In Bordeaux, Burgundy and Tuscany, 1993 was an iffy year for winemaking, thanks to preharvest rains. That's the bad news for oenophiles. The good news is that 1993 has been a vintage year for books about their favorite beverage, with several volumes that qualify as collectibles.
Although it costs as much as a bottle of Perrier-Jouet brut, many wine lovers will consider the new (third) edition of Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide (Simon & Schuster; $40) an indispensable purchase. The nation's pre-eminent guru of grape, Robert M. Parker Jr., is writer-publisher of a plain-as-plonk (no ads, no pictures) bimonthly newsletter, The Wine...