TO SIP, THEN READ Jancis Robinson, author of “The Oxford Companion to Wine,” in New York last week.

Ms. Robinson, one of the world’s leading wine writers, was in New York from Britain last week to promote her latest work, a new edition of “The Oxford Companion to Wine,” a magisterial 813-page encyclopedia of just about everything a wine lover could ever want to know. We were to have lunch, and while I knew she did not fit the fusspot stereotype of the British wine critic, I had never met her and didn’t know her tastes and preferences. Where to take her?

This much I did know. Ms. Robinson has a clutch of intimidating initials after her name. M.W. stands for Master of Wine, a title given to the relatively few people who have passed a rigorous, exhaustive examination — oral, written and imbibed — like a combined M.D. and Ph.D. program. She’s an O.B.E. as well — Order of the British Empire, that is, given to those who have done Old Blighty proud, like soldiers, statesmen, rock stars and, evidently, wine writers. What does one call an officer of the O.B.E.? Lady Robinson? Your Majesty?

Even the sturdiest mantelpiece would collapse under the weight of her awards and honorary degrees. She speaks in terribly thoughtful sentences, delivered in a commandingly lyrical accent she describes as posh. When she is not busy writing, tasting or lecturing about wine, she puts that voice to good use, narrating BBC documentaries on such nonvinous subjects as the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, Olga Korbut or Orthodox Jewish women. Just to complete matters, her given name is literary, derived from a character in the novel “Precious Bane,” by Mary Webb.

As I thought about a place for lunch, I assumed that, like many people in a business that requires more or less continual eating and drinking, she must be weary of drawn-out formality. Yet a quick meal of nondescript food and dull wine was no answer. At long last I decided to take a chance on Fatty Crab, a casual little haunt in the West Village with a menu influenced by Southeast Asian street foods and a most creative wine list. I thought so, anyway, but what would Ms. Robinson think?

When we met there on a crisp, bright Monday afternoon, the music was too loud, and the chairs too hard. But I discovered two things right away. First, I was to call her Jancis — there really was no question about this. And second, Ms. Robinson is not merely one of the world’s foremost wine experts, but a passionate wine lover.

There’s a decided difference between the two. An expert might recite off-the-cuff weather conditions in the Médoc for every vintage of the 20th century, or regale you with a complete list of the grand cru vineyards of the Côte d’Or. But only a wine lover would be delighted by the eccentricities of the Fatty Crab list: not merely rieslings, chenin blancs, trousseaus and blaufränkisches, but goldmuskatellers, scheurebes and refoscos as well.

And so it was that Ms. Robinson, 56, sat, in a subtle red-and-white patterned shirt and discreet spectacles, purring over a Müller-Thurgau she had never tasted before, contemplating a meal of green mango salad, crisp pork belly with watermelon, and rice noodles with Chinese sausage. “Oh, I adore Chinese sausage,” she said. Be still my heart.

This is the third edition of “The Oxford Companion” that Ms. Robinson has edited since 1994, and its extraordinary wealth of new information indicates how rapidly the world of wine has evolved since the second edition was published, in 1999. Aside from new entries on topics like reverse osmosis, Yellow Tail, globalization and, of course, proanthocyanidins (components of grape tannins, and a suggestion of the depth of the scientific understanding of wine nowadays), Ms. Robinson said 40 percent of the entries had been extensively revised. The most important change she sees in the wine world?

“Oh, the upgrade of quality, and the enthusiasm and ambition of winemakers everywhere,” she said. “They are wonderfully undaunted by the difficult economic conditions everywhere.”

Fellow British writers like Hugh Johnson have sounded decidedly doleful recently, envisioning a world of monochromatic wines conforming to dictatorial American tastes for plush, high-alcohol fruit bombs. But Ms. Robinson doesn’t paint so gloomy a picture.

“If you can afford something above the basic $20 bottle, it’s probably the best of times,” she said. “These represent wines made with more ambition and expertise than ever before.”

Looking at the Fatty Crab wine list, with bottles from places like Slovenia, Hungary and many little-known appellations, Ms. Robinson pointed to the range of different wines available to consumers today. “They come from a much richer variety of places,” she said. “We’re well over the besotted stage with just a handful of grape varieties.”

Yet, Ms. Robinson’s optimism was cautious. She is concerned that many less expensive wines may be technically perfect, but bland. And yes, she, too, is troubled by a uniformity in winemaking.

“As for winemaking style, I’m not sure we’re in an era of diversity,” she said, adding quickly, “I don’t want to stir things up.”

Ms. Robinson winces when asked about unpleasant exchanges she has had in print with the American wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr., who disagreed with her assessment of a 2003 Château Pavie, a Saint-Émilion producer that he has championed. It is not something she would like to rehash.

“I hate conflict,” she said, and rephrases her point.

“I may be an idealist, but I think there are just so many players in the world of wine today, specifically so many ambitious, driven, well-educated younger producers who have traveled the world and have increasing understanding of their own patch of vines,” Ms. Robinson said. “Together with the need to make wines that stand out from the crowd in this overcrowded marketplace, this will effect an increase in the range of styles of wine available.”

Ms. Robinson is not alone in her distaste for big, sweet-tasting, high-alcohol wines (none of those, thankfully, on the Fatty Crab list), and she feels that more people are coming around to her way of thinking.

“I sense that the pendulum swing to big, super-ripe reds has already reached its maximum,” she said. “I really don’t think consumers want to have nothing but high-alcohol wines that taste sweet and are questionable partners for food. I’m not against these wines on principle. Some of them are very fine. But I’d like to feel they were not accepted as the single ideal they have seemed to be, specifically in California, in recent years.”

Not that Ms. Robinson is the anti-Parker, nor does she have it in for New World wines. She’s a big fan of Ridge Monte Bello (well, who isn’t?), she loves the Argentine malbecs from Bodega Catena Zapata, and she said a recent trip to Australia reminded her of how many good artisanal winemakers were working there. “I don’t like this, ‘The Brits taste one way, and the Americans another,’ ” she said.

Aside from “The Oxford Companion,” Ms. Robinson has churned out a library of works since she started writing about wine in 1975. One of her best books, “Vines, Grapes and Wines,” a reference on the raw components of wine, published 20 years ago, is now regrettably out of date. She published a memoir nine years ago, “Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover.” She has no plans to update either one.

These days, when she is not conversing through her Web site, jancisrobinson.com, or writing a wine column for The Financial Times, she is either working on the next edition of “The Oxford Companion” or the equally crucial reference “World Atlas of Wine,” which was handed off to her by Mr. Johnson.

Ms. Robinson discovered wine when she was a student at Oxford. It was a bottle of Chambolle-Musigny (see Page 150 of “The Oxford Companion”), Les Amoureuses, to be precise, that set her on her way. After three years in the travel business and a brief spell in Provence, she was convinced that wine and food were life’s most rewarding subjects. She returned to London as assistant editor of a wine trade magazine. “Never looked back,” she said.

Between revisions of the two books, she said, she has little time for other books. Oh, by the way, she has a husband, Nick Lander, who writes about food and restaurants for The Financial Times; three children; and a legion of admirers.

One is Jay McInerney, the novelist, who writes a wine column for House & Garden magazine and turns especially voluble in listing the virtues he sees in Ms. Robinson.

“First of all she writes well,” he said. “When I first got interested in wine 15 or 20 years ago, most wine writing was really dreary. Hers was refreshing, lively and really literate. It wasn’t overly technical and it wasn’t overly poetic, the way a lot of British wine writers are.

“One of the things Jancis taught me about wine was, lighten up!”

Maybe Fatty Crab was just the right touch after all. But sitting with Ms. Robinson, even as she’s swooning over the pork belly with watermelon, I find it hard to lighten up too much. Though she is traveling to promote the third edition of “The Oxford Companion,” I asked her what she imagines will be the main areas of revision in the fourth edition.

She mentioned climate change, and she envisions an effective alternative to the cork that will be prettier than a screwcap. Now the ideas are flowing: genetically modified yeasts will be an issue, as scientists devise ways to deal with the higher alcohol levels. But she doesn’t think the wine world will accept them. The alternative is much more careful work in the vineyard, but she believes, as vineyard land expands, it will be more and more difficult to find skilled labor.

Stores of great old wine will diminish. “Maybe quite a few fakes, but most of the good stuff will probably have been drunk by your countrymen,” she said. China will soon produce serious wine, she said, and more grape growers will farm organically.

Speaking of farming, what about Ms. Robinson? She lives in London, but has a place in Languedoc. Has she ever been tempted to make wine?

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “I’m a terrible control freak. The idea of being in thrall to nature doesn’t appeal.”

quelle: http://www.nytimes.com.