There are only a handful of good wine book compilations which review the year just gone.

That being the case, such tomes quickly go out of date as each wine company rolls over another vintage.

For authors it is a writing treadmill because a version must be released annually to update drinkers.

Melbourne writer Jeremy Oliver is on his 25th edition of The Australian Wine Annual, a book which goes one better by continuing to record back vintages, but within reason. The vintage collection usually stops at 15 years though there have been more in existence. Many older wines will have faded, and other than the secondary auction market greats (Langtons, the auction house ratings) the only living examples are in producers’ cellars.

Oliver makes note that he continues to re-taste older vintages through the year and make adjustments to his ratings as a wine transforms from a “vibrant little thing” to a member of a history panel of one variety in a single producers’ portfolio.

One other wine book compiler provides the same style of publication with back vintage recording. That’s Australian Wine Vintages The Gold Book 2010 recently re-written by Rob Geddes MW and now in its 26th edition, one more than Olivers, originally established by the Melbourne-based musician, the insightful Robin Bradley.

Oliver’s book has slimmed down a little this year – some suppliers have dropped off providing him with sample updates and some brands don’t make the book yet as three successive vintages of one wine is the entry point for tasting.

Of interest in wine journalism over the past three years is the little internal battle by wine reviewers to ratchet up the ratings, and be seen giving more and more wines high 90s scores. Part of this new trend no doubt is editorial pressure trying to gain a competitive edge and attract more brands to send the gratis samples for review.

If you wish to know who these trenders are, just look for the bevvy of reviews with wines scored 95-98, 99.

Oliver notes that some brands have dropped off his book in 2010 because they have not received the scores expected and have clearly gone chasing the nouveau writers playing the numbers game.

Other more grounded and mature writers will often be a few points off this pace. And in fact history is the best leveller, and informed writers such as Oliver and Geddes will be the real informants when they re-taste these high scorers when they have aged some more-putting them in a more considered slot in the wine continuum.

The best outcome of this book is to read the list of Best under-$20 wines as the value section, for after tasting wines all year a taster like Oliver gains a perspective of value for money- most importantly to be shared with his readership.

That’s a good read and note there are 7 cabernet & blends, 8 chardonnays, 21 rieslings, 3 sauvignon blancs, 8 semillon and blends, 21 shiraz and blends, 9 other reds (pinot noir, merlot) and 5 other whites.

Clearly this shows how strong Australian riesling, semillon and chardonnay whites can be in that order of priority, and shiraz and cabernet. As shown sauvignon blanc has little relevance and no pinot gris appears.

With the terrific rise in quality of top end chardonnay I thought I’d locate what gems Oliver has discovered.

Look for Giaconda 2006 (97), Kooyoong Farrago 2007 (96), Mountadam 2008 (96), Voyager 2007 (96), Cape Mentelle 2008 (96), Penfolds Reserve Bin 2007 (95), Coldstream Reserve 2007 (95), Moss Wood 2007 (95), Eileen Hardy 2006 (95), Pierro (95), Cullen Kevin John 2007 (94), Penfolds Yattana 2006 (94), Kooyong Faultline 2007 (93), Leeuwin Estate 2006 (93), Tapanappa Tiers (93), Lakes Folly (92), Shaw & Smith M3 (91), Houghton Wisdom (91)-better wine than that, Tyrrells Vat 47 2006 (90), De Bortoli Reserve (87)-overworked.

Add another dozen or so wines and you have all the top chardonnays in the country.

Jeremy Oliver’s The Australian Wine Annual 2010 is from www.jeremyoliver.com is AUD28.95 by Australia Post or AUD 38.95 by airmail.

The 2009-2010 summer so far in Eastern Australia has simply been bizarre.

If I were a grape I would even think it odd. The expected routines of past decades have simply now been debunked because seasonal predictions just fail.

Clearly this is climate change, but change from what? Maybe this was how things went on a century ago or five centuries ago and we don’t have the historical records to understand it.

And if climate is cyclical as a meteorologist will tell us then such events have occurred before when grape vines were not so intensely studied in the grape growing regions of New South Wales and Queensland.

Spring started cool as we expect, but then October brought incessant 40C heat waves (southern Australian regions called “cool” just fried), the stuff that normally comes in January-February. Coupled with that was the grip from El Nino meaning a summer drought was to occur.

It did, and with a bite so that some summer rainfall regions received a paltry 15mm over the three months; September-November. Some even experienced the same drought extending into mid-December before a storm landed. It’s not funny when daily evaporation is 10mm so that the vine soil dries out badly.

To rub it in four dust storms originating in Alice Springs blew in through October dumping tonnes of their red dirt. Vineyard leaves were top dressed!

On top of that came the November chill-frosts in a wave a week apart which turned green leaves black in the high-altitude vineyards along the Great Dividing Range-Stanthorpe to Orange.

