Andrea Immer's 2004 Wine Buying Guide for Everyone

Author of the hugely popular Great Wine Made Simple and a wine and spirits column for Esquire, Immer scores another hit with this annual update of her wine buying guide. The author, who serves as the Dean of Wine Studies at the French Culinary Institute and is an accredited Master Sommelier, made her name by combining extensive wine knowledge with a friendly, consumer-oriented attitude. In this book, she puts both skills to use to answer the two most common wine questions:""What are the good, cheap wines? And which wines are really worth the splurge?"" The 600 individual wine entries--200 of which are new--focus on wines that are readily available in stores and restaurants and provide practical information about how long the wine is likely to survive after opening. A wine that tastes better after being open for 2-3 days, for example, gets a B+. Immer also provides numeric rankings for wines by taste and value, and leaves space for wine-lovers to make their own tasting notes. (Several of the selections were suggested by online reviewers through Immer's Web site.) The book also contains 20 pages of best-of lists, sorted by grape, taste, value and popularity. Her overall advice for 2004? Drink up the Shiraz, the Pinot Grigio and the Riesling!