Indholdsfortegnelse for September 30, 2024 i Wine Spectator

Visit WineSpectator.com/093024 to find links to all of the following resources. NEW YORK WINE EXPERIENCE Don’t miss your chance to taste an exciting variety of wines, with top-scoring bottlings and rare older vintages from the world’s best vintners. This year’s event will take place Oct. 17–19 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. Weekend packages, which include VIP Grand Tasting access, plus wine seminars and a Champagne reception, are available for purchase now. FREE RESOURCES FOR ALL WINESPECTATOR.COM READERS  LABOR DAY CELEBRATIONS We recruit leading chefs and cookbook authors to share their favorite end-of-summer recipes. Plus, Wine Spectator editors pick well-priced, highly rated wines to enjoy over the long weekend. PRIVATE GUIDE TO DINING Our free, twice-monthly email newsletter spotlights the best restaurants for wine lovers, from bucket-list destinations to perfect pizza…

Sergiy Stakhovsky’s post-tennis retirement plan was to focus entirely on his winery in western Ukraine. The former professional player—whose defeat of Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2013 is considered one of the tennis world’s great upsets—launched Stakhovsky Wines with the 2018 vintage to prove to his countrymen that delicious wine could be made in Ukraine. But when Russia launched its full-scale invasion Feb. 24, 2022, his plans were derailed. He headed to the front lines. “For me it was simple,” he said. “I was born in Ukraine and played on the national team and saw the flag raised for us at the Olympics. I had to fight.” Speaking to Wine Spectator from the basement of a military compound in Kiev in March, Stakhovsky reported that morale was low in his…

The edge of Domaine de la Côte’s Bloom’s Field Vineyard is a dramatic look at what makes Santa Barbara’s Sta. Rita Hills distinctive. The Santa Ynez River twists through the basin, while massive outcroppings of brilliant white hills of diatomaceous earth rise above the valley floor, much like the one on which the vineyard is planted. “You don’t typically find Pinot Noir and Chardonnay planted on sedimentary, diatomaceous earth and shale,” says Sashi Moorman, winemaker and co-founder of Domaine de la Côte, a benchmark winery. Diatomaceous earth is extremely rare in wine regions and the preponderance of the silica-based earth within Sta. Rita’s marine sedimentary bedrock is profound. But it’s just one component of a patchwork of soils coupled with a marine-influenced climate that makes Sta. Rita Hills such a…

Santa Barbara is an inviting entry to the area’s wine country. Sandy beaches give way to a city with Spanish colonial and Mediterranean influences, and Mission-style and adobe buildings with verdant piazzas entice visitors to linger. Good restaurants and wine bars are easily accessible by foot and there’s no shortage of luxury accommodations. While there are no vineyards at hand, the wine culture extends to the county’s central city—Santa Barbara’s Urban Wine Trail comprises a compact compendium of tasting rooms, most of which are divided between two central downtown districts: The Funk Zone and The Presidio. The Presidio is part of the city’s old downtown, and tasting rooms are housed in historic adobe or Mission-style buildings. The area around De La Guerra Plaza is home to the bulk of these…

BY THE NUMBERS The Sept. 30 Buying Guide features 44 classic wines and more than 425 outstanding wines from among reviews of nearly 525 new releases. Members can access tasting notes and scores for those wines, along with hundreds of additional wines reviewed since our last issue, using the Wine Ratings search at WineSpectator.com.…

The Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) trade association held the latest iteration of the Collective Napa Valley Auction Weekend from May 31 to June 1. The evolving series of festive events raised $4.8 million, including a revamped live auction that brought in $2.4 million. The proceeds will support youth mental health programs in Napa County. Unlike both the extravagant prepandemic events and modest postpandemic fundraisers, the new auction brought back some of the original luxury while adding intimacy and focus, with a smaller audience and fewer lots. “There was such great energy. People were excited to be back,” said Emma Swain, CEO of St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery. Auction Napa Valley (formerly known as the Napa Valley Wine Auction) was founded in 1981 by a group of local vintners, including…

Legendary vintages can be tough acts to follow, even for very high quality years. Such is the case for the excellent 2022 vintage in Austria, which has been somewhat overshadowed by the widely acclaimed 2021. “For many people, the outstanding quality of the 2022 vintage is not visible because of the highly praised 2021 wines,” says Rudi Pichler, who helms his namesake family estate in the Wachau. “While a perfect year like 2021 is everybody’s darling, like Mozart, I think 2022 is more like Beethoven—it has more complexity and depth.” Though 2021 was rightly championed as one of Austria’s top vintages of the past two decades, my recent tastings of more than 150 wines for this report revealed many superb 2022 Grüner Veltliners and Rieslings, the country’s two signature white…

