Innehållsförteckning för May 31, 2017 från Wine Spectator

A wine can taste wonderful on its own—who hasn’t enjoyed a glass of chilled rosé by the pool? And for close analysis, it’s best to study a wine in isolation from sensory distractions. But wine truly finds its home in the company of food. Good food connects with a wine’s structure and unlocks its flavors. A good pairing improves both partners. On most occasions, we first decide what we’re go-ing to eat, and then choose a wine to accompany that. The basic rules work most of the time: red with meat, white with fish. Sometimes it’s fun to make the matches more precise—white Burgundy with Dover sole, or Napa Cabernet with a rib-eye steak. But passionate wine lovers often reverse the pro-cess—we have a special bottle and want to create…

Single Thread Farms is a natural for Sonoma County. This California wine region was among the first hot-beds of the farm-to-table movement, and the duo be-hind Single Thread—Kyle and Katina Connaughton—honor that tradition while layering in Japanese influences to create a unique and ambitious new restaurant. Single Thread was two years in the making when the Con-naughtons perfected their very personal vision of a restaurant, farm and inn. Using his experience with A-list chefs outside London and in Los Angeles, as well as at French chef Michel Bras’ outpost in Japan, Kyle developed recipes in a research kitchen while Katina tended the farm in Alexander Valley. The result is a destination that elevates farm-to-table cuisine to an almost immersive level. Each of the tasting menu’s 11 courses is meticulously composed,…

The Octomore announces it-self at arm’s length. Pull the cork, and the aroma of smoke wafts straight to the nos-trils, stirring memories of camp-fires long extinguished. There’s no mistaking the smell of peat coming out of this bottle. When this Scotch whisky from Islay’s Bruichlad-dich distillery was intro-duced eight years ago, it roughly tripled the mea-surable smoke aromas of its nearest competitors. To the uninitiated it may have seemed like over-kill, but a burgeoning band of enthusiasts em-braced the pushing of the smoke envelope. Over the past few de-cades, an intrepid corps of drinkers have enlisted as the peat-seeking missiles of the Scotch world, turning a taste for smoke into a cause. Their attraction to smoldering charms has opened a previously un-appreciated market segment that champions boldness over subtlety. REDUXNot…

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. 96Felton Road Pinot Noir Central Otago Cornish Point 2015 $80 NEW ZEALAND There’s plenty of purity to the strawberry and cranberry flavors at the core, with toasted rye and nutmeg aromas. Elegant and graceful, with tannins exerting a light grip on the finish, where the aromas expand. Drink now through 2027. 1,038 cases made.—M.W. 95M. Chapoutier Hermitage White Chante- Alouette 2015 $110 FRANCE Very fresh, with a honeysuckle-gilded core of white peach, melon rind and Jonagold apple notes. The beguiling finish lets hints of talc and wet stone glide through. Shows lovely purity and serious length. Drink now through 2029. 725 cases imported.—J.M. 95Quintodecimo Taurasi Vigna…

This Buying Guide contains ratings of new releases from around the world and the results of special tastings reported on in greater depth elsewhere in the issue. Complete tasting notes are provided for all new releases scoring 85 or more points (on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale, explained below); notes for wines scoring 84 points or less are included at the discretion of the taster. Additional reviews appear on our website, www.winespectator.com. Each review carries the initials of the Wine Spectator editor who blind-tasted and scored the wine and wrote the review, based on the regional specializations indicated below. If no reviewer’s initials appear, the wine was tasted by a panel of Wine Spectator editors. How We Do the Tastings Wine Spectator editors taste approximately 20,000 wines each year. Wines…

In a sign of changing times, Flow Kana, a California distributor of sustainable, sun-grown cannabis, has purchased Fetzer Win-ery’s old stomping grounds in Mendocino County’s Redwood Valley. Neither party has disclosed the sale price, but the 80-acre ranch and vineyards were listed for $3.5 million. Fetzer produced its first com-mercial vintage at the site in 1968 but later shifted primary operations to the North Coast Winery in Hopland. Brown-Forman bought Fetzer in 1992 and sold it to Concha y Toro in 2011, but members of the Fetzer family retained owner-ship of the Redwood Valley site. (They still own another part of the property.) Flow Kana distributes can-nabis to more than 100 dis-pensaries throughout North-ern California. It plans to transform the winery into a cultivating, manu-facturing, distribution and retail hub. Some…

