books

Drinking with the Valkyries

Andrew has written a number of books over the last 20 years including the recently published, Drinking with the Valkyries: Writings on Wine. See further down this page for a full list of other books by Andrew.

A selection of reviews

drinking with the valkyries book cover
Andrew’s latest book is ‘Drinking with the Valkyries’

Read what the reviewers had to say about Andrew’s latest book:

“It’s not wine writing. It’s writing.” Jay McInerney, Foreword to Drinking with the Valkyries

“An entrancing companion for wine lovers. Celebratory, discerning writing with all the variety and unexpectedness of the wines explored.” Michèle Roberts, 25.8.22

“Jefford’s essays are like that glass of wine at day’s end – restorative, uplifting and enlightening.” The Washington Post, Dave McIntyre, 25.11.22

“For years Andrew Jefford has been one of the English language’s most thoughtful writers and stylists on wine … original and provocative, though not at all a provocateur. … Mr. Jefford is a poet, and he’s far more interested in the poetry of wine — the transporting thoughts and dreamlike reveries it induces — than in the technical details … a pleasure to read.” New York Times, Eric Asimov, 14.12.22

“Jefford is the greatest living wine writer in my opinion. Reading his new book Drinking with the Valkyries, I had the feeling that I was being swept up in some sort of hypnotic waltz, carried along on his rhythmic sentences. Languorously slow one minute. Screeching to a halt the next. But more than a writer, Jefford may well be the most profound wine thinker. At a time when so much wine writing has all the intellectual gravitas of a 5th grade essay about one’s summer vacation, Jefford roars out of the starting gate with ideas, challenges, inklings, controversies, worries. His intellect becomes a splinter in your finger, not easily ignored.” Karen MacNeil, WineSpeed, 21.10.2022

“He is a rarity in the world of wine: a writer whose (main) topic happens to be wine.” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>www.frw.co.uk, Sophie Thorpe, 6.1.23

“[A] brilliant collection of essays that impress with their wisdom and quiet poetry.” www.bloomberg.com, Elin McCoy, 24.12.22

“The standout read … my favourite commentator on all things wine for some years … a most marvellous book.” The Irish Sun, Matthew Nugent, 7.10.22

“I cherish Andrew Jefford’s work as I do no other person writing about wine … an indispensable book in which the formidable strengths of this writer are on full display.” Terry Theise, www.terrytheise.com, 28.8.22

“So precise and dancing, so chiselled and so free, as complex and delicious as your favorite bottle of wine, you will enjoy the world of wine differently after reading through Jefford’s words.” Pascaline Lepeltier, Instagram: instagram.com – pascalinelepeltier, 25.8.22

“Just re-reading some of the brilliant writing of Andrew Jefford, collected in his new book Drinking with the Valkyries. No one does it better.” Randall Grahm, twitter @RandallGrahm, 28.8.22

“One of the conversations we drink writers like to have over a late-night glass of port is who is the best in our admittedly rather limited field. In my experience, one name comes up more than all others: Andrew Jefford. He is the wine writer’s wine writer. … There are more ideas in each of these short essays than in most books. … He’s like a learned clergyman from the 19th century, composing poetry, cataloguing wines he has tried, observing nature and taking an interest in everything around him.” Henry Jeffreys, The Critic, October 2022

“If you happen to be someone who has not yet encountered Jefford’s work, oh boy do I have a treat for you. Very few people writing in the English language are as thoughtful, incisive, lyrical, and passionate about wine as Jefford. … This is wine writing in the style of a 19th Century salon: a room filled with carefully curated intellects, leisurely but carefully interrogating an idea both for the pleasure of the act and in the hopes of progressing one’s thinking towards someplace closer to understanding.” Alder Yarrow, www.vinography.com, December 2022

“Andrew Jefford is the wine writer’s wine writer. To read his words is to be drawn far away from the everyday world of professional wine-tasting … Jefford’s writing takes you to somewhere – to the terraced vineyards of the Cinque Terre, to the clay soils of the Jura where, he writes, from a hill one can “see the violet mist puddling the cold valley”. He reminds you why you have been seduced by this mysterious liquid, why it perhaps crept up on you and unexpectedly changed the course of your life.” Falstaff, October 2022

