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GUEST EDITORIAL Viewpoint We welcome commentaries from readers on issues of current interest in the wine industry. Send your topic idea to edit@winesandvines.com, and we���ll contact you. A Book the IRS Could Love By W. Blake Gray ���W ine Grapes��� is probably tax-deductible. That���s good, because the new reference book���s cover price is $175 (it���s cheaper on Amazon), and it has tremendous entertainment value. You can���t deduct a DVD set of ���Game of Thrones,��� but if you work in a winery or vineyard (or you just love wine), you might get more joy out of this book. You can write off ���Wine Grapes��� because it���s a serious academic work with impeccable credentials. Jos�� Vouillamoz, one of three co-authors, is one of the world���s foremost grape geneticists. He studied under Carole Meredith at the University of California, Davis, and when Jancis Robinson needed some genetic information for ���The Oxford Companion to Wine,��� Meredith suggested Vouillamoz. That began a relationship that blossomed into this 1,242-page hardcover book, which���OK, I���ll drop the pretense here���is just perfect for flipping to pages at random. I wanted to call it ���the wine geek���s ultimate toilet book��� on my blog but was afraid Google���s algorithm would reclassify me as potty-mouth porn. What Vouillamoz, Robinson and master of wine Julia Harding have done is describe every one of the 1,368 winegrapes used in making every commercial wine in the world. You think you know some obscure grapes? This book could be the source of an unwinnable game of Trivial Pursuit. I just flipped to a page at random and came up with ���R��thay: Rare, disease-resistant Austrian hybrid making wines for early drinking.��� A color chart shows that it has dark berries. 162 W in e s & V i ne s JANUARY 20 13 It also has two synonyms, where more well distributed grapes might have a dozen. The origin of R��thay was easy for Vouillamoz, as it was a cross developed in an Austrian research center. Sections about the origins of older grapes such as Syrah (forget what you���ve heard about Persia, it���s a natural cross from a French vineyard) also list competing hypotheses. Some of the book���s findings about grape origins might be surprising. For example, the Bordelais won���t be happy to learn that Cabernet Franc, a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, came from Spain. You can write off ���Wine Grapes��� on your taxes because it���s an academic work with impeccable credentials. Even though the book is cross-referenced for popular names, you have to look around for that grape we call Zinfandel. Vouillamoz lists it under the Croatian name Tribidrag because that name is older than Crljenak Ka��telanski. Just as well, I could never pronounce the latter anyway. Tribidrag turns out to be on a short list of ���founder grapes��� (along with Pinot, Savagnin and Nebbiolo) that are ancestors of many important commercial grapes today. I love the story of Gouais Blanc, a prolific white grape that has been banned several times in France���and is banned today���because it���s not considered of high quality, yet it���s the genetic parent of Chardonnay and Riesling. Wow, I got diverted trying to explain a single section. This book is like that. Back to our example, the R��thay section. Each grape has a section about ���viticultural characteristics.��� It���s not the ���Farmers��� Almanac,��� they���re pithy summaries such as ���good resistance to downy mildew��� in R��thay���s case. But if you���ve got a downy mildew problem in your vineyard, that might be all you need to know. The more that���s known about a grape���s production, the more the book has. For Moschomavro, a ���minor Greek variety with good potential for ros��s,��� you learn that it���s ���vigorous and productive; late budding and ripening. Susceptible to botrytis bunch rot and sour rot; relatively drought-tolerant. Medium to large compact bunches.��� Ideal climate isn���t usually directly addressed here, perhaps because who knows what R��thay or Moschomavro might be like in Lodi? Nobody loved Malbec until it got to Argentina. The final section for each grape, ���Where it���s grown and what it tastes like,��� is the most fun for non-growers. About our example R��thay, we learn that there are only 25 acres in the Burgenland in Austria, and the book lists three producers who make varietal wines. How great is that? You���re not going to get your hands on a bottle of R��thay at Safeway, but if you happen to visit Austria, you know where to find something with which to stump your tasting group. And there are 1,367 more grapes like that! I���m telling you, hours of geeky fun. What you tell the IRS is that by combining your knowledge of the areas where a grape is grown with the grape���s viticultural characteristics, you can discover grapes you should be planting in your own vineyard. If they question your deduction, have them call me. I���ll back you up. W. Blake Gray is the author of ���The Gray Report��� blog and has written about wine for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Food & Wine, Wine Review Online, Decanter and other publications. His book ���California Winetopia��� was published in Japanese. Gray is chairman of the electoral college of the Vintners Hall of Fame. He lives in San Francisco.