If the past year in publishing were to be described in terms of a wine, you'd have to say it was subdued, exhibiting some classic elements but definitely a bit short in the finish. The Oxford Companion to Wine edited by Jancis Robinson (Oxford University Press, £40 in UK). For anybody who is serious about wine, this new edition is the book of the year - no, the decade. Unlike so many editors who bestow little more than their name and a few passing glances, fiercely diligent Jancis Robinson has completely overhauled the 1994 original, updating half the entries and adding 500 more. Everything is there - from hangover to homoclimes; McLaren Vale to mouthfee l. The result? A superb work of reference that you end up flipping through for hours.
French Wines by Robert Joseph (Dorling Kindersley, £12.99 in UK). So good-looking is this newcomer that you may suspect form rather than function; but it's an excellent primer to the regions and wine styles of France, by the fluent founder-editor of Wine magazine. Over 200 appellations are covered succinctly; key producers in each are listed, and the photographs and maps go more than halfway to making this an inspiring travel guide, too.
A&A Farmar's Best of Wine in Ireland 2000, edited by Sandy O'Byrne (A&A Farmar, £8.99). Ireland's main wine-buying guide is into its fifth edition - recommending 1,200 wines from about 2,000 tasted blind by a large panel. It would be good to see the number and range of submissions increased (some importers submit countless bottles, some very few and some none at all, leading to some unevenness) - but it's still a useful catalogue.
Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2000 (Mitchell Beazley, £8.99 in UK). Be careful. This is the one everybody buys for everybody else (sales are a dizzy 400,000 copies a year). But Johnson's microencyclopaedia is still the best of the pocket guides. The Millennium Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide 2000 by Tom Stevenson (Dorling Kindersley, £9.99 in UK). The new paperback of Tom Stevenson's handbook to fin de siecle fizz is the perfect stocking-filler for anybody who missed out on the sturdier version last Christmas.
