This is the story of how an American lawyer caused a revolution in the way wines around the globe are made, sold, and talked about. Parker's influential newsletter, The Wine Advocate, exerts the single most significant influence on consumers' wine-buying habits and trends, and impacts the way wine is made in every wine-producing country in the world. To his fans, Parker is part enthusiastic sensualist and part consumer crusader. To his enemies, he is a self-appointed wine judge bent on reducing the meaning of wine to a two-digit number. The man who now rules the world of wine has been the focus of both adulation and death threats. He rose to his pinnacle of power by means of the traditional American virtues of hard work, determination, and integrity--coupled with an unshakeable ego and a maniacal obsession with a beverage that aspires to a seductive art form.--From publisher description.