Notes on a Cellar-Book [Hardcover]

If you're a wine geek, and perhaps even if you're not, you've heard of Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar-Book. Prof. Saintsbury (1845-1933) was a journalist and later a professor of English Literature at Edinburgh. Notes on a Cellar-Book is his only book on wine and spirits, published in 1920 towards the end of his career, during the dark days of Prohibition in the United States and a noisy temperance movement in the UK.

Cellar-Book is one of those works that everyone knows about but few people have actually read, and five minutes with an original edition of the book will reveal why. It is so chock full of obscure literary allusions, puns, references to once-current events and other arcane matters that it is almost impossible to follow. I've tried to plough through my own 1920 edition of it unassisted many times over the past couple of decades, and to be perfectly honest, I never really made any headway on the road to comprehension.

Thomas Pinney's new edition includes detailed annotations that finally make the Cellar-Book comprehensible and enjoyable.

So is it all worth it? Yes, if you are seeking an insight into Saintsbury's realm -- the aesthetics of wine and food in a scholarly world that existed before anyone dreamed up the Wine Spectator, Gourmet Magazine, Robert Parker, and the Food Channel. Before celebrity chefs. When an English professor of modest means could enjoy Richebourg and Montrachet, before hedge fund zillionaires who dump ten thousand bucks on a bottle of Burgundy, or a couple million to remodel the corner office.

It's a memoir and a collection of personal observations, not a comprehensive review of any particular wine or wine region, chock full of Saintsbury's remembrances of great meals and bottles he'd enjoyed over a long career of eating and drinking very well, thank you very much, with his college brethren. The Professor also takes every opportunity to toss barbs at prohibitionism and prohibitionists everywhere.

In an appendix, Pinney includes a number of Saintsbury's short articles and essays on wine, not included in the original Cellar-Book. One describes the wine cellar in an elaborate (and elaborately expensive) doll's house that was presented as a gift to Queen Mary in 1924. Yes, just one generous lifespan removed from our own times, but it was definitely another world.

Hats off to Thomas Pinney for bringing that world and this hoary chestnut back to life for modern readers.

"Notes on a Cellar Book", originally published in 1920, was one of the first books on wine in the English language. It kicked off a generation of English wine criticism style that remains to this day. The authur George Saintsbury recalls a life time of imbibing and dining, giving us a glimpse of an era from over a century ago. It is opinionated but that makes it fun. Most of the wines and other drinks mentioned are still the standard of what a serious wine drinker/collector would have today, albeit of the more current vintages. It is not an easy read for someone who does not know a lot about wine. Saintbury's comments would not make much sense to such a person nor would there be much relevance. For a wine neophite whose wine experience is limited to current American and other New World wines, this book will most likely be a disappointment. When Saintsburgy wrote this book, the American wine industry was still in its infancy. American wines were almost completely unavailable in England. Saintbury would not easily have the chance to try them. Most of what he did write about are widely available to us and are the standards of a good wine cellar today. This was "the" book for those interested in wine in the twenties and thirties. Judging by the number of editions and printings since 1920, it has been a reasonably popular book. If one is short in wine knowledge but wanting to read this book, Thomas Pinney the American wine historian, has done an annotated version of this book. Pinney has provided a lot of the background to make this book more accessable to a wine neophite. However, for those who are not able to follow Saintbury on their own and needing Pinney's help, they would probably not find this book interesting enough even with the annotation. You really have to be one interested in European wines to have any reason to read this book. It is a classic, It is a book of a great deal of significance in the history of wine criticism. An older edition is a great gift for any serious wine collector. Many have heard of it but probably have not read it and do not own it.

Did not enjoy this book at all. Could not get past the first chapter.