I loved Taber's book about the tasting of Paris (didn't everyone?) and enjoyed his latest effort, although it's best not to have the expectation of an overarching thesis. The book might more properly be thought of as really good long articles on various topics that relate to bargain wines and the new global wine world.Three chapters are profiles - an excellent one of Fred Franzia of Bronco/Two Buck Chuck fame, which provides details not previously written about; one on the history of Austrialia's [yellow tail] (including mention of the currency issues it faces in surviving in the U.S. market); and one - the most interesting one - on China in the global wine marketplace. In China they have even named one area Nava Valley - for obvious reasons.These and a few more chapters comprise 140+ pages.The second part of the book is filled with his recommendations on which bargain wines are the best. Since I write about organically grown wines - and am currently writing an iPhone app for organically grown wines under $20 (see [...] for most info) - I was interested to see what came up. There were a number of notable omissions, such as not mentioning Bonterra in the paragraph about Fetzer, but he did manage to mention Snoqualmie's Naked line, which is organic. Tablas Creek merited a few splurge wine recommendations.Unlike the book by "the wine economist", there was no mention of Aldo's role in Trader Joe's (the huge German retailer sells $1 wines in Germany). This very interesting story is covered in the book Wine Wars.All in all, this is a good quick read. I only wish there was more of the book book. I have the feeling a lot was left out. I don't feel these are the true innovators (Franzia, Yellowtail) in changing the way the world drinks. The real innovation is to change the way we produce and consume wine - i.e. more local, more organic, less Roundup.In California alone, where there are 500,000 acres of vineyards, the bargain wine industry (mostly, since about 4-5 old Central Valley Italian families control 70-80% of the wine made) pours 450,000 pounds of Roundup into the soil annually and Central Valley growers (like Bronco) use 6-10 times the water to grow grapes for low quality wines. So in reality these are not really "bargain" wines - they are wines that have huge environmental and monetary costs (all the water comes from the Sierra Mountains - California uses 20%+ of its energy shipping water around the state). Shipping wine around the world also has huge environmental costs.My advice is to drink local and organic - and there are options available to do that. Some examples would be Bonny Doon's Vino Rosso, Frey's low-end wines, Bonterra's table wines, Our Daily Red, and even Bronco's Green Fin ($4, but only at Trader Joe's.) Naked is another excellent label. This month Wine & Spirits awarded Panther Rock's (Franzia offspring run) Cottonwood Creek Cellars an "extreme value" wine ($7). While I personally don't like the Bronco folks (for the aforementioned contribution to pesticide and excessive water use), they should be commended for at least putting some organic bargain wines into the mix for people who will only buy bargain wines. However, bargain wines typically also have a high cost - they don't provide good jobs for California residents (they provide work for field laborers including nonresident migrant workers), they poison workers, workers' kids, and damage the soil (Roundup); and they don't provide funding for let's say endowing a chair for an organic viticulture professor in the U.C. system. They just take desert, add water and chemicals, and slave labor.When we think bargains, let's start counting all the costs.For more on the water issue, see here for chart on water use in winemaking in California: [...]