Much-heralded and oft-requested, an ebook version of our massive, 7lb hardback Wine Grapes has just been launched. Now highly portable and fully searchable, Wine Grapes is available for iPad, Kindle and other e-readers, or to refer to on your laptop. This new digital version, priced at roughly half the cost of the hardback, is perfect for those who are travelling – for work or play – and of course for anyone with a bad back.
The hardback version of Wine Grapes, by me, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz and published in November 2012 to great international acclaim (reviewers have variously described it as both the Bible and Torah of grape varieties), has won every single major wine book award, most recent first:
Faiveley International Wine Book of the Year 2013, Roederer Awards
Best Viticulture Book 2013, OIV Awards
Best Drink Book 2012, Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards
Best Beverage Book 2012, James Beard Awards
Best Drink Book 2012, André Simon Awards
Hall of Fame for Best Wine Book 2012, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
Best Drinks Book 2012, Wine & Spirits magazine
This brand new ebook gives you access to all the hundreds of thousands of words that make up our minutely detailed profiles of 1,386 wine grape varieties in the original hardback, including how they are related, where they are grown and what sort of wines they make, as well as links to downloadable versions of all 14 ground-breaking pedigree diagrams (which proved too extensive to show well on some e-formats). It is, on the other hand, particularly easy to jump from one entry to another using the live links in the ebook, although admittedly you don't have the full, beautiful heft of the paper version. The ebook is, however, adorned with all 80 colour plates from the classic early 20th century ampelography of Viala and Vermorel that are such a beautiful addition to the hardback – although Kindles typically show them only in black and white (Amazon's fault not ours).
I naively thought that an ebook would be easy to produce; you just share the text of the original electronically. But it certainly hasn't been anything like as simple as that. Julia, who most closely oversaw production of this e-version, can attest to quite how many frustrating man- and woman-hours went into this new edition. Take advantage of all her and the publishers' hard work!
Please note that, as so often, the UK publishers Penguin/Allen Lane and the US publishers Harper Collins/Ecco have chosen different jackets/covers, but the content of each of these ebooks is identical, both to each other and to the hardback version. 
Order at £49.99 from
Amazon.co.uk (all Kindle devices, the kindle app for Android and iOS, and Kindle previewer software for PC and Mac computers)
UK publishers Penguin (cannot be read on kindle nor iPad, but only on ADE software and ADE-based devices listed here)
UK iTunes store (iPad/iPhone version readable only via the iBooks app for iOS)
Order at $74.99 from 
Amazon.com (all Kindle devices, the kindle app for Android and iOS, and Kindle previewer software for PC and Mac computers)
Barnes & Noble (Nook)
Order at $64.99 from
US iTunes store (iPad/iPhone version readable only via the iBooks app for iOS)
And if you've got this far, you may also like be interested in today's tasting article, a collection of tasting notes on 39 exotic southern grape varieties.