Santa Barbara County is geologically influenced by millions of years of being under the Pacific Ocean, resulting in a foundational bedrock of marine sedimentary rocks. The Santa Ynez Valley began forming some 20 million years ago when tectonic plate movements caused mountains to surge from beneath the ocean. As they formed and shifted throughout millions of years, they separated from the plates and turned clockwise, creating one of the only places in the Western Hemisphere with a transverse mountain range. Distinct mountain ranges were carved out during the turbulent tectonic occurrence, defining what is now Sta. Rita Hills: Purisima Hills, Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Rosa Hills. Each range has its own unique terroir with a multitude of microclimates within. In terms of grapegrowing, they all benefit from the east-west…

Taking a break from wine tasting? If downtown Santa Barbara is on the itinerary, seek out Old Mission Santa Barbara (santabarbaramission.org), a national historical landmark, for a look into the city’s origins. At the Santa Barbara Courthouse (countyofsb.org/1819/Santa-Barbara-Courthouse), the area’s Spanish colonial architecture is on full display; it’s free to visit and an elevator ride to the top of the courthouse watchtower rewards with a 360-degree view of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara’s 300 days of sunshine a year are an ideal backdrop for a variety of outdoor activities. There are nearly 100 hiking trails in Santa Barbara County, many of which take you to the tops of the Santa Ynez Mountains for ocean vista views. Championship golf courses Glen Annie (glenanniegolf.com) and Sandpiper (sandpipergolf.com) will test your handicap. Hop aboard…

The diversity on display among Italy’s red and white wines is equally found from the country’s sparklers. Bottlings of Prosecco are virtually ubiquitous today, available in every retail shop and on nearly every wine list. Dry versions of Moscato d’Asti and Lambrusco are appearing at higher levels of quality, shedding their reputation for volume-driven production. Esteemed regions such as Franciacorta and Trento are turning out their own interpretations of Champagne with bottlings that give French producers a run for their money. The biggest dividing line in Italian sparkling wine is the production process: the Charmat method vs. the traditional method. In both versions, production begins with harvested grapes undergoing an alcoholic fermentation that results in a still wine, but at that point the methods diverge. For the former, also known…

What to serve alongside your fine cheeses? Given the plethora of tasty options currently available, it’s a fun prospect to consider. From jams and chutneys to pickles and preserves, when sorting through potential partners to highlight—and even enhance—your cheeses, it’s wise to always consider the fundamental food-pairing principles of balance, complement and contrast. All cheeses contain salt, so sweet partners are a good starting place. Ditto the fats in cheeses, which find balance with acidity. Earthy and vegetal notes in cheeses are complemented by similar flavors in the likes of savory partners such as olives and nuts. For any cheese type, the foundation—literally and figuratively—is some sort of bread, flatbread or cracker. A crusty baguette, providing relatively neutral flavor and some nice texture contrast, is the No. 1 go-to. Breads…

GETTING AROUND Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) offers flights from several parts of the country and is the fastest way to dive right in. Alternatively, Los Angeles Airport (LAX) is a few hours south. If driving to the region from either north or south, follow Highway 101, which leads directly into the heart of Santa Barbara and its wine country (45 minutes northwest of downtown). Amtrak runs daily service for a leisurely, scenic tour of California, stopping in the center of Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, just steps from the beach. All tasting routes can be accessed from Highway 101, which connects to highways 246 and 154, which run parallel through the Santa Ynez Valley. Navigating the county is relatively easy and traffic-free, and sampling is simplified in that most wineries have…

The reality of the 2022 vintage for California Pinot Noir is that the wines aren’t at the level of 2021, the current benchmark year. But it’s unfair to expect the state’s Pinot Noir producers to replicate the success of 2021, a vintage when everything seemed to go right. The good news is that 2022 is still an outstanding vintage, yielding Pinots with ripe, juicy and precocious fruit profiles that should make for excellent short- to mid-term drinking as you wait for the denser ’21s to mature in the cellar. “It is hard coming after ’21, because that was such a structured vintage,” says Jeff Mangahas, winemaker at Williams Selyem in the Russian River Valley. “I feel ’22 is really more normal in profile. The wines have also filled out nicely…

Highly Recommended The issue’s most impressive wines. Includes top-scorers and wines that represent optimal purchases based on their combination of score, price and availability. 96 Aubert Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast UV-SL Vineyard 2022 $100 CALIFORNIA An impressive wave of raspberry, boysenberry and mulberry fruit paste flavors cruises through, while singed anise, warm earth, black tea and briar hints fill in along the way. Displays richness and tension—not an easy feat in this vintage—and a long, sapid finish. Built for the cellar. Best from 2026 through 2038. 1,129 cases made.—J.M. 96 Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills Machado 2022 $85 CALIFORNIA Offers a beautiful, steady stream of blood orange, bitter cherry and raspberry coulis notes stitched finely with subtle rooibos tea, singed sandalwood, dried anise and savory details. Feels pinpoint in focus, with…