Kathleen Burk’s Wine: A Global History (Profile Books, October 2026) is an ambitious, 600-plus-page account tracing wine’s story across eight millennia. Burk, a professor emerita of modern and contemporary history at University College London, brings both academic experience and a longstanding interest in wine to the project.
The book opens chronologically, then moves into regional histories, covering subjects from France and the Spanish Empire to wine-producing countries of the post-Soviet Union. Each chapter ends with a profile of a wine chosen for its symbolic significance, though the reason for these selections is not always clear. The tasting notes can also feel formulaic.
At times, the details and phrasing jar, and some information lacks context. Burk’s academic approach occasionally becomes repetitive, while the final chapter ends abruptly, moving from declining consumption figures to a brief conclusion.
Despite these drawbacks, the book is rich in intriguing material. Its opening 150 pages are especially engaging, following wine from its origins through Ancient Greece and Rome, and exploring how religion and war helped spread it—including its complex relationship with Islam. With more space, maps and illustrations, this early history could have made a compelling book of its own.