Innehållsförteckning för September 30, 2017 från Wine Spectator

JOSÉ ANDRÉS BAZAAR MEAT LAS VEGAS RECOMMENDED WINES CHEF’S PICK: Bodegas y Viñedos Raúl Pérez Mencía Bierzo Vico 2013 WINE SPECTATOR ALTERNATES: Losada Vinos de Finca Bierzo Losada 2014 (91, $20) Château St.-Didier Malbec Cahors Prieuré de Cénac 2015 (89, $16) “My restaurant is on the edge of the casino and on the edge of the Strip,” José An-drés says of Bazaar Meat, his chophouse in the SLS Las Vegas hotel. “But for some strange reason, humanity will travel for meat to the edge of the world.” The roots of Bazaar Meat are actually in his backyard, where he amassed and tested a total of six charcoal grills in preparation for opening the restaurant in 2014. The approach made sense to Andrés, who tends to prize inquiry and discovery over…

Chuck Wagner is embracing Suisun Valley in a big way. He’s also returning to his roots with an estate-only Napa Cab. Suisun Valley is a 30-minute drive east from Napa Valley. For vintner Chuck Wagner it is a new frontier to con-quer and a pleasant re-minder of the past and the freedoms his native Napa Valley once possessed. Suisun (“suh-SOON”) Valley is a relatively small community, part of the larger Solano County, which is home to Travis Air Force Base, Anheuser- Busch and 3,000 acres of grapes inter-spersed with cattle, fruit trees and row crops, along with housing surburbs and shopping malls. Millions of motorists whiz by weekly on Interstate 80. At the valley’s northern end, the cli-mate simmers like a summer day in Calistoga. To the south, the feel…

This airy market on First Street combines restaurants, a coffee bar, a local chocolatier, a cheese shop and a produce market under one roof. The noshes range from sushi to cupcakes, and wine lovers can sharpen their skills by sniffing around the Whole Spice shop or sampling the dozens of bitters, shrubs and syrups at the Napa Valley Distillery. Here are the market’s most wine-friendly spots. C Casa Dubbed “an innovative taqueria,” C Casa offers toothsome handmade white-corn tortillas, fresh salads and a unique taco menu. A spicy groundbuffalo taco is topped with goat cheese and chipotle aioli. Plump grilled garlic-citrus prawns share a taco with corn relish and avocado crema, while a roasted fingerling and new potato version has poblanos, cotija cheese and lime crema. There are also succulent…

New Faces, New Styles There were only 25 wineries in Napa in the mid-1960s, but the valley’s winegrowing potential was starting to bloom, drawing a new generation of producers. Joe Heitz, André Tchelistcheff’s right-hand man, purchased 8 acres south of St. Helena and founded Heitz Cellars in 1961. In 1966, he crafted the Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, the first vineyarddesignated label in the valley. England-born paper tycoon Peter Newton purchased 50 acres south of Calistoga in 1964 and established Sterling Vineyards. The inaugural vintage, 1969, included Napa’s first vintage-dated Merlot. Following the advice of Tchelistcheff to plant in the mountains, Donn and Molly Chappellet settled in the rugged terrain on Pritchard Hill, pioneering the trend of mountain- grown vineyards. Jack and Jamie Davies set their sights on sparkling wine, buying…

Consolidating the Valley The 2000s saw a surge in consolidation in Napa as wineries of all sizes struggled to compete in an increasingly competitive world market. A spate of acquisitions in the early aughts proved illustrative: Louis Martini sold to Gallo in 2002, Mondavi to Constellation in 2004 and Screaming Eagle to Charles Banks and Stanley Kroenke in 2006. Beringer has changed hands several times, first to Nestlé, in 1971, and then later to Fosters, in 2000. In 2011, Fosters spun off its wine division into Treasury Wine Estates, which runs Beringer today, in addition to Beaulieu Vineyard, Sterling and Provenance. With the amount of undeveloped vineyard land in Napa dwindling, many players have tried to capture highly desirable sites through winery purchases. Brands and labels have also become important…

