Wine Spectator's Ultimate Guide to Buying Wine

Required reading for anyone who buys and enjoys wine, this newly revised and updated seventh edition of the most comprehensive ratings guide includes current prices for more than 30,000 wines produced in the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Australia, and other countries, from "value" choices to rare, collectible vintages. It features detailed tasting notes and descriptions of more than 15,000 different wines, evaluated in blind tastings by the editors of Wine Spectator magazine. For quick reference, easy-to-scan tables organize wines by value or quality. Informative introductions to wine-producing areas worldwide, full-color illustrations, and shopping lists of the best currently available wines in numerous categories make this truly the ultimate guide for oenophiles of all vintages.

No more excuses for buying wine based on label design! The popular Wine Spectator magazine's massive guide covers common recent vintages as well as rare collectibles. More than 40,000 individual wine ratings--organized first by country, then by producer--are based on blind tastings by the magazine's editors. Each entry includes a rating on a 100-point scale, price information, and often a description of the wine--for example, "Wild and exotic, bursting at the seams with tons of round fruit flavors, loads of wild berry characteristics, hints of violets, earth and blueberries and well-integrated tannins to boot." The editors smartly contextualize this mass of data with an introduction to each country's wine industry, emphasizing the country's major growing regions, common grape varietals, significant geographic and climatic influences, labeling conventions, and stylistic traditions and trends.

This guide's most useful features are tables organizing the wines by overall quality or value. For example, the connoisseur will enjoy the table listing only the finest wines from the greatest vintages of the past 10 years. Any wine enthusiast will do well with the table featuring "value wines" rated 85 points or higher but costing less than $12. Another table of top-rated current releases is a veritable shopping list. With that list, no one needs to rely on pretty labels anymore. --Brendan Finucane