Welcome to the Worlds of Wine web site. Before you look at the rest of my site and maybe subscribe to my newsletter (there's no
cost), let me tell you a bit about myself. I'll give you an idea of who I am and what draws me to wine.
I'm the wine columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, the main daily newspaper in Canada's capital. I've written for other periodicals from time to time, including Wine Spectator and France Today.
As a historian by training, I teach at Carleton University in Ottawa where I offer courses on European history and the History of Alcohol. I'm the author of A Short History of Wine, which was first published in the U.K. (by Penguin Books) in 2000 and in the U.S. (by HarperCollins) in 2001. Paperback editions are now available and the book has also been translated into many foreign languages, including Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, and Japanese.
I'm writing two more wine-related books. One is a global history of alcohol, due to be published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2005. The other is on Ontario wine and wineries, which will be published by Whitecap Books (Vancouver) in Spring 2005.
My other current wine-related activities include being external curator of the Canadian section of a major exhibition on the history of wine, which will be held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa) from November 2004 to April 2005. As a certified sommelier, I also teach in the Sommelier Certificate Program at Algonquin College in Ottawa, and I'm a former director of the National Capital Sommelier Guild. When I can find time, I give private wine appreciation courses.
Sprinkled among these activities are as many trips to wine regions as I can fit in. During 2003 I visited South Australia, Umbria and the Naples region in Italy, Languedoc and the Rhone in France, British Columbia, and the wine regions of Ontario. During 2004 I plan to visit France twice, South Africa, New Zealand, Bulgaria, and Canadian wine regions.
All this wine-related activity began fairly recently. I've long been interested in wine and started reading seriously about it when I was a teenager in New Zealand in the 1960s. Since then I've tasted as widely as I could, travelled the world's wine regions, and lived in wine regions in Australia, France, and Canada.
Wine is continually exhilarating and challenging. Every bottle contains new information and gives some degree of pleasure (or education, if not pleasure). This web site and my newsletter are my ways of sharing the enjoyment I get from wine and from meeting many of the people involved in producing and marketing it. Please feel free to contact me if you have comments or questions.
Cheers!
Rod Phillips