Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of a Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine by Maximillian Potter

You can’t leave a story this good bottled up for long: La Domaine de la Romanee Conti, the best of the best vineyards in the world, and its esteemed owner Monsieur Aubert de Villaine, were once the target of extortion. Exactly who would drill the prized grape vines with a view to poison them? And why? Despite occasional overwrought writing, this lively account traces the rich history of Burgundy’s famous vineyard and unearths a detective story that affirms the old adage: fact can be a lot stranger than fiction. The result goes down as smoothly as the best grand cru.

A longer review of this book will be published in a July edition of The BookBrowse Review. Thanks to the publishers for a galley.