An eastern Australian summer routine used to be driven by the south easterlies – they drove the scuds of moist air and cooling breezes from sea to land each afternoon. These have virtually stopped.

The “wet” in North Queensland started late (end December) and not one cyclone has yet formed.

The main influence all December running into January has been an ex-WA cyclone which turned into a rain depression which then dawdled across central Australia for three weeks. It spawned both upper and lower inland troughs which have gently sprinkled rain throughout the dry dead centre (Ayers Rocks in spray formation).

Rains have saturated north west NSW, central western Queensland and kicked off the wet in the gulf country. The upper Darling River is flowing for the second time in two decades.

The infamous Lake Eyre is filling: it could challenge its maximum depth of six metres (the last big fill in 1990 reached just 1.5 m).

As vintage starts in the South Burnett, western Downs and central western NSW the conditions are cool, caused by cloudy weather from the central Australian rain depressions. Although overcast, the big rains have not come and the first verdelho harvests have been superb.

In future there is no point relying on a steady summer rainfall – it will never exist until the cycle clears itself, perhaps in another century or so.

This book is light fictional holiday reading for those with a bent for wine or a mild interest in a detective ramble around some stolen Bordeaux.

American Mayle lives in Provence, and has done so for well over two decades. He manages to put some good regional food, colour and spirit into the French sector of the book centred around Marseille. That gives the book a great backdrop for the curious traveller who has not been to this part of the Mediterranean coast. Mayle’s subtle, soft sell writing style blends quite successfully with the single storyline.

The plot is thus: a wealthy Hollywood actors’ agent (Danny Roth) has been assisted to establish a wine cellar centred around back vintages of Bordeaux, but also some good Californians of course.

In typical fashion this fellow is languishing in the public profile area so he seeks some media coverage for his cellar: and manages to trumpet to the world that he has USD 3 million invested in this First Growth Bordeaux collection.

According to the book this is: 76 bottles-1953 Lafite Rothschild (AUD 2130), 98 bottles-1961 Latour (AUD 4788), 140 bottles-1983 Margaux (AUD 728), 110 bottles-1982 Figeac (AUD 347), 48 bottles ans 5 magnums 1970 Petrus (AUD 2690 and 6619) and 1975 D’Yquem ( AUD 984)-some of the grand regions of Pauillac, Margaux, Saint-Emilion, Pomerol and Sauternes.

That causes the Bordeaux specifically to be stolen and when the LAPD declines an official investigation from lack of evidence (and some thoughts of an inside job), any resolution of who might be the thief is left with Roth’s insurance company.

The insurer seeks a private investigator, a typical shady American fellow who has acted on both sides of the law, and a lawyer by trade, Sam Levitt. Sam is wine literate, well connected in Europe and is charged with locating and by implication, possibly retrieving the stolen goods.

The trail goes via Paris where Sam enjoys some largesse in the magic city, which all good visitors ought to do, before making contact with a Bordeaux-based wine loss adjuster, a well-cast professional Sophie Costes.

She sounds like a honey, chic, not haughty and thoroughly well connected so that Sam can easily visit the six Chateaux owners whose wines appear of the stolen goods list.

There is often the connotation that Bordeaux chateaux are difficult to visit, that the owners or chefs des caves are not easy to meet, and that the protocol is quite pompous in order to secure a meeting or visit. There is further commercial aloofness there with Roth’s wines being from back vintages not purchasable from Chateaux but only by private sale or on the secondary market which is usually public auction.

In fact a visit is made to each Chateau twice,, first out of general awe about these places and the second time to ask specifically about the vintages stolen. Levitt is successful in picking up the scent which is laid after it becomes known that another party, Marseille-based had been chasing supply of the same wines.

I commend Mayle’s writing as beautiful example of a lifestyle in southern France where he makes sure you experience the regional gastronomy and signature dishes as you read along.

However I have a slight difficulty with the book naming which is a trifle dismissive if it were to underwrite the serious business of wine-which is Bordeaux in a very big way. A caper however is an enterprise involving theft, or likely to be a frivolous escapade-all of which this book is!

Mayle draws on the advice of the Bordealis proprietor Anthony Barton, owner of Chateau Leoville Barton in Margaux. The wine vintages selected for Sam Roth just happen to be the most celebrated for sales by the Bordeaux trade but they were chosen from 53, 59, 61,62, 66, 70, 75, 76, 79 or 82 during that time span.

I have priced Roth’s cellar in today’s values; www.winesearcher.com ; all are available for purchase either in the UK, France or USA, and ex-retail would cost AUD 934, 473 while Roth asks his insurance company for 3 million (accounting for the value rise!)

The Vintage Caper; 2009, Quercus Books London, www.petermayle.com can be found for USD 16 online.