A little book of horrors.

I am always looking for good viticulture reference books and my brand new copy of Vitibook just happens to be a great one.  Written by Diego Barison et al., Vitibook was actually published last year, however, I only just learnt about it.  I had contacted Glenn McCourty, who is a Viticulture & Plant Science Advisor at the U.C. Davis Cooperative Extension for Lake and Mendocino counties (on the advice of wine columnist Dan Berger), to ask if he knew of any published data on Vitis clonal selections that are available to the grapegrower.  And yes, he did.
Vitibook is a little gem of a book out of Italy that is just perfect for a vino-geek like me.  The book is very thorough in its coverage of grapevine morphology and phenology and it includes interesting statistical data about grape-growing regions around the world.  The section on clones is informative and is exactly what I was looking for.  It is the horrifyingly graphic chapters on grapevine diseases and pests that really make this book worth owning.  Replete with full colour photographs that document all sorts of grape maladies and creepy-crawlies, it is a small wonder that anyone would ever decide to develop a vineyard at all.  Frightening.
Vitibook is a wonderful addition to my modest collection of all-things-grapey-reference books.