, and more. It’s no wonder the Jura is such an exciting place to drink wines from. Lorch takes you on a true adventure in this book.
- We started with a fortified recommendation, and we’re ending with one! Port and the Douro by Richard Mayson is another book from our Diploma study days that’s earned a permanent place in our wine book library. Similar in format to Jeffs’ Sherry, this is an all-encompassing Port bible, for lovers of these historical and very special wines. Grab a glass of LBV and some Stilton, and enjoy!
There you have it: 10 (in fact, 11!) books to whet your appetite and deepen your knowledge on some of our favourite regions. Have you got a book to add to the list? Or a region you’d love to learn more about? To let us know, or for any queries, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by emailing sharon@winecoursesbcn.com or calling 661 443 242. Happy reading!
N.B. Wine Courses Barcelona are not incentivised in any way to promote these products or authors.
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