“This book (if you can call it that – this jewel of a thing that has glowed, in my satchel, on my desk, in my hands, on the kitchen table, on a plane’s fold-down table, on Avanti trains in and out of London, as I’ve turned its pages with mesmerised, greedy wonder) is a collection of Jefford essays, old and new. A tumble of short stories, it reveals the kaleidoscope landscape of a staggeringly beautiful, complex mind revealing a staggeringly beautiful, complex world. … His essays are rich with adjacency; threading literature, music, mythology, science, philosophy, culture (modern and ancient), history and geography with elegant, eloquent ease. … Jefford takes angles I didn’t know were possible, shines strange lights into corners that I didn’t know were there. His book had me constantly reappraising my own perspective and beliefs. … The
Académie du Vin [Library] has had the foresight to convince this slight-of-frame, slight-of-ego, giant-of-intellect writer to gather these writings into a book and I, for one, am grateful. The result is a compendium of delight. It’s a book that encourages us to put our heads in the clouds and be astonished by wine, and it reminds us, at the same time to be humble, to keep our feet buried deep in the humus of the earth. To read his writing is to relearn wine.” Tamlyn Currin, www.jancisrobinson.com, 25.10.22

… and finally:

If you were one of the drinks in your Kylie wine range, how would you describe yourself on the label? TopTramp “I’m currently reading Drinking With the Valkyries: Writings on Wine by Andrew Jefford, so I might have to ask for his help as he writes so beautifully. I’m sure my attempt will fall short, so here goes: ‘La la la, la la la la la!’” Kylie Minogue: ‘The Reader Interview’, The Guardian 10.11.22

Other books by Andrew Jefford

His earlier books Peat Smoke and Spirit: a Portrait of Islay and its Whiskies and The New France both received great critical acclaim. Peat Smoke and Spirit was reissued in 2019, with some errors corrected and a new introduction by Dave Broom bringing the whisky scene up to date, as Whisky Island

Andrew Jefford’s Wine Course was published in 2008. It is a friendly, accessible and easy-going introduction to wine for those who know little or nothing about it. Andrew Jefford’s Wine Course book cover thumbnailThe Wine Course is divided up into twenty different projects under three main headings: The Tools, The Elements and The Journey. The aim is provide those reading it with a framework for further discoveries, and the confidence to explore. A new, revised edition of Andrew Jefford’s Wine Course was published in 2016.

Book list

  • Drinking with the Valkyries: Writings on Wine (Academie Du Vin Library, 2022)
  • Peat Smoke and Spirit: a Portrait of Islay and its Whiskies (Headline, November 2004), republished as Whisky Island (Headline, 2019)
  • ‘Scotch Whisky: From Origins to Conglomerates’ in Whiskey and Philosophy: A Small Batch of Spirited Ideas, ed. Fritz Allhoff and Marcus P Adams (Wiley, 2009)
  • Andrew Jefford’s Wine Course (Ryland, Peters & Small, September 2008; revised edition 2016)
  • ‘The Art and Craft of Wine’ (with Paul Draper) in Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine, ed. Barry Smith (Oxford University Press, 2007)
  • The New France (Mitchell Beazley, 2002)
  • Choosing Wine (Ryland, Peters & Small 2003)
  • After-Dinner Drinks (Ryland, Peters & Small 2003)
  • Wine Tastes, Wine Styles (Ryland, Peters & Small 2000)
  • One Hundred And One Things You Need To Know About Wine (Simon & Schuster 1998)
  • Smokes (Evening Standard Books 1997)
  • The Evening Standard Wine Guide 1997 (Evening Standard Books)
  • The Evening Standard Wine Guide 1996 (Pavilion)
  • The Wines of Germany (Mitchell Beazley 1994)
  • Which? Wine Guide 1991 (Consumers’ Association)
  • Port: an essential guide to the classic drink (Merehurst 1988)