Innehållsförteckning för February 28, 2017 från Wine Spectator

Wineries stand out from the crowd for various reasons. Some are historical leaders in their region. Some produce large quantities of good-value wines. Still others create excitement by combining quality and rarity. But many great wineries still fly under the radar of most wine lovers. We want to shine the spotlight on some of these underappreciated gems. Think of them as wineries to trust, because these are producers that offer a broad range of wines that consistently deliver both excellence and affordability. That may be an even greater achievement than making a single iconic wine: It requires more nimbleness in the winery and more effort to stand out in the market. However, this approach allows winemakers to drill deeper into the particularities of terroir and varietal character. Some of these…

Novelty Hill/Januik A Big-Winery Veteran Fashions a Solid Portfolio Mike Januik left his job as head winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle in 1999 to start his own winery. He also agreed to consult with Seattle-based venture capitalist Tom Alberg and his wife, Judi Beck, on their new Columbia Valley vineyard, Stillwater Creek, a 245-acre site on the Royal Slope in Frenchman Hills. This soft-spoken winemaker had been responsible for more than a million cases a year at Ste. Michelle. But he loves the hands-on experience of producing 12,000 cases a year for his own brand and 22,000 more for Novelty Hill, Alberg’s label. Both labels deliver high quality across a wide spectrum of modestly priced wines. Ratings tend to cluster around 90 points. Most bottlings are priced at $23 to…

Mullineux A Love Story Spanning Three Continents This winery grew out of Chris and Andrea Mullineux’s transcontinental love story. Chris, from South Africa, and Andrea, from California, crossed paths while on a wine trip in Champagne. As they pursued their careers in wine, they worked separate stints in Languedoc, the Rhône, Provence and California. Andrea wound up in South Africa, while Chris returned to his homeland. Later, they joined up again at Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards (now known as Fable Mountain). The couple married in 2007 before leaving Tulbagh to start their own winery in 2009. The Mullineuxs chose the relatively undeveloped Swartland region for their winery. Drawn by easier start-up economics as well as the area’s old-bush-vine Chenin Blanc vineyards, they have acquired vineyards steadily while augmenting production with purchased…

Bérêche & Fils A New Generation Ramps Up Quality This small Champagne estate saw a burst of new energy when brothers Raphaël and Vincent Bérêche joined their parents, Jean-Pierre and Catherine, in the business in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Established in 1847, the winery is based in the village of Le Craon de Ludes, about 20 minutes south of Reims. The family sold grapes to larger houses before beginning commercial production of Champagne from their own vineyards in the early 1990s. The estate’s 24 acres of vines are planted to equal parts Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, spread among various parts of the Champagne region. Working side by side with their parents, Raphaël and Vincent are gradually steering the domaine down a dynamic new path. They’ve introduced increasingly labor-intensive…

Whiskey drinkers have rediscovered their taste for a drop of the Irish. Producers have been cutting ribbons at new distilleries to keep up with demand, as Irish whiskey sales increased 6.5 percent by volume globally last year, and 18 percent in the United States, according to Impact Databank, a sister publication of Wine Spectator. The Irish whiskeys populating this new wave are self-assured premium spirits worthy of your palate’s attention and made in a host of distinctive styles. Irish whiskey is effortlessly versatile, whether you sip it neat, mix it into refreshing long drinks or serve it with a twist as a cocktail base. At long last, Ireland is having its liquid gold rush. This revival of fortune involves several hot brands, like Jameson, unquestionably the flag-bearer for Irish whiskey;…

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. 96Torbreck RunRig Barossa Valley 2013 $225 AUSTRALIA This is tremendous, opening up chocolaty and creamy, with wild raspberry and cherry flavors that expand to detailed notes of nutmeg, licorice and dried rose petal. An expressive red, lingering on a smooth, velvety body. Shiraz and Viognier. Drink now through 2030. 1,250 cases made.—M.W. 95Alban Syrah Edna Valley Reva Alban Estate 2012 $98 CALIFORNIA Bold, rich, ripe and unabashedly Californian, offering expressive aromas of blackberry, blueberry and fruitcake spices that combine with deeply structured flavors of smoky bacon, roasted herb and fresh pepper. Drink now through 2027. 1,400 cases made.—T.F. 95Okonomierat Rebholz Riesling Qualitatswein Trocken Pfalz Kastanienbusch GG 2015 $120 GERMANY…

