| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
A long-awaited update to the US Wine Guru's second edition of this book, which was published while the famed 1990 Bordeaux vintage was barely a grape, this is a reference book to beat all reference books on the subject.
Robert Parker has sniffed, gurgled and ejected through the kasbah which is Bordeaux. There is hardly a chateau or a shack which hasn't been stormed by General Bacchus in his efforts to give, on the one hand, a concise, factual report on the property and, on the other, his own, very personal evaluation of the wine through as many vintages as he has tasted.
The author is very opinionated and others do not always share his views. After all, the test of a wine is as much about the drink itself as it is about the type of glass used, the food with which it is taken and the surroundings and company with which it is enjoyed. He does, however, wield an enormous amount of power. His bimonthly newsletter can make or break wines on the commercial market, doubling the cost of a top-scoring wine compared to that of its immediate peers within weeks of the Parker Pronouncement.
This is an invaluable book for anyone who adores Bordeaux wines or wants to hear the views of a knowledgeable companion on their trip through the minefield of styles and vintages. --Nick Tarayan
Product Description
Who is making Bordeaux's best and worst wines? What has a specific chateau's track record been over the last 40 years? Which chateaux are overrated or underrated? These are the questions Robert Parker answers fully in the new edition of his comprehensive and authoritative guide to the wines of Bordeaux. His vintage-by-vintage reports demonstrate thoroughness and discernment and he has set uncompromising standards in assessing each vintage from 1961 to 1997 for every major chateau. Each vintage is described in detail for taste, colour, quality and anticipated maturity, so you can see at a glance which wines are ready to drink now and when to enjoy those that are still maturing. For each chateau, Parker also provides details of how vineyards are planted, yields, annual production and style of vinification. He takes you through each of the famous Bordeaux regions and gives the official 1855 classifications, the crus classes and crus bourgeois, for each chateau along with his own appraisal of each one. Many chateaux long regarded as producing high-quality wines receive surprisingly low evaluations and Parker argues that many little-known chateaux ought to be upgraded on the evidence of the wines they have produced in the last 40 years. His assessment of the value of Bordeaux's top wines, including second labels of major chateaux as well as hundreds of under-publicized estates, make this a useful book for the wine buyer.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
There can be no question that the romance, if not mysticism, of opening a bottle of Bordeaux from a famous chateau has a grin and allure that are hard to resist. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
There can be no question that the romance, if not mysticism, of opening a bottle of Bordeaux from a famous chateau has a grin and allure that are hard to resist. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No other guide comes close,
This review is from: Bordeaux (Hardcover)
If you are a lover of the wines from one the world's finest and greatest wine regions (ie. the wines of Bordeaux; the other region being Burgundy)then you have to buy or have access to this book. It really is as simple as that. No other guide to Bordeaux wines is as complete, as consistent or displays as much scholarship and applied and intelligent research as does this one. For all the bric bats that are thrown his way, for all of the carping and moaning, for all of the jealous mutterings of his rivals, Robert Parker's consistently excellent tasting and writing talents continue to stand him out from the crowd. As with any wine critic and wine writer, you may find that his tastes do not coincide with yours. That is not a problem. I have a cellar that is full of wines that have been rated anywhere between 86/100 points and 100/100 points by Parker. There are days and occasions when the 86 pointer is just what I wish and need, and there are others when the 100 pointers are chosen to form the centrepiece of a grand and memorable dining experience. Parker does not profess to lay down taste requirements or criteria. He judges and comments on the quality of the wine. Think of chocolate. The finest chocolate, most would agree, is made by Belgian chocolatiers and are refined, elegant and linger on the palate, long after the chocolate has been consumed. However, it may well be the case that some of us do not enjoy chocolates which are made at that level of refinement or we cannot tolerate it on a daily or regular basis. We may be much happier munching a Snicker bar or a Reeces pieces. And so it is with wine. A wine which obtains a high Parker score will be a wine which deserves, through sheer quality, to be rated highly, in terms of its demonstrated quality, as objectively (yes, objectively) assessed by Parker. What we, the consumer, do with that information/advice is up to us, and Parker has never, so far as I know, ever sought to suggest that it should be any way otherwise. The book covers every Bordeaux estate that you can think of and many others besides (the one famous exception being Dome, owned by Jonathan Maltus), and provides a description of the property, its ownership, the nature, and quantity (in terms of numbers of bottles or cases of 12 bottles)of the wines produced, the volume of wine produced per hectare (a significant indicator of potential quality of the wine) and a vintage by vintage description and scoring of the principal wines produced by the various properties. Typically, there will be twenty or so recent vintages of the top Chateaux described, and perhaps half a dozen or so vintages of the less grand, but still grand wines. Of the lesser (but still very good wines), there will be general descriptions of the type and quality of wine produced, without any vintage by vintage scoring or descriptions. Advice is given in all cases as to the probable longevity of the wines, and the periods of their plateaux of maturity - the period of time during which the wine is fully evolved and at its peak. All in all, then, an excellent book. Buy it.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent reference,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bordeaux (Hardcover)
Unlike one reviewer stated earlier, "This book, in my opinion, fails to depict the mystique that surrounds wines", is unfounded. This book is not written and was not meant to show the mystic which surrounds wines. This is a excellent reference for explaining what type of wine was produced at a chateau during a given vintage. Not only does Mr. Parker rate the wines but defines the subtle characteristics most people can not distinguish. Copious tasting notes on many vintages and information provided about the chateau have proven to be quite useful when selecting wines to enjoy, while not over paying on poor vintages. Mr. Parker also addresses the issue on each chateau listing on classified growths on whether or not they still merit the classification bestowed upon them in 1855.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great on detail but easy to read for claret nuts,
By Mr Simon Hay (Cincinnati, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bordeaux (Hardcover)
If you are obsessive about wines from Bordeaux then this is the book for you. An immense amount of detail but easy to read or navigate. Love or loath Parker's scoring system he has tasted anything that moves and has an opinion - now where's my glass of Petrus '45?
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