For many, alcohol and travel go hand-in-hand. Even when you’re not visiting wine country, you’re likely celebrating your respite from responsibility with a tipple or two. And though overindulg-ing while on holiday can wreak havoc on your immune system, studies have shown that consuming alcohol could actually be one of the best ways to prevent some of the nastiest vacation-ruining illnesses. Stomach bugs like listeria, salmonella and E. coli are common pitfalls for travelers visiting areas where sanita-tion standards are lower than those to which they are ac-customed. Luckily for wine lovers, studies have shown that when alcohol is consumed, the risk of succumbing to food-borne illnesses decreases significantly. Alcohol’s high acidity makes it easier for the stomach’s natural acidity to kill pathogens. U.K.-based food scientist Richard Conroy is an…

Website www.theoakroomlouisville.com/special-events.html Each year, the Oakroom in Louisville, Ky., hosts its Royal Brunch on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Easter and—since we’re in Kentucky—Derby Day. (For those who don’t already have Derby awareness ingrained in the psyche, this year the event is May 6.) The wine list at the Oakroom has held a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence since 2011, but the restaurant itself has been around far longer. It’s housed in the Seelbach Hilton, which opened its doors as the Seelbach Hotel in 1905 and established the Oakroom two years later. During the Roaring Twenties, its cocktail-and-card-game-seeking clientele allegedly included Al Capone and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Today, the cellar is strongest in classic California, Burgundy and Bordeaux selections, but expect a strong showing from the Rhône as well. In…

Sauvignon Blanc represents the aromatic-whites category with flair. It slathers distinctive grassy, leafy, herbal, even vegetal scents around citrus, passion fruit and green berry flavors. The best examples find a balance that makes Sauvignon Blanc an easy choice for foods that shout “drink a white wine with me.” The variety’s ancestral home is France’s Loire Valley; the two benchmark appellations there are the neighboring regions of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. These wines are made with an eye to-ward freshness, using no or minimal oak treatment, and on the palate, they are framed with a dry, crisp texture. New Zealand and California have created their own distinctive styles. The tangy zing of a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc responds better to lively flavors than California’s somewhat mellower profile does. Oak-aged versions, more common in…

Cabernet Sauvignon is at the heart of great Bordeaux from the Médoc and Graves. It’s the grape of choice for Napa Valley’s best reds, and it makes outstanding wines from virtually every moderate climate on Earth. Depending on the environment and winemaking style, the wines can emphasize fruit or herbal flavors. Napa ver-sions often go for plushness and opulent fruit; those from Bordeaux usually show more savory overtones. Other regions find their own balance of fruit and structure. Wherever the grape grows, its sturdy structure shows firm tannins, and flavors that call to mind currants, dark berries and cherries, with herbal, cedar and mineral notes. Cabernets can be made as 100 per-cent varietal wines, but to achieve balance and complexity, blends may include other grapes, such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc,…

The old maxim is, “Figures don’t lie.” But with parts per million of phenol, the numerical index that can be applied to precisely measure the peat in malt whisky, comes the tendency to overemphasize how smoky a malt will taste. So take the peat-numbers game with a grain of barley—and remember that Islay on the label doesn’t always mean the bottle is full of smoke. First, consider that peat content is measured long before the Scotch is finished. The phenol index is based on how much peat smoke gets on the barley grains before they are mashed, fermented, distilled and aged. It is a function of how long the barley is exposed to peat smoke. Furthermore, peats from different regions have different qualities—Islay is known for its maritime flavors, for…

Is a buttery Chardonnay the perfect pairing for a bucket of movie popcorn? Theater owners are hop-ing so. Movie theater attendance has declined significantly in the past five years, according to in-dustry data, even as the economy has rebounded; many customers are binge-watching streaming services at home rather than heading out to the cinema. But a group of theaters—both independent establishments and chains—are trying to lure back customers with new con-cession items: alcoholic beverages, including wine. Theaters have experimented with wine for nearly 20 years, but it’s always been more of a novelty than a stan-dard part of the experience. But as owners try to draw audiences back with bigger screens, better picture and sound quality and comfy reclining seats, some are seeing that wine, beer and cocktails are one…