We decided that a great way to bring in the new year would be to give our readers some insights on new wines to discover— outstanding bottles and terrific values from around the world. These recommendations come in several packages, each approaching the wine world from a different angle. First, we asked our editors, “Which wineries can wine lovers always rely on?” The goal was to identify producers who may be slightly under the radar of many consumers but who consistently deliver great wines at reasonable prices across a wide range of bottlings. Then, based on their answers, we put together a list of 30 wineries you can look to with trust. They come from all over the wine world, and represent many different styles of wine. They include family-owned…

TIME TO SHINE The kitchen’s blazing-white palette and diamond-finish cabinetry would have been unthinkable when the Pisors’ kids were small and stains and smudges inevitable. “It’s a more grown-up version now,” Hilary reflects. “Food just tastes better when it’s on an open flame,” entrepreneur David Pisor observes. David, 51, and his wife, designer Hilary Pisor, 47, love to cook over wood fire at their home in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, with an indoor hearth, an outdoor grill and an outdoor oven. The idea extends to David’s Gold Coast steak house, Maple & Ash, which centers on a 12-foot wood-fired grill. But in December 2011, a fire upended the Pisors’ lives. While they were having their ebonized kitchen floors refinished, they went skiing in Lake Tahoe with their four kids. Partway through…

Bodega Norton Top Malbecs From Precision-Farmed Vineyards Over the past decade, as the thirst among Americans for Argentine Malbec’s rich, dark fruit flavors and supple texture has exploded, scores of new producers have rushed to enter the fray. As a result, quality has sometimes taken a backseat to marketing. But one old-line producer that has excelled and upped its game for the modern era is Bodega Norton. Founded in 1895, Norton has been owned since 1989 by Austrian billionaire Gernot Langes-Swarovski, of the famed crystal company. Since 1991, his son Michael Halstrick has overseen the winery, pursuing an aggressive modernization program. A turning point came in 1997, when Norton bought a large tract in the prime Agrelo terroir near its winery in the Luján de Cuyo subdistrict of Mendoza, Argentina’s…

Jamsheed A New Face Down Under Jamsheed’s Gary Mills is the poster boy for the new face of Australian wine. Focused on single-vineyard wines, oldvine sites in cool climates and minimalist winemaking techniques, he consistently achieves elegant, complex results. Jamsheed’s name comes from Mills’ background as a literature student. It refers to a Persian king who loved to store grapes. When they spontaneously fermented, the result was assumed to be poison. A member of the king’s harem drank some of the “poison” in a suicide attempt, but discovered the substance’s benefits instead. Jamsheed would come to say he could see his kingdom in a cup of wine. Mills’ kingdom is Victoria and its various subregions just outside of Melbourne. There he finds unique vineyards and then gets out of the…

Badia a Coltibuono Building on Tradition This estate makes its home in an 11thcentury monastery that has been in the Stucchi Prinetti family since 1846. The abbey now houses the aging cellars, an olive press and rooms for guests. Badia a Coltibuono’s 148 acres of vineyards are located about 10 miles away in Monti (Gaiole), in the historic heart of the Chianti Classico region. Badia a Coltibuono began bottling and labeling its own wines in the 1960s, producing traditional, long-lived Chianti Classico from Monti’s limestone soils. The wines are aged for 12 to 24 months in mostly neutral oak casks. The estate is managed by Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti and her three brothers: Roberto, Paolo and Guido. The vineyards were replanted in the late ’90s, mostly to Sangiovese, with smaller blocks…

Port is one of the world’s greatest wines. After more than three centuries of production, it retains its place as both historic benchmark and global quality leader. Along with Bordeaux and Jerez, two other classic wines, it derives its name from the town at its heart—Porto, an ancient city located on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. Port is also one of the world’s most overlooked wines. It often requires decades of aging to reach maturity, not an ideal fit in a world more geared to immediate gratification. And it struggles for attention at a time when sweet wines have fallen from fashion. But no serious wine cellar is complete without Port, and the region’s houses have continued to make versions of the highest quality. The Douro River snakes south and…