Wine Spectator kicked off Vinexpo on June 18 by gathering experts and industry pioneers to tackle one of the most critical issues facing the global wine community: climate change. Senior editor Dana Nigro served as moderator for “Fire and Rain: Climate Change and the Wine Industry.” Harvard professor and former White House sci-ence adviser John Holdren, Bodegas Torres pres-ident Miguel Torres, Italian vintner Gaia Gaja and Napa’s Kathryn Hall joined Nigro. Holdren ex-plained that the land suitable for grapegrowing will potentially shrink by 23 percent to 75 per-cent by the year 2050, and that higher average temperatures, heat waves, droughts, torrential downpours, hailstorms, pests and the effects of increased CO2 on grape chemistry will test the wine industry’s resolve. “Adaptability and resilience are extremely im-portant, but if we do not…

LOIRE LUSTER It’s not often I exceed $40 in this column, yet the three Vouvrays included in this group from the Loire Valley merit your attention. Wines of this quality are typically much more expen-sive. That they come from two of the appella-tion’s best domaines is even more significant. Rounding things out are some fine Cabernet Francs and a dry white blend. DOMAINE HUËT Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Haut-Lieu 2016 (96, $44) Off-dry, graceful; apple, star fruit, peach, chamomile, stone, verbena CHAMPALOU Vouvray La Moelleuse 2015 (95, $45) Quince, green fig, mirabelle plum, yellow apple; sweet, focused, racy DOMAINE HUËT Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont 2016 (95, $44) Plump, off-dry; creamed pear, peach, apple, verbena, honeysuckle, mineral DOMAINE DE PALLUS Chinon Les Pensées de Pallus 2014 (92, $23) Ripe, juicy; cassis, plum,…

Confidence—conviction, even—matters: If you know what you like and a top-rated vintage ar-rives, it’s no time to dither. KRAMERIf there’s one nagging element to wine it’s the notion that somehow you got it “wrong.” Anyone who’s bought stocks knows all about this. With stocks it’s all about picking and timing. Wine is little different. Of course, there really is no right or wrong with wine. If a wine works for you, then it’s a winner. Wine perfor-mance (and gratification), unlike stocks, is highly subjective. Still, wine buying is surprisingly like stock picking. You can go long or short. You can bet that the market will go up or down. (Ask anyone who, ahem, “invests” in classified-growth red Bordeaux.) Above all, there’s the matter of timing, as Burgundy buyers who fever-ishly…

Napa Valley is the magic kingdom of American wine. It has every-thing wine lovers prize, from world-class dining to top-flight tasting and touring. Its natural beauty puts it on the scale of a national treasure such as Yosemite, though with verdant vine-yards taking the place of booming waterfalls. Napa is one of the most fer-tile valleys in the world, hospi-table to a variety of grapes. Its bounty of great wines, led by Caber-net Sauvignon–based reds, is breathtaking. The valley is a mere 90-minute drive from San Fran-cisco, with a generally agreeable climate that makes the area accessible most of the year. There is also this: Napa is simple to navigate. The valley proper is roughly 30 miles in length, from the city of Napa in the south to its northwestern…

19TH CENTURY California Pioneers Captain George Yount is considered the founding father of Napa Valley. Born in North Carolina, he fought with the Kentucky Riflemen in the War of 1812 and later worked as a fur trapper before being awarded one of Mexico’s first land grants, in 1836, 14 years before California became part of the United States. His Rancho Caymus was not just any ranch; it covered 12,000 acres and stretched from what is now Yountville to St. Helena. Though allegedly the first to plant grapevines in Napa, Yount was not alone in establishing the valley’s wine industry. The California gold rush in the 1850s attracted more than those looking to strike it rich. San Francisco’s population boomed, and the city quickly became a hub for commercial growth, including…