A glass of wine a day could help keep your mind sharp. Several scientific studies have linked resveratrol, a polyphenol found in grape skins, to a reduced risk in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, among other health benefits. Now researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, have published the results of a pilot study in the journal Experimental Gerontology, posit-ing that the compounds in grapes can strengthen brain activity in patients begin-ning to experience cognitive decline. The UCLA team conducted the study with five men and five women, ages 66 to 82, who had experienced mild decline in cognition for at least six months. People already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dis-ease or another cause of dementia, or who were taking medication for it,…

Website www.augustin.no/artikler/ altona-vinbar-kjokken Adventurers in Norway get a taste of Scandinavian cele-bration on May 17, Constitu-tion Day. One of the best places to expe-rience it is Bergen, the waterfront city that includes the Byfjorden fjord and is surrounded by the Seven Mountains. Best of Award of Excellence–winning Al-tona Vinbar has arguably the strongest wine cellar in the city. On the Friday and Saturday before Constitution Day, this destination for ele-vated Norwegian fare offers a dinner of four courses, with two dishes per course. (On the holiday itself, Altona opens early and serves ice cream, the day’s traditional treat, to children for free.) The meal begins with an aperitif of Hardanger apple cider and continues with duos of fish, fowl and meat. Try offerings like salt cod, Kraftkar blue cheese, dove and…

“It’s an exciting time for Sauvignon Blanc,” says David Ramey of Sidebar, who sees a renewed enthusiasm for this once-underdog variety among wine lovers and sommeliers alike. This burgeon-ing reputation correlates to the closer attention winemakers are paying to the grape. Improved vineyard practices and winemaking techniques have turned California Sauvignon Blanc into a consistent, highly prized category for fans of white wine. The buzz is backed up by the numbers. Of the approximately 200 bottlings reviewed in blind tastings in our Napa office during the past year, more than one-quarter earned outstanding ratings of 90 points or higher on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale. (A free alphabeti-cal list of scores and prices for all wines tasted is available at www.winespectator.com/053117.) This is a relatively recent devel-opment. For years, California…

47 Sparkling Wine Scallops Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley L’Ermitage 2009 51 Sauvignon Blanc Fennel Salad Robert Mondavi Fumé Blanc 2014 54 Chardonnay Cornish Hens Shafer Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros Red Shoulder Ranch 2014 61 Pinot Noir Glazed Salmon Hahn Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands SLH 2014 65 Cabernet Sauvignon Grilled Steak William Hill Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013 Usually when we match wine and food, we ask what to drink with a specific dish, as in, “What bottle will will go best with a grilled steak?” That’s one reason why peo-ple stock cellars at home and why restau-rants maintain extensive wine lists—to keep a variety of possibilities at hand. But sometimes we want to reverse the process. That prized bottle you’ve been saving for years deserves a dish that…

Achieving full ripeness in a cool climate is the hallmark of classic red Burgundy, and that’s exactly what occurred in the 2014 vintage, making the year’s wines reminiscent of those from an earlier era. “To me, 2014 is a classical Burgundy vin-tage, with a beautiful acidity,” says vintner Olivier Bernstein. “The difficulty was to have ripe fruit, and this could be achieved thanks to hard work in the vineyard.” For Lucien Le Moine winemaker Mounir Saouma, there are similarities between the 2014 reds and those from a hundred years ago. “We have ripe polyphenols, but in cold conditions,” explains Saouma, referring to the compounds that produce the color, flavor and texture of the wines. That this ripeness was possible despite the year’s cool, wet con-ditions is key to understanding the…

Chile’s vintners are working from a strong foun-dation that inspires their efforts as they look to the future. As a whole, the country contin-ues to overdeliver on quality for price, estab-lishing a record of enduring market vigor that gives producers some breathing room to discover what comes next. Top winemakers seem in constant motion to solidify their identity on the world stage, and veterans and newcomers alike are explor-ing the country’s overlooked grapes and terroirs. But challenges are constant, particularly the hurdles put up in recent vintages courtesy of Mother Nature. Beginning in 2014, when a severe spring frost cut yields significantly, the skill and in-genuity of Chilean winemakers has been put to the test. The warm 2015 vintage saw an early harvest, requiring vintners to be extra-diligent in the…