Daniel Johnnes's Top 200 Wines:
An Expert's Guide to Maximum Enjoyment for
Your Dollar
Review From Library Journal:
Sommelier to three New York restaurants, Johnnes
offers contemporary advice on wines to try and buy. Following
concise explanations of grape varieties and the making, tasting,
and serving of wine, he addresses some common misconceptions
about wine and food. His selections for the top 200 wines are
grouped by the handy designations of body and color and explained
through information about the winery, winemaker, area,
and/or wine itself. The price and a food match are also
included. Johnnes's advice is basically sound, and reasonably
priced wines are well represented.
Unfortunately, some wines may not be easily found.
Johnnes also offers specific recommendations for setting up
an instant cellar for $500, $1000, or $5000-a formula of limited
interest to real oenophiles, who make cellar decisions to suit
their personal taste. Further, specific recommendations will
be somewhat dated in a year or two. There isn't much that is
new here. Recommended only for libraries maintaining exhaustive
collections on this topic.-Carolyn I.
Format: Paperback, 329pp.
ISBN: 0140513167
Publisher: The Penguin Group
Pub. Date: May 1996
Bordeaux: A Comprehensive Guide to
the Wines Produced from 1961 to 1997 Robert M. Parker
Review From The Publisher:
When Robert M. Parker, Jr.'s
Bordeaux was first published in 1985, it was greeted with tremendous
enthusiasm by such legendary authorities as Hugh Johnson and Michael
Broadbent. Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Esquire, and People
magazines soon joined in the praise, and the book became a huge
commercial and critical success. In England, it won the prestigious
Glenfiddich award.
Since that time, Parker
has published eight other books for wine lovers, many of which
have received critical awards -- Burgundy, The Wines of the
Rhône Valley and Provence, four editions of the Wine Buyer's
Guide, The Wines of the Rhône Valley, and an updated edition
of Bordeaux in 1991 -- as well as his highly respected newsletter,
The Wine Advocate, and bi-monthly columns in Food & Wine
magazine. With each book, his audience has expanded to the point
where not only American wine consumers but also those in France,
England, Japan, Sweden, and Germany have quickly learned to
trust his palate. In 1995, Parker became the first American
in the wine field to receive La Croix du Chevalier de l'Ordre
Nationale du Mérite (The Cross of the Knight of the National
Order of Merit), one of France's two highest honors, conferred
on him directly by President François Mitterrand. In
1998, he won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine and
Spirits Professional. Clearly, it can be said that Robert Parker
is America's foremost wine professional.
With this third edition
of the classic that launched him, Parker strives to maintain
his unprecedented independence, objectivity, clarity, and enthusiasm
in reporting on the vintages of Bordeaux and provides the prodigious
comprehensiveness for which he is known. Not only has he added
tastings for the vintages in the intervening years between this
and the last edition but he has also retasted and reevaluated
many earlier vintages. His accessible and direct style welcomes
both the seasoned wine collector and the eager beginner to the
pleasures of fine wine and France's most illustrious châteaux.
Organized by appellation,
Bordeaux moves alphabetically from one producer to the next,
providing essential information and an overview of the property
and its owners, listing each vintage, and including numerical
ratings and detailed tasting notes of most of that chateau's
wines for the past thirty-seven years. At the end of each tasting
note, Parker estimates the "anticipated maturity" -- the range
of time when the wine should peak in flavor and balance -- and
each entry concludes with a summary of the chateau's older vintages.
Throughout these extensive commentaries and tasting notes, there
is never a doubt that this is the most complete consumer's guide
to the wines of Bordeaux ever written.
Who is making Bordeaux's
best and worst wines? What has a specific château's track
record been over the last thirty or forty years? What châteaux
are overrated and overpriced? Which are underrated or
underpriced? Always with an eye toward the consumer, Parker
distinguishes true value from perceived value.
While the bulk of the book
is given over to these ratings, the opening and closing chapters
of the book provide readers with a true sense of the changes
in the region and its vintages. Such critical issues as: Who
most influences winemaking styles?, What role does technology
play in modern wine production?, and What impact do second labels
have on the quality of the first? are tackled here. Parker also
lovingly describes the growing conditions in the region year
by year, spending considerable time discussing the 1995 vintage,
which he terms "the most consistently top-notch vintage since
1990." In addition to this, Parker reassesses the Bordeaux
Classifications, the effects of the soil on the grapes, and
the different winemaking processes. He then rounds out this
incredible volume with a User's Guide to Bordeaux Wines, practical
travel and dining information for wine-touring trips, a
complete glossary of terminology,
and a quick reference index of the entire book.
As the first book to discuss
the 1995, 1996, and 1997 vintages in detail -- vintages that
are being hailed as the Best of the Century -- the third edition
of Bordeaux is the best tool to use in making both purchasing
and consuming decisions. From the wine writer The Sunday Times
(London) calls "the world's most experienced and trustworthy
palate," Bordeaux provides all the information today's consumer
needs in order to select the perfect bottle.
Format: Hardcover,
3rd ed., 1440pp.
ISBN: 0684800152
Publisher: Simon &
Schuster Trade
Pub. Date: October
1998
Edition Desc: REV
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