Wink Lorch's Jura Wine book wins the 2014 André Simon Drinks Book Award

Wink Lorch with her Jura Wine book at 

The Real Wine Fair 2014

 

Man Booker winning novelist Julian Barnes and cookery writer Annie Bell announced the winners of this year’s awards, showcasing the best of contemporary food and drink writing at the Goring Hotel in London last night.

Wine writer Wink Lorch was awarded this year’s prize in the drink category for Jura Wine (Wine Travel Media), an insider’s guide to the Jura wine region, with local food and travel tips. The judges described the publication as exhaustively researched, packed with information and full of good photos – many by Mick Rock (Cephas), who collected Wink's award as she is currently in Chile.  

Julian Barnes, this year’s assessor for the wine books, said: “Jura Wine is the first proper book in English about the wines of Jura. When its author took her first-ever glass of it, she thought it was ‘weird’. It is a reaction many of us have shared, and perhaps not got beyond. Happily for us, she did, and has produced a personal and deeply committed guide to this often intractable region.”

Wink Lorch said: “I am hugely grateful to the Andre Simon awards judges for choosing my Jura WIne book for the best drinks book award, a real honour especially as André Simon himself loved to write about French wines. Great news for the little Jura wine region and for me too, with thanks to my wonderful team who helped create the book, and to the Kickstarter supporters.” 

Writer and photographer Mark Diacono – known for his commitment to sustainable, ethically sourced food – scooped the prestigious prize for food writing for his 2014 publication, A Year at Otter Farm (Bloomsbury). 

Alongside this philosopher Julian Baggini’s publication The Virtues of the Table (Granta) was recognised with a Special Commendation while Sediment (John Blake Publishing) by Paul Keers and Charles Jennings won this year’s John Avery award.

(Books published during 2014 are eligible for the awards.)