Innehållsförteckning för June 15, 2018 från Wine Spectator

FREE RESOURCES FOR ALL OUR WINESPECTATOR.COM READERS PARTY PLANNING Hosting a barbecue bash on Memorial Day? We highlight delicious new recipes to try and point you to great wines for the occasion. Check out our seasonal features for pairing suggestions with well-priced, new-release wines recommended by our editors. WINE SPECTATOR VIDEO Watch all our great wine tips, winemaker interviews and tastings on your desktop, laptop, tablet or phone. Tune in each week for a new mobile-friendly video. Don’t miss these recent favorites: Wine Country Wildfires In these Wine Spectator exclusive videos, we go on location with some of the Napa and Sonoma winemakers affected by the devastating wildfires. A Perfect Match: Black Bass With Oregon Pinot Blanc Find out more about this intriguing pairing—and get the recipe from Durham chef…

Two fraud cases—one in Bordeaux and one in the Southern Rhône—are upsetting France’s wine industry. The case in Bordeaux, where a leading négociant was recently found guilty of fraud, shocked many in the region just as foreign merchants began arriving to preview the 2017 vintage. At an April 5 hearing, Bordeaux’s criminal tribunal found Grands Vins de Gironde (GVG) guilty of wine fraud, fining the company nearly $500,000 (with half the fine suspended). The négociant and bulk-wine bottler, which is owned by the Castéja family, illegally blended wines from prestigious appellations with table wine, and mixed appellation wines, vintages and châteaus. Judge Caroline Baret declared that the investigation revealed that at least 611,900 liters of wine (the equivalent of 68,000 cases) worth $1.6 million were mislabeled during a period from…

Peru’s sole Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence–winning restaurant, the daring Central, explores the country’s varied terrain and obscure wine regions through tasting menus that have earned applause around the world, thanks to visionary chef Virgilio Martínez and wine director Gregory Smith, who has overseen the 500-selection wine cellar for the past seven years. This month, the team is slated to reopen the restaurant in a new location in Lima’s vibrant, seaside Barranco neighborhood. A new, more casual restaurant housed in the same building, Kjolle, will appeal to broader tastes—but even better, the shared cellar will double Central’s storage capacity, giving Smith space to pursue more white, rosé and sparkling wines. There is exploration of Peruvian winemakers too, such as the Palo Seco y San Antonio Chenin Blanc from…

Don’t think, just answer: What’s your favorite chocolate bar? Now ask your friends. People tend to answer quickly, then say, “No … Wait!” For me, I kept coming back to the Reggie bar, which existed from 1978 to 1982. “Mr. October” Reggie Jackson mistakenly thought the Baby Ruth was named after the famous slugger, and felt he deserved a bar too. When he joined the Yankees, he got one. It was a disk of caramel and peanuts covered in milk chocolate. Then I had one of those “Hey, I can make that” moments. I decided to make them better-looking by using silicone molds. I first used these for peanut butter cups, and they make you look like a pro. These rubbery things come in countless shapes and sizes, and produce…

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 94 Arista Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2015 $56 CALIFORNIA A seductive style, offering tiers of complex flavors, with green apple, citrus, pear, melon and fig, framed with smoky, toasty oak. COLLECTIBLE 96 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova 2013 $105 ITALY Sweet, ripe strawberry and cherry fruit melds seamlessly with the dense, refined structure of this red, which shows terrific harmony and expression. SMART BUY 91 Domaine Gerovassiliou Malagousia Epanomi Single Vineyard 2016 $23 GREECE A lovely nose of floral and citrus leads to expressive flavors of ruby red grapefruit granita and ripe yellow peach in this light-to medium-bodied white. BEST VALUE 88 Chateau Ste. Michelle Rosé Columbia Valley 2017 $10 WASHINGTON This mouthwatering and lively rosé offers appealing flavors of strawberry and watermelon. IN THIS…

Each wine country destination has its own character, its own set of appeals. That makes it easy to choose a region that suits your style, your palate, your budget and more. Here, we focus on California’s Sonoma, where the draw centers around a diverse group of red and white wines, a leisurely pace, small town ambience and options for good meals and comfortable lodgings at reachable prices. None of that has changed in Sonoma despite the threats to life and property that came with the wildfires that blazed across the North Bay last fall. The tightknit community is stronger than ever and, as always, welcomes visitors to come share what makes Sonoma special.…

sounds a leisurely countdown toward noon, echoing out over the plaza. It’s a quintessential small town moment, yet Healdsburg is anything but typical. • Located on a bend on the Russian River about 70 miles north of San Francisco, Healdsburg lies at the crossroads of three Sonoma County winegrowing regions: Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley, and Russian River Valley; nearly 40,000 acres of vines surround this village of 12,000 residents. Thirty years ago, the town was a quiet backwater with more than its fair share of abandoned store-fronts around the main plaza. Today, downtown is not the sleepy place it used to be, its sidewalks bustling every weekend year-round and all week throughout summer and fall, and the region overall has blossomed into one of the most popular travel destinations…

93 Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay Russian River Valley Tré Terre Vineyard Select Collection 2016 $28 CALIFORNIA Strikes a fine balance between vibrant citrus and green apple and pear notes. Lightly oaky and creamy midpalate, this is deftly elegant and refined. Drink now through 2022. 5,400 cases made. —J.L. 93 Penley Cabernet Sauvignon Coonawarra Phoenix 2016 $20 AUSTRALIA Dense, with sink-your-teeth-into-them tannins and concentration to the plum, cassis and blackberry flavors. Sage and rosemary accents linger in the background. Strikes the right balance between power and elegance, with grace notes of eucalyptus, black tea and tobacco lingering on the velvety finish. Drink now through 2030. 4,300 cases imported. —M.W. 93 Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County Sonoma 2016 $26 CALIFORNIA Loaded with rich, jammy fruit, this plump Zin is a pleasure to drink, with bold…

ARGENTINA 91 Andeluna Malbec Tupungato Altitud 2015 $20 Concentrated dark plum and dark cherry flavors are loaded with Asian spice notes that take on a creamy texture. Dark chocolate details fill the rich finish. Drink now through 2022. 6,000 cases made. —K.M. 90 Altocedro Select La Consulta 2016 $23 Shows sanguine notes to the long, rich dried red fruit flavors, with accents of dried sage and spice on the juicy finish. Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Syrah. Drink now through 2022. 1,000 cases made. —K.M. 90 Finca Decero Malbec Agrelo Remolinos Vineyard 2016 $22 A sