London: Duckworth & Co, 1920. First Edition. Printed by Wyman & Sons, Printers, London.

Octavo (215x140mm) light green cloth, red decorated and lettered, wove paper, vii,[1],301,[1],[2 publishers catalogue]pp.  Lacks dust wrapper (as usual); boards lightly soiled, corners bruised, joints splitting, original spine relaid, small loss to head, not affecting text; t.e slightly dusty; rear hinge small split but overall tight and sound; ownership blind stamp to rear boards; two overlapping inscriptions in ink to front free end-paper: "A Abecrombie 1920 with all good wishes from A.E.S (?)" and "From A Abecrombie to W H Newton 18th July 1935".

¶  Simon was a French-born champagne merchant, gourmet, bon-mot, and prolific wine writer. Acknowledged as "the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century, and the grand old man of literate connoisseurship for a further 20 years" *, Simon also championed wine education, the art of good living and along the way founded such institutions as the Saintsbury Club and the Wine and Food Society as well as authoring more than 60 books on wine and food.

The Wine Trade Club was founded by Simon in 1908.  The lectures given by Simon were technical and groundbreaking, and in many ways the precursor to the Institute of the Masters of Wine and later the Wine & Spirits Educational Trust. Based on a series of lectures he had given earlier, upon his return from World War I service, Simon, opens The Blood of the Grape with a warning to the Wine Trade:

"The wine trade is at the cross roads.  If it is true to its best traditions, it will educate the public, supply good value, deserve handsome profits, as well as the confidence of a grateful people and hand over to the next generation a prouder inheritance than it received.  But if the wine trade of to-day and of to-morrow take an unfair advantage of the ignorance of the public in order to make shameless profits out of shameful wine, it will dig its own grave, go out of existence and be replaced by a mere 'drink trade' which men of honour will be ashamed to enter."

After a lengthy exhortation as to the honour of the trade and the importance of wine, the lectures cover many technical aspects of wine-making and the regions of France, Europe and elsewhere.  Simon closes, discussing Australian wine, (citing W Percy Wilkinson's pamphlet Nomenclature of Australian Wine 1919) with an admonition to the Australian wine trade to cease referring to its wines as Australian Burgundy, Australian Claret etc as they have wholly no connection with such wines from France; presciently reflecting more recent changes in the international descriptions of wines.

A solid copy of an important reference in wine education, scarce in commerce and in many ways still relevant to today's wine trade.