Simon Berry on Berry Bros & Rudd Press

Simon Berry@last night's presentation of the 2010 André Simon Awards

I had a quick chat with Simon Berry, chairman of Berry Bros & Rudd, before the announcement of last night's award. Naturally we talked about Jasper Morris' Inside Burgundy, the first title published by the recently created Berry Bros & Rudd Press.

Inside Burgundy costs £50 and is available only through Berry’s in the UK, although  there are distribution deals outside the UK. “This means the book is sold at full price and avoids making uneconomic deals with amazon and Waterstone’s and everyone gets a proper return,” said Simon.


"Jasper's book could be available electronically in three weeks but we are looking to see what little bit extra an electronic reader would want. Making the maps interactive, for instance."

'Putting the sex back in' was one possible extra, which I forgot to mention to Simon last night – Jasper's provisional title for the book was 'The sex life of the Burgundians'. In his acceptance comments Jasper revealed how he had mentioned to Simon that he was starting to write a book about Burgundy and would look for a publisher once he had finished it, so ensuring that the book was as he wanted it and not influenced by the dictates of a publisher. Simon immediately replied that Berry's would publish it.

I asked him about further titles. "We will be publishing further titles and are looking at several possibilities. But we are in no rush. We are not like a traditional publisher as we don't have to bring out new titles. Instead we will wait for the right one. Also we would like to publish some of the classic wine books if we can get the rights to them."

Interesting that in last night's strong field two of the four shortlisted books came from non-traditional publishers: Inside Burgundy from a wine merchant and Benjamin Lewin's Wine, Myths and Reality from Lewin's own Vendange Press.   

See also post on last night's award presentation.