Parker's Wine Bargains: The World's Best Wine Values Under $25

Parker started off in wine reviewing with an eye toward consumer value. He exposed wines that were well-known but ultimately inferior products and championed other wines that were excellent but obscure. Since then his ratings have been much argued over and his influence has been both decried and heralded. Well, whatever. This is a book built on his original reputation, showing us wines that were good whether we had heard of them before or not. With a price cutoff of $25, this is not as "low priced" as some of the other wine bargain books out there, but I think the book is an excellent resource for wines that are both excellent on a budget and really good wines that happen to be inexpensive (often because no one had heard of them before). Parker tastes a lot of wines and has strong opinions on them, and both of those attributes help this book. I would also note that the price ranges listed (and the $25 limit on wines for the book) represent some sort of nominal industry pricing and in my experience many of the wines are available at retail for randomly lower prices. And take the price of this ephemeral book as a small cost of avoiding a dodgy bottle of wine. (Note that the Parker tasting scores do NOT appear in this book. Just recommended wines, approximate prices, and some text about the wine.)