McInerney's canniness becomes more apparent as the collection moves along. He starts out by introducing readers to different styles of wine, but this kind of plug-and-chug journalism fails to fully satisfy his desire for lifestyle climbing. Gradually, the big kahunas of California and the vintner aristocrats of Europe become his beat. By sticking to it, he delivers a series of snapshots of the wine world's key '90s personalities: California hired-gun cult winemaker Helen Turley, who produces wine of such celebrated quality in such small quantities that you need to be on an exclusive mailing list to obtain any of it; Robert Mondavi, the godfather of premium wine in America (and the original Napa pretender to European-style viticultural nobility); Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou's Bruno Boire, a dapper gold-plated Bordeaux superbachelor whose pot-au-feu lunches for his female admirers, not to mention his generous ways with his stash of Chateau d'Yquem, have McInerney literally drooling with envy from the moment he turns into the driveway; Italian wine maestro Angelo Gaja and his speeding BMW 750; Jean-Luc Le Du, the rock 'n' roll sommelier at Daniel Boulud's namesake New York restaurant; and so on.

McInerney even sets up a Fitzgeraldian East Egg-West Egg rivalry in the American winemaking heartland, the Napa Valley. Down on the valley floor hunker the old-guard flatlanders, while up on the hillsides dwell the young turks ("guerrillas," according to McInerney). It's an old money/new money distinction -- the flatlanders might as well be Knickerbocker blue bloods to the hillsiders' go-go arrivistes. Now, the valley vs. the hills rivalry has not been lost on the rest of the wine press, but only McInerney's powerful social radar could zero in on the real story, the two sides eyeing each other warily across some of the most financially productive real estate in America. McInerney also pushes his luck here, raising the hillsiders -- who make limited-production, ultrapricey cult wines -- to Bordeaux-like "first growth" status. It's a risky bet, because most of these wines haven't been around long enough to prove themselves. But the rugged individualists are all in the hills, and McInerney can't resist their maverick allure.

McInerney's bacchanal culminates, somewhat repulsively, in an authentic binge. As the millennium turns, he and his crew of wine cronies -- Robinson, Julian Barnes, Auberon Waugh, Stephen Fry -- whip up a series of gourmet dinners in London and wash them down with many thousands of dollars' worth of extremely fancy wine. Compared with the genial amateurism, the deft Candide's progress, that has preceded it, this account of unabashed glugging ends the collection on a sour note. McInerney, who for the bulk of the collection has presented himself as a wide-eyed ally of the insecure reader, suddenly looks more like a glutton who has given in to the uglier side of his nature -- who has betrayed the Parker-esque advocacy he convinced his readers he was pursuing. This is unfortunate but hardly a huge knock on the overall effort, because one could spend a lot of money and a lot of time sorting out the maddeningly wide world of wine. Or one could read McInerney and, in a few hundred pages, learn just about everything anyone really needs to know.

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