In this ultraluxe wine collector’s compendium, sommelier Enrico Bernardo offers his all-star list of wines for posterity— a fantasy cellar, if you will. Among his selections are Bollinger Champagne 1924, Château Margaux 1928 (Bernardo calls it “one of the best wines I have ever tasted,” which is saying something in this company) and Penfolds Grange Bin 95 1951. His brief notes run from precise and informative to evocative. In a way, the book is more about art than wine; it’s unrivaled in production value and lavishness. It comes in a wooden box with a rope handle, elegant but with a folksy touch. Inside is a gorgeous 14-by-17-inch book. The cloth binding covers heavy boards and is printed with an image of an engraving of Dionysus and gold-stamped lettering. It’s only…

Upstate New York state’s Finger Lakes region faced a tricky growing season in 2015, but established producers continued their pattern of fielding Mother Nature’s vintage vagaries with a steady hand. A markedly wet first half of the season had growers doubling and tripling antifungal measures in their vineyards to ward off disease. A late spate of dry and warm weather saved the vintage, though a heavy downpour in mid- October dashed any grapes that hadn’t yet been picked (mostly late-ripening reds). The result is wines with broader textures and lower acidities; aromatic whites far outpaced the reds. Not surprisingly, Riesling, the region’s signature grape, provides the best set of wines for consumers to choose from. Since my last report on the region (“Keeping Cool,” Jan. 31 – Feb. 29, 2016),…

Ayoub Slow and Steady Wins the Race In 2001, Mo Ayoub planted a pocket-size, 4-acre Pinot Noir vineyard tucked into the Dundee Hills at 600 feet of elevation. He was 48 years old, commuting to Oregon from his job in California’s Silicon Valley. It took him a decade to save enough money to finish building a small winery adjacent to the vineyard cottage just outside the town of Dundee. From the beginning, he kept prices well below those for wines that, like his, consistently earn ratings in the 90-plus range. “I believe I have to earn it,” he said. The debut 2004 bottling from his tiny estate vineyard was released in 2006. He completed the winery in 2011, and now makes eight small-production wines. Besides his estate bottlings, he offers…

Montes A Trailblazer Continues to Forge Ahead Aurelio Montes has been on the cutting edge of Chilean winemaking for almost three decades. In 1988, with two partners, he founded what would become Viña Montes; before that, he worked in the cellars of such historic estates as Undurraga and San Pedro. Today, his winemaking home is Viña Montes’ state-of-the-art winery in the Apalta district of the Colchagua Valley, south of Santiago, in central Chile. Montes first bought land in Apalta 25 years ago, when the region was still largely unknown for wine. It has since become one of Chile’s prime terroirs for high quality reds. His top-of-the-line labels—Folly, Purple Angel, Alpha M and Alpha—routinely rate among Chile’s best. A neighboring facility makes the Classic range of wines, which offers formidable value.…

MORE THAN 1,200 WINES AT 90+ AND $30 OR LESS Wine lovers get excited when they uncork a great wine for a special occasion. The excitement is even greater when that bottle also represents terrific value. Because Wine Spectator editors taste blind, we are judging quality without any knowledge about price. We love finding outstanding wines; even better is discovering that those bottles are relatively affordable. Pointing our readers to high quality bottles at good prices is always at the top of our to-do list, and we highlight such wines in many ways throughout the year. We were pleasantly surprised when we ran the numbers from our editors’ tastings during 2016: We found we had tasted more than 1,200 wines that scored 90 points or higher and cost $30 or…

BY THE NUMBERS The Feb. 28 Buying Guide features 28 classic wines and nearly 475 outstanding wines from among reviews of more than 650 new releases. Members can access tasting notes and scores for those wines, along with nearly 825 additional wines reviewed since our last issue, using the Wine Ratings search at WineSpectator.com.…