The year's best wine books

Authors write books, but publishers create them. There is no shortage of wine-writing talent or wine-reading curiosity in Britain, but the past few years have seen timid publishing.

The rehash, the short guide and the summary "encyclopaedia" have bulked out lists but contributed little truly new or worthwhile, while the rise of the branded author (whose name and face beam from the cover of a book largely drafted by others) is a deceitful, if profitable, marketing trick. The 2000 vintage, happily, has improved matters. Mitchell Beazley, in particular, seems to be taking its responsibilities as specialist in the field much more seriously under commissioning editor Rebecca Spry and managing director Jane Aspden, and has made much of the running this year with some bold books.

A Century Of Wine: The Story of a Wine Revolution , edited by Stephen Brook (Mitchell Beazley, £25) is a collection of 18 essays concerning the many changes wine underwent during the 20th century. I should declare an interest, since I have contributed one of these. The strengths of this book are its range, scope and superb picture research. For me, the snapshots of early 20th-century winemaking and wine drinking (which, in some cases, reflect the Middle Ages) make the book worth its cover price alone. It contains succinct regional and national summaries, as well as topical overviews on issues such as science and technological change, the impact of politics and economics on wine, and the evolution of gastronomy. Lots of information - but some overlap, too, between the essays.

Real Wine - The Rediscovery of Natural Winemaking by Patrick Matthews (Mitchell Beazley, £14.99) is a timely book, since it addresses the most controversial issue in winemaking today. To what extent do you alter, modify and "correct" with technology and chemical adjustments the flavour of the grapes and wine which nature provides? (Some shaping, of course, is always necessary if wine is not to become vinegar.) Put most simply, natural winemakers allow their wines to be abnormal, singular, quiet or gross if that is what local conditions provide; whereas technological winemakers ensure that certain parameters are always met to maximise a wine's commercial appeal. Matthews has a curious, sparky, lightning-conductor of a mind and there is a mass of fascinating, if sometimes abstruse, research in this chunky little book; I wish, though, that he had been given another year or two to digest and shape this material into a more coherent and crafted argument. The book is also over-reliant on the Californian debate on these matters, whereas in many ways it is most interesting (and most relevant to British consumers) to bring the very different French (mystical-intuitive) and Australian (rational-pragmatic) views head to head. There is no whiff of winemaking controversy whatsoever in CRUSH - The New Australian Wine Book by Max Allen (Mitchell Beazley, £18.99); Allen is an unqualified supporter and enthusiast for the wines of his adopted country. His mission is to chart Australia's wine places and people, which he does with passionate intensity, getting closer to logging the intricacies of regionality in Australia than any author has yet done. The book appears to be almost unedited, though - it's a big breathless yomp through grape after grape, then region after region. In some ways I wish Allen had first written The Old Australian Wine Book, packed with clearly organised maps, headings, subheadings, producer entries, lengthy captions and a work-of-art index; the person-alised, matey, "great booze" style can weary, too. Persist, though, because there's much to learn in here - and magnificent portrait photographs by Adrian Lander.

Clive Coates, MW, occupies the opposite extreme, as a wine writer, to Max Allen; if the T-shirted Allen is a sparkling Shiraz, the bow-tied Coates is a glass of very dry Champagne. He does, though, know a lot about French wine. An Encyclopedia of the Wines and Domaines of France (Cassel, £50) is not exactly a follow-up to his Grands Vins (Bordeaux) and Cote d'Or (Burgundy) books, since much of that information is resumed in shorter form here. You don't get the rich historical research and swathes of tasting notes; instead you get the Coates' view of the whole of France (and some attractive and useful mapping). It's considered and solid, full of facts, figures and winemaking information, though few phrases ring in the mind afterwards.

Tuscany And Its Wines by Hugh Johnson (Mitchell Beazley, £16.99) is, of course, full of memorable phrases, especially Johnson's gorgeously new-minted descriptions of the becoming astringencies of Tuscan red wines. This is a long, beauti-fully illustrated essay which brings wine, food, architecture and landscape together seamlessly and fittingly: a future path for wine writing, perhaps.

What, meanwhile, has Jancis Robinson been up to? She's working on a forthcoming new edition of Hugh Johnson's World Atlas; she's acted as consultant editor for The Oxford Companion To The Wines Of North America (Oxford, £30), which Bruce Cass has edited, and she's written Jancis Robinson's Wine Tasting Workbook (Conran Octopus,£16.99), loosely based on her previous "workbook" Masterglass. Cass's North American volume is a dense reference book with impressive historical perspectives, though its publishers were surely not thinking of sales here when they chose to create it; British consumers can taste few of its references. The Workbook is a nice, friendly package, though if you already have Jancis Robinson's Wine Course, I can see little need for this further investment.

Instead I'd suggest you buy (or ask our white-bearded friend for) Essential Winetasting by Michael Schuster (Mitchell Beazley, £20). Schuster runs his own wine school (Winewise) in Islington, and is not only a great teacher but also the man I think of as the perfect wine connoisseur: open-minded, cultured, thoughtful, receptive and calmly articulate. His book is as intricately constructed as a Bach fugue, with a mass of cross-references enabling you to use it as a DIY wine course, a work of reference, or simply as stimulating, intelligent wine entertainment. His wine descriptions are succinct and accurate, and his understanding of the aesthetics of appreciation a model of unfussy sanity. This will, I suspect, be the only wine book ever to use Munch's The Scream, a chart of the Orion constellation and a Spice Girls ticket as illustrations. Why? Open it and see.