The definitive account of a great American's lifelong passion for wine

"... A fascinating look at our third president and the evolution of his lifelong love of wine." -- Wall Street Journal

"John Hailman's biography tells our third president's life story through his adventures as oenophile and gastronome."--Bon Appétit

"Hailman delves deep into the gastronomic passions of one of our country's most important historical figures and presents a side of Jefferson's personality rarely explored."--Cooking Light

"[Hailman] has done an exhaustive study and provided a valuable window into who Jefferson really was."--Wine Spectator

In Thomas Jefferson on Wine, John Hailman celebrates a founding father's lifelong interest in wine and provides unprecedented insight into Jefferson's character from this unique perspective. In both his personal and public lives, Jefferson wielded his considerable expertise to influence the drinking habits of his friends, other founding fathers, and the American public away from hard liquor toward the healthier pleasures of wine.

An international wine judge and nationally syndicated wine columnist, Hailman discusses how Jefferson's tastes developed, which wines and foods he preferred at different stages of his life, and how Jefferson became the greatest wine expert of the early American republic.

Hailman explores the third president's fascination with scores of wines from his student days at Williamsburg to his lengthy retirement years at Monticello, often using Jefferson's own words from hundreds of immensely readable and surprisingly modern letters on the subject. A new epilogue covers the ongoing saga of the alleged wine swindle involving bottles of Bordeaux purported to belong to Jefferson.

John Hailman divides his time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi, and Merignac in the Charente region of southwest France.

Read about it in The New York Times Book Review

Read about it in Wine Spectator

457 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 29 color and 20 b&w illustrations, 1 map, bibliography, appendices, index