Australian wine and winemaking are part o continuous tradition that stretches back to the First Fleet. Today, fine Australian wines are all-conquering, regularly winning the world's most prestigious international wine award while wines at every level of price and quality are taking an ever-increasing share of the world's wine market. Yet the history of wine in Australia was the very opposite of a smooth upward path. It has been a dizzying roller-coaster ride — a fascinating and chequered history of catastrophes and misfortunes both natural and man-made, of determination and ingenuity and of passion.

Within a couple of generations of the first European settlements, Australia was making wines renowned throughout the world. But the arrival of the devastating phylloxera epidemic, economic depression and changing public tastes in both Australia and its principal market, Britain, saw winernaking in Australia sink to disastrous lows. For the first half of the twentieth century Australian wines were almost invariably sweet and fortifier, with the majority of grapes suffering the ultimate indignity and turned into spirits. Yet even at the nadir of the industry's fortunes, a handful of obstinate individuals ensured the survival of fine winemaking skills, laying the foundations for the dramatic turnaround that began as late as the 1960s, a phenomenon of success almost without precedent in the long history of wine.

In Liquid Gold, British wine writer. Nicholas Faith, best known for his award-winning books on Bordeaux, takes us on an enthralling journey from 1788 to the present day, giving us the inside story of Australian wine. But Liquid Gold is no ordinary work of history. It examines the fascinating characters that have always been associated with making and selling Australian wine and takes us behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar businesses that now dominate the wine world in Australia. Rich in detail and anecdote, Liquid Gold tells an extraordinary story that is essential reading for any lover of wine.

Nicholas Faith is a journalist whose career has covered both wine and finance. His first wine book, The Winemasters, a study of the men and families behind the Bordeaux wine business, was hailed as a pioneering work and won the prestigious Andre Simon Prize.