Settlers planted the first vineyards in Napa Valley in the mid-1800s, near what is now the town of Yountville. By the close of the 19th century, the valley was home to more than 140 wineries. Following the repeal of Prohibition, a new generation of winemakers stepped in to restore the area’s wine industry. Their efforts launched a wave of new investment that soon established Napa as California’s premier wine region. Napa Valley’s reputation was underscored when it became the state’s first American Viticulture Area (AVA), in 1981. Napa County’s political borders mostly define the legal boundaries of the AVA, but the heart of the county is the narrow valley that stretches 30 miles from San Pablo Bay in the south to the border with Lake County in the north. Home…

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. James Laube California Harvey Steiman At large Thomas Matthews Spain Kim Marcus Argentina, California, Chile…

WINE FOOD PEOPLE COLLECTING It’s a marriage between one of the world’s largest wine companies and one of Napa’s most elite Cabernets. Drinks giant Constella-tion Brands has purchased Napa Valley winery Schrader Cellars. The blockbuster deal gives Constellation one of the top names in Napa, known for its Beckstoffer To Kalon cuvées and other notable bottlings. Wine Spectator has learned that the deal came with a price tag of approximately $60 million, though neither side would com-ment on that figure. The sale includes the brand and long-term contracts with vineyards. Schrader owns no vines of its own. It produces between 2,500 and 4,000 cases of Cabernet from Beckstoffer To Kalon, Beckstoffer Georges III in Ruther-ford and Las Piedras Vineyard in St. Helena annually. The sale includes the 2015 and 2016…

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 93 Shafer Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros Red Shoulder Ranch 2015 $52CALIFORNIA Rich and spicy, this white offers an elegant mix of baked apple, honey-dew melon, pear and light minerally notes. COLLECTIBLE 97 Domaine Huët Vouvray Moelleux Clos du Bourg 2016 $50FRANCE A stunner, this dessert wine shows beautiful notes of pear, green fig, yellow apple and quince that are creamy yet refined. SMART BUY 91 Three Degrees Pinot Noir McMinnville 2015 $20OREGON Lithe and vibrant, with expres-sive rose petal and black cherry aromas followed by spirited red plum and orange tea flavors. BEST VALUE 87 Villa Pozzi Nero d’Avola Sicilia 2016 $10ITALY A beam of ripe, juicy wild strawberry flavors leads the way in this fresh, medium-bodied red, framed by hints of spice box, mocha and smoke. IN…

With his new Napa project, Christian Moueix embarks on another great adventure in his lifelong odyssey in wine. MOLESWORTHChristian Moueix is no stranger to historic prop-erties, from his cluster of Right Bank estates in Bordeaux to Dominus in Napa Valley. So when on my recent trip to California the vintner men-tioned to me that he had a new proj-ect, I was more than curious. Back in 2008, Moueix purchased 40 acres of vines just a mile up the road from Dominus in Oakville. In keeping with his motif, the property has a long history, dating back to the late 19th century in terms of viticulture. Most recently, it had been owned by Clarke Swanson, who was using it at the time for his popular Merlot. But with no family members…

Napa Valley has long beguiled visitors with creature comforts. The colorful gold rush–era pioneer Sam-uel Brannan founded what he called the Saratoga Springs of California at the valley’s northern end, which he dubbed Calistoga. He was drawn by the warm waters bubbling up from the earth and in 1862 opened a re-sort for the era’s rich and famous. The intervening decades saw boom and bust (Brannan himself died penniless in 1889), and it wasn’t until a century after Bran-nan’s first efforts that Napa’s modern evolution as a wine country lodestar began to take shape. In 1964, a small nine-hole golf club with rustic chalets for guests began operation on the outskirts of St. Helena. It was called Meadowood, and its visibility truly began to rise when the first Napa Valley…

Cabernet Triumphs I n 1997, Napa produced a recordsetting vintage in terms of tonnage and value. Many vineyards had been planted at higher density following the phylloxera outbreak of the 1980s, leading to more concentrated flavors in the grapes. The warm 1997 vintage demonstrated what Napa Cabernet was capable of achieving, setting a style of rich and ripe wines, with depth and power. These impressive releases piqued consumers’ interest. The average cost of a bottle of Napa Cabernet rose from $27 in 1994 to $45 by 1999. Demand for Cabernet drove interest in highpriced, ultrapremium, small-production wines. The cost of grapes rose along with bottle prices, particularly among vineyards and producers that rose to the top. Many of the newcomers to the valley, such as Harlan, Dalla Valle, Bryant, Colgin…

Napa Valley Established: 1981 | Total acreage: 401,370 | Acres planted: 43,500 The broad Napa Valley designation is the one most frequently seen on wines from across the region, yet wines labeled Napa Valley may have a diverse range of origins, as specific as a single vineyard or as broad as multiple sites spread throughout the appellation. Napa Valley is one of the most tightly regulated and managed agricultural regions in the United States. Nearly 90 percent of Napa County is effectively protected from residential or commercial development, in marked contrast to neighboring counties in the San Francisco Bay Area that have allowed sprawl to consume much of their agricultural heritage. The stage was set in 1968 when local leaders took advantage of a state law giving landowners property tax…

It was evident from my first tastings of the 2014 white Burgundies that this was a special vintage. The early releases from the Mâconnais were full of ripe, juicy fruit in bottle after bottle, with fleshy textures and vibrant structures. As I tasted up the hierarchy, with the arrival of the premiers crus and grands crus from the Côte de Beaune, the quality kept getting better and better. Now, after reviewing more than 525 white Burgundies from the 2014 harvest—some of them covered in last year’s report (“Burgundy’s Vibrant Year,” Sept. 30, 2016)—it’s clear to me that this is one of the best vintages for the whites of this storied region in a generation. In an impressive showing, Domaine Faiveley produced three wines that earned classic ratings of 95 to…

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. 95Le Casalte Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Quercetonda 2012 $50 ITALY Packed with sweet, ripe black cherry, blackberry, leather, spice and iron aromas and flavors, this is powerful, polished and intense. Tar and mineral elements become more pronounced on the finish, which is bound by the dense tannins. Shows terrific length. Drink now through 2030. 580 cases made.—B.S. 95Louis Cheze Condrieu Breze 2015 $50 FRANCE Gorgeous in every way, with a creamy, seductive mouthfeel, enticing notes of creamed pear, apple and melon, flashes of anise and mineral for energy, and a long, beguiling finish that lets the fruit linger beautifully. Drink now through 2022. 700 cases made.—J.M.…

ARGENTINA Malbec & Blends Antigal Winery & Estates Malbec MendozaOne La Dolores Vineyard 2008 $88 Rich and ripe, with minerally refinement to the broad, well-structured flavors of dark plum and beef, accented by floral notes. Medium-grained tannins support the long, spicy finish. Drink now through 2021. 1,000 cases made.—K.M. 91 Estancia Los Cardones Malbec Salta Tigerstone 2014 $50 Minerally, refined and pure, with lively acidity backing the fresh-crushed cherry, black currant and truffle flavors that are well-spiced. Pepper and crushed stone notes show on the finish. Drink now through 2022. 224 cases made.—K.M. 91 Teho El Corte Tomal Vineyard La Consulta 2014 $79 A plush, spicy and refined red, offering hints of nectarine to the cherry and cocoa powder flavors. The creamy finish lingers with some sandalwood and juniper accents.…

DR. VINNY Dear Dr. Vinny, What’s “sustainable winery architecture”? —Sarah K., Portland, Ore. Dear Sarah Sustainable architecture is one of the hottest trends in winery construction. There are many ways to build sustainably, but the overall idea is to reduce energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, raw material use, waste output and water consumption. Wineries can be built with reclaimed materials, employ skylights for natural light, plant trees for shade and collect water for reuse. One popular sustainable winery architecture strategy is earth sheltering, in which wineries or cellars are built partially or completely underground, where it’s naturally cooler and easier to moderate temperatures. You’ve also probably heard of gravity-flow wineries, which allow grapes and wine to be moved more energy-efficiently and gently during the winemaking process. Some of the most…