Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 8

Fi ned &
FI LT ER ED

AtlAs

U N P L UGGE D
An interview with Jancis Robinson MW

by COREY WARREN

Jancis Robinson dropped into NYC this past October to celebrate the release of the 8th
Edition of The World Atlas of Wine. Widely considered the premier reference on wine
and geography, having sold 4.7 million copies worldwide, it's been revised once every
six years since Hugh Johnson released the first edition in 1971; Robinson has worked as
editor and co-author since the 5th Edition (2003) onward. Corey Warren met Robinson
at Maialino restaurant to get the backstory on how the team decides what to include
and not, and what they noted in the process.

Jancis Robinson

This latest edition includes 20 new maps, as well as expanded
coverage of the Middle East, parts of North and South America, Oceania, and China. Who, ultimately, decides how space
is allocated in the Atlas?
When we settle down to do a new edition, we have
several very long meetings with me, [Publisher] Gill
Pitts, Hugh Johnson and Julia Harding. Sometimes
Denise Bates [Octopus Group publishing director]
sits in as well.
England has reached a point where it might
deserve two pages instead of just one, but we didn't
want to appear too partisan. The Azores deserve
some attention (Pico is the next big thing, after the
Canary Islands). I would have liked to include a map
of Northern Europe showing where the vineyards are
[in Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia].
I try to keep abreast of the world of wine, but I'm
a generalist. It wasn't until we got the detailed consultant reports from the Czech Republic and Slovakia
that I realized quite a lot of new varieties have been
bred there. Along with the boom of low-intervention,
traditional winemaking in that area, I thought it may
have done with more detailed coverage.
It's tricky to talk about natural or low-intervention
wines. It's really very polarizing. There are too many
natural wine zealots, and too many people from the
other side dismissing it outright.
Was there any consistent, global shift that your consultants
reported on?
The major global change is from the Seventh Edition,
when they all said, "Hey! Everyone's [wines are] lightening up!" For this edition, all are reporting earlier
harvests and the climate-change effect.
Do you think that the current trend towards lighter wines will
continue?
I've been around so long I've seen pendulums swing. I
remember when white wine was the thing; everybody

8

WINE & SPIRITS

DECEMBER 2019

was desperate to find a chardonnay vine. I wouldn't
be surprised if some influential wine person like
Andrew Jefford were to say, "I really like great big
wines," and we saw a shift away [from lighter wines].
I do think there are too many skinny wines masquerading as quality. You still need fruit, you still need
substance.
In your introduction to the Eighth Edition, you talk about the
use of new technologies to map and understand terroir being
adopted more globally.
It's terribly interesting-any self-respecting back
label will tell you what sort of soil the vineyard is
on, and yet no one can explain exactly the mechanism of how that influences what's in the glass. So,
everybody thinks that it's important but can't explain
why. I think we're at a very interesting point where
the research is still not there, but it's catching up.
By the Ninth Edition, we'll have much more causeand-effect to explain. Every region will be mapping
its soils much more clearly. For the Eighth Edition,
what we've done is grabbed on the coattails of the
regions that have really good soil maps [and have
published those].
As the climate crisis progresses, do you think this Atlas will
need to be updated at a more rapid pace?
Every six years is quite often enough. The interesting thing about climate change is that it hasn't been
totally maligned [in the wine world]. That shouldn't
be interpreted as me saying, "Climate change is
great!" But [climate change] has created the potential for regions like England to make quality wine. I
think wine and vineyards are a bit of a canary, showing these differences very early.
In the next edition, we'll explore sustainability
more holistically, including winery work, [the weight
of] glass bottles, electric cars...
(continued on p. 10)



Wine & Spirits - December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - December 2019

Contents
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 1
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 2
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 3
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 4
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 6
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 7
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 8
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 9
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 10
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 11
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 12
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 13
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 14
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 15
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 16
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 17
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 18
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 19
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 20
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 21
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 22
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 23
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 24
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 25
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 26
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Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 28
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Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 30
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Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 36
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 37
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - 38
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Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - December 2019 - Cover4
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