(Wine-Searcher) - We take a look at Jancis Robinson's newest Oxford Companion and by extension, how the wine industry has changed. 

Contained within the unassuming DHL bag that arrived in the Wine-Searcher office last week was a handy barometer on how the wine world is doing.

The latest edition of the Oxford Companion to Wine, by world-respected wine authority Jancis Robinson, has been almost a whole decade in the making. Since the third edition, which was released in 2006, Robinson and her crack team of wine experts from around the world have been exploring and expanding, offering quite the incidental insight into how our world is evolving.

The famously weighty pink tome has acquired several grams worth of new content, and a quick flick to the page that lists the new entries is the first obvious stop. The Oxford Companion has given validity to various on-the-rise wine regions: Gran Canaria, Malibu Coast and Tahiti get their own entries for the first time, and the state of Virginia gets a boost in terms of content. Coverage of South Africa, Chile and Austria has been expanded, with areas like Swartland, Maipo, Wachau and Colchagua Valley all given their own entries.

China – now a winemaking behemoth to rival the likes of Australia or Argentina – has also been looked at in a lot more detail than in previous editions. Since 2006, when the last edition came out, the Helan Qing Xue Jia Bei Lan Cabernet blend won acclaim at the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards. Since then, China has become a world player in terms of both production and consumption of wine, and new entries in the OCW reflect that – flagship Chinese variety Cabernet Gernischt has been included, as has Changyu, one of China's largest producers.

Changes in winemaking style over the last nine years are also reflected in the pages of the new Oxford Companion. The use of concrete eggs in fermentation appears with some detail, as does the similarly hipster (but much older) method of using qvevri in fermentation. The relatively new phenomenon of urban winemaking is covered, checking off wineries located in London, Hong Kong and San Francisco. Reductive winemaking gets an entry, as does the increasingly fashionable category of orange wine.

The Oxford Companion to Wine also offers up some insights into how the world itself has changed over the last decade, outside of the wine industry. An entry on the broad topic of Information Technology covers everything from how tech is used in the vineyard to the best online resources for consumers (which happily includes Wine-Searcher).