Review: “Wine: A Graphic History”/“L'Incroyable histoire du vin”

My French is notoriously terrible, to the point where two separate editors have pointed out that I’ve mangled one French word or another in an article. I’ve recently been trying to improve my skills, and one thing that’s really helped—in addition to the wonderful Learn French with Alexa course, the Language Reactor app for Netflix, the Coffee Break French podcast, and the Conjuu app for conjugation practice—is reading French books. Like a lot of language learners, my reading is much better than my listening and speaking, so when I can manage to find something I won’t get bored or frustrated with, it’s an easy way to get some French vocabulary in on the train to work.

I found Benoist Simmat and Daniel Casanave’s L'Incroyable histoire du vin (“The Incredible Story of Wine,” though it’s titled Wine: A Graphic History in the English editions) last week in a bookstore in Paris and ended up tearing through a good chunk of it on the flight back home. Even in my sleep-deprived state, the text was entertaining and easy to follow as an intermediate French learner—and if you’re also a French learner looking for reading material, note that it helps if you already have the wine vocab down. The book somehow manages to be thorough without giving way to enormous walls of text, and the illustrations are detailed and engaging. Even if you’re already well-versed in wine history, it’s an entertaining read, and you’ll probably still learn something new.

You can buy Wine: A Graphic History on Amazon in English here and in French here. It’s gone through several editions, and the latest French edition is updated with 34 new pages on Champagne and sparkling wines, which the English edition does not contain. (Please note that I may earn a small commission from products purchased through Amazon affiliate links; this does not affect what I recommend or review.)