Wine Spectator's Ultimate Guide to Buying Wine, Eighth Edition | List Price: $29.99
Discount Price: $3.52
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Binding: Paperback
This book is abysmal [Posted on 2005-07-09]
In 2000, WS published their 7th edition of the Ultimate wine buying guide. This books was too early to rate and address most of the Year 2000 Bordeaux vintage (as well as other year 2000 varietals). So one would expect that the 8th edition (published in 2004) would cover the 2000 Bordeaux wines, particularly since this vintage is widely-lauded as one of the best vintages in the last few decades. But no. The "Ultimate Guide" largely does not cover one of the best vintages of arguably the most prestigious varietal produced. This is beyond absurd.
Also this book eliminates 30,000 wines which were covered in the 7th edition. It also eliminates the relatively in-depth discussion of different wine-growing regions. It eliminates yearly summary vintage ratings. It has no index.
One can only presume that WS wants to publish one of these every year or two and make wine enthusiasts have to purchase each edition now, as apparently each edition will only address a limited number of wines.
This awful book is simply awful. Whoever made the above-referenced changes was severely misguided.
Nothing like previous editions ! [Posted on 2005-08-03]
I was VERY disappointed in the 8th edition of the Ultimate Guide to Buying Wine. I had used the previous seven editions extensively, but this edition will be of limited use to me. All other editions had included four or five vintages of the various wines produced by wineries. The 8th edition has short descriptions of only one vintage of each wine released by the wineries....and that is not very current. It appears that these evaluations were lifted directly from the Wine Spectator's monthly ratings from a couple of years ago. I will not purchase this once helpful tool if this format is continued in the next edition.
New format ruins what was a great book [Posted on 2005-09-26]
What a shame when a new format turns what was once a fairly encyclopedic wine guide into a rehash of the last years reviews. Having purchased editions 5, 6, and 7 I was eagerly waiting for the release of the 8th edition. It was stunningly disappointing.
What is worse is that the first reviews on Amazon must have been for earlier editions as they still listed "Over 40,000 wines reviewed". Misleading to say the least.
I'm returning mine as defective and will not purchase it again unless they go back to the old format.
Invaluable reference book for all wine drinkers/collectors [Posted on 2007-06-11]
No serious wine buyer/collector should be without this. Easy to use reference guide, with ratings against multiple vintages. I have yet to find a wine not listed in here, and the only downside is that this much information does not fit in a handbag (so memory is required for restaurant ordering)!
A new format that is not as useful [Posted on 2008-02-24]
Past issues of the Wine Spectator Ultimate Guide included all of the past vintages for each wine listed. This one is departure from that, and only covers a short window (couple of years) for each wine. If I had know that I wouldn't have bought it.
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