Why the Academie du Vin Library? To re-publish and re-create the ‘literature’ of wine. Today much wine writing is reduced to tasting notes and scores, while technical information and prices can be found on the web. The books that taught me about wine in the 1960s were based on Places and People more than the Product, for it is the history and the stories that bring wine to life. In today’s busy world, time for reflection is of rare importance and we hope our books will repay time spent with them, as do wines themselves. The simple difference between tasting and drinking is paying attention. Wines will reveal their secrets if you listen to what they are saying. Hugh Johnson describes a fine wine as “a wine worth talking about.” We think our books will, like good wines, be worth reading and then worth talking about. Forget about ‘value for money’, think rather ‘value for pleasure.’