Italian Wines 2003

In my review of the 2002 edition of the Gambero Rosso's Guide to Italian Wines, I took the editors and publishers to task for taking too long to get an English edition in our hands. After all, the purpose of the Guide is to review the best Italian wines released in the past year. It's an annual, not a periodical publication, and as a result the book inevitably closes too soon to include key wines from the most recent vintage. Case in point: the 2002 edition failed to include '97 Brunellos even though they had been available in the US for six months prior to publication. I hypothesized that their rigorous judging process simply took too long.I'm sure it's a coincidence, but the most interesting change in the 2003 Gambero is the lengthy explanation/apology in the introduction for why it takes so long for them to complete their judging. Otherwise, it's same old/same old, which is a good thing because the Gambero remains the authoritative publication on the best wines made in Italy.For newbies: the Gambero rates about 20.000 Italian wines a year and awards the best of them 1-3 glasses (three glasses is the highest award and is slowly becoming recognized in America as the definitive point-of-view on Italy). In the 2003 edition, 250 wines across Italy earned the highest honor, the coveted "tre bicchiere" or 3 glass status. Now you can occasionally find a tre bicchiere tag hanging from a wine store rack even in the untutored wilds of New Jersey. After using the book for a number of years, I find the hit ratio, ie the ratio of wines I actually enjoy divided by the sum of the wines they recommend to be the highest of any source of wine reviews I've ever used. I'm going to Italy for a vacation in a couple of weeks, and you can be sure I'll be packing my Gambero. So despite the dollar's nasty slide, I'll be ready to jump on a hard-to-find or well-priced Gambero favorite. Gambero-if you're listening, please make a version that's downloadable to PDA or iPod or whatever turns you on. I asked for this two years ago and non vedo l'ora. Grazie.