▻ The World’s Greatest Wine Library
▴ Shields Library, UC Davis - photo by Kimmy Hescock
In conversation with Axel Borg
Episode Summary:-
Jane Anson talks to Axel Borg, who has just retired from being the Chief Librarian of the UC Davis Wine Library (his official title is Distinguished Wine and Food Science Bibliographer Emeritus) for over thirty years. It has been described by Hugh Johnson as “the world’s greatest wine library,” and in this interview, Axel reveals how he helped build the collection and describes some of its greatest treasures, including a manuscript book published in 1680 which predicted the quality of wine through to the 21st century.
““We don’t have everything, we are always looking, but we do have more than anyone else””
Running Order:-
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0.00 – 8.13
Axel Borg, the recently retired Chief Librarian of the UC Davis wine library, tells Jane about how he became a librarian after leaving the army. In the library there are 35,000 books and journals, as well as maps and pamphlets, including 99 old French vineyard maps, which broke the library’s budget on acquisition. Every year UC Davis buys up to 600 books, and they are rare in that their acquisition strategy is language-agnostic, often with the same book bought in all foreign-language editions…
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8.14 – 16.17
Axel talks about some of the oldest items in the collection, including a will that transfers a vineyard in central Spain to the Catholic church in 1287, and a late 12th century section of a manuscript from Isidore of Seville, which was once owned by André Simon. He has personally assessed every item in the collection in order to establish its strengths and weaknesses. The collection has books in 50 different languages and is strong on the technical aspects of winemaking, along with a large collection of wine guides. Part of the library is put into the “Special Collection,” which comprises materials that require special handling, namely anything from Europe before 1800, America before 1850, and California before 1900, as well as the Hugh Johnson Pocket Guide Books.
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16.18 – 25.50
Axel reveals that the library is open to anyone, not just UC Davis students, and he and Jane discuss how the pandemic has speeded up the digitalisation of the library. One notable example is how the library has digitalised California’s AVA maps and also put several winemaking course lectures by the legendary University of California professor Maynard Amerine online, on YouTube.
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25.51 – 31.21
Axel explains how they didn’t buy the Schyler letters (letters from the Bordeaux negociants at the time of the French revolution) when it was discovered they were stolen, 200 years ago. Jane describes how happy owner Yann Schyler was when they were safely returned to the family.
One of the items Axel is most proud of is a manuscript book published in 1680 on vellum (animal skin) by the French Royal Academy for the Minister of War for Louis XIV, which forecasts the quality of wine right through to the 21st century. The predictions were made based on the solar cycles from the 16th century to the 21st century. It was important to the army, as wine was seen as safer than water, which carried many diseases. -
31.22 – 40.31
Another favourite item of Axel’s is the earliest printed item on French wine, which was published in 1549 and later owned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, First Minister of State for Louis XIV. The author of the book was the son of the French Ambassador to Naples and he uses the word “terroir” in a rather modern way, proving that the use of “terroir” is our contemporary sense dates back 500 years.
More Wine Library Resources:-
The Sonoma County Wine Library, in Healdsburg, covers many aspects of wine in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake counties. The collection consists of more than 5,000 books, some of which have been digitized, as well as ephemera and memorabilia from area wineries and letters and manuscripts from wine-industry members. The library is also home to the International Wine research Database (IWRDB), which strives to be the most comprehensive bibliography of wine literature in the world.
Contact: mjones@sonomalibrary.org
The Napa Valley Wine Library is located in a section of the St. Helena Public Library, and is devoted to wine in general, with an emphasis on the Napa Valley. It includes rare books, a wide variety of references, and popular books, as well as an extensive label collection. There is an extensive archive of Oral History tapes and transcriptions, and of what is surely the oldest and most extensive Wine Appreciation Course anywhere devoted to California wine.
Contact: lynne@shpl.org
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Further information:-
Axel urges anyone who is interested in the library to visit the website or to contact him directly at aeborg@ucdavis.edu.
Also see:-
Jane Anson talks to Andrew Caillard MW, author of The Australian Ark – one of the most important wine books to have been published not just this year, but any year.