One of my Christmas gifts was the latest edition of Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide.
It's the seventh edition of the guide, and now has contributions from all of Parker's associates: David Schildknecht, Antonio Galloni, Dr. Jay Miller, Neal Martin & Mark Squires. The book is significantly updated from its last edition, and the coverage of the world's major wine regions has been greatly expanded. The first thing one notices about the book is its weight! At over 1500 pages it's not a book you read in bed.
Each of the Wine Advocate's regular contributors covers his areas of expertise. This means that Parker himself covers only California, the Rhone & Bordeaux. Antonio Galloni covers Italy in all its manifestations (though he does not cover Champagne despite doing the most recent reviews for the Wine Advocate), Jay Miller writes about Spain, Australia, South America, Oregon & Washington & David Schildknecht covers about as much of the wine world as water covers the Earth (Mark Squires and Neal martin have cameo roles).
One important caveat about the book. There are no tasting notes for the wines. In the interest of space only scores have been reproduced. That is lamentable, as the narrative tasting notes have always been more important to me, and at least according to the introduction to The Wine Advocate they are more important than a score. That said, wines change over time, and since the book provides retrospective data (some scores go back into the 90s) the original notes would be somewhat meaningless as wines change over time. Of course the same can be said of the scores, but there is the idea that numerical ratings are assigned based on a wine's current status and it's potential. In any event, I would not buy the book if I were looking to find out what a given wine tastes like - the information just isn't there. If the information was there the book would be 3000 pages and impossible to carry.
The most important part of the new edition (at least in my opinion) is the updated regional (and brief producer) profiles. This is where one can find the book's greatest successes and its worst failures. Whatever one thinks about Parker's palate preferences, his knowledge of California, the Rhone and Bordeaux is generally (if not universally) acknowledged. His regional introductions are concise, useful (the information on the identity of Bordeaux second labels is very welcome) and give a good picture of what's going on in his three regions of specialization. David Schildknecht does yeoman's work in his twelve (yes twelve) sections, writing at length (and with great density of prose) on the vintages, styles, strengths, weaknesses, past, present and future of Alsace, Austria, Germany, Burgundy, Champagne, the Eastern USA and several other places. Schildknecht's writing alone would be worth the price of the entire book. Both Neal Martin and Mark Squires do good jobs introducing their regions, especially since they are covering areas that do not get much press.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the contributions of Dr. Jay Miller. His introduction to Spain is perfunctory at best. For example, his "Important Information" section on Spain covers a grand total of 2 sentences. The sub-regional introductions only cover Ribera del Duero, Rioja and Toro (in the span of a half page), and the vintage summaries average 2-3 sentences with little in the way of useful information. Dr. Miller's introductions. Australia fares slightly better, but the coverage hardly measures up to the rest of the book.
Weighing the pluses and minuses the new edition of the Wine Buyer's Guide is a useful reference. Much of the introductory material will endure, making the book more useful than it would be as a mere collection of scores.
