Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide: The Complete, Easy-To-Use Reference on Recent Vintages, Prices, and Ratings for More Than 8,000 Wines from All the Maj (Paperback, 7)

Introduction 1
How to Use This Guide 1
Organization 1
Viticultural Areas Covered 1
Rating the Producers and Growers 2
Vintage Summaries 2
Tasting Notes and Ratings 3
Quoted Prices 4
Wine Price Guide Codes 5
The Role of a Wine Critic 5
About Wine 7
How to Buy Wine 7
How to Store Wine 8
The Question of How Much Aging 9
How to Serve Wine 12
Food and Wine Matchups 14
What's Been Added to Your Wine? 17
Organic Wines 18
The Dark Side of Wine 18
The Growing International Standardization of Wine Styles 18
Destroying the Joy of Wine by Excessive Acidification, Overzealous Fining, and Abrasive Filtration 18
The Inflated Wine Pricing of Restaurants 21
Collectors versus Consumers 21
Unspeakable Practices 23
Wine Producers' Greed 24
Wine Writers' Ethics and Competence 25
In Vino Veritas? 26
Safety Guidelines 27
What Constitutes a Great Wine? 29
Making Sense of Terroir 33
Recommended Reading 35
The Wine World's Biggest Lies 38
A Tongue-in-Cheek Guide to Understanding the Language of the Wine-maker 38
Wine on the Internet 39
The Wines of Western Europe 41
Chapter 1 France 43
Alsace 43
Bordeaux 126
Burgundy and Beaujolais 387
Champagne 624
The Loire Valley 632
The Languedoc-Roussillon 645
Provence 686
The Rhone Valley 693
Bergerac and the Southwest 905
Chapter 2 Italy 909
Piedmont 909
Tuscany 1023
Other Significant Red Wines of Italy 1080
Chapter 3 Germany and Austria 1114
Chapter 4 Spain and Portugal 1136
The Wines of North America 1177
Chapter 5 California 1179
Chapter 6 Oregon 1452
Chapter 7 Washington State 1478
Chapter 8 The Mid-Atlantic States 1499
The Best of the Rest 1501
Chapter 9 Australia and New Zealand 1503
Chapter 10 Argentina and Chile 1594
Chapter 11 South Africa 1597
Index 1599