ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

Thirsty

100 Great Wines and Stories by the Wine Guy

Tom Gilbey author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:6th Nov '25

Should be back in stock very soon

Thirsty cover

‘My favourite wine w*nker’ Jack Whitehall

‘I like to talk about wine the way normal humans talk about things they love – it’s not about showing off how many fancy wine terms I know. The point is to share something I love with someone else in a way that makes them want to love it too.’

Thirsty is the story of Tom Gilbey (The Wine Guy) and his life in wine, a celebration of the bleedin’ beautiful people who make it, and a history of his family’s love affair with winemaking – and let’s be honest, drinking – since the 1800s.

Learn how to:
- read a label (even if you can’t speak the language)
- talk wine without sounding naff
- choose wine in a restaurant
- explain why some wine smells like your granny’s cardigan

Along the way you’ll discover 100 Wine W*nker approvedbottles: wines for friendships and long lunches, for autumn afternoons and winter evenings. Whether yours is a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Kylie Minogue’s rosé or – God forbid – orange wine, Tom will help you find the good stuff, always.

Let Tom show you how this gloriously gluggable elixir is, at its heart, made to bring pleasure, and that there is no right or wrong to enjoy wine: just go for it.

The perfect Christmas gift for every wine lover in your life.

‘Entertaining and engaging’ Helen McGinn of @knackeredmother

An enormously entertaining read * Spectator *
This engaging book…woven with lots of inspiration for the wannabe wine buff, is a significant achievement * Country Life *
[An] entertaining autobiographical book * Daily Telegraph *

ISBN: 9781529951479

Dimensions: 221mm x 140mm x 27mm

Weight: 403g

304 pages