THE TROUBLE WITH WINE books is they are out of date before they arrive in the bookshop. Major changes in the Old World and even faster vineyard growth in the New World force wine writers into a permanent cycle of revision. Books written two or three years ago paid scant attention to the magnificent pinot noir being produced in New Zealand's Central Otago. By 2002, this region had joined the ranks of Oregon and Burgundy and any wine book today would be negligent not to include it.
To cope with this extraordinary pace of change, books republished each year have to update their vintage reports, and the cellaring potential of particular wines, new regions, grapes and producers must all be included. The newly published Hugh Johnson 2004 Pocket Guide To Wine (Kelly and Walsh, $170) is an indispensable guide.
There are some superb wine books that come out every four or five years. Jancis Robinson's voluminous Oxford Companion To Wine and Hugh Johnson's World Atlas Of Wine are two such books.
I bought my first Oxford Companion in 1997. The latest edition came out in 2002 (Bookazine, $520). The pages devoted to New World wines have been improved but already I have become frustrated at the outdated information regarding the new wines of Spain and Italy.
I have found the Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides to be a good interim measure until Jancis Robinson once again manages to update her tome. Currently, these approximately 200-page books exist for Australia, Bordeaux, Burgundy, California, Italy and Spain. They are updated every two years (Kelly and Walsh, $150-170).
I took the Italian version of Mitchell Beazley Wine Guide To Umbria with me this summer. An excellent overview of the region precedes a vintage review, a full listing of the sub-regions, an indispensable guide to producers (established and up-and-coming) and some great food-wine pairing suggestions. Mitchell Beazley commissioned Spanish wine expert Jan Read to write the 2003 Spanish edition of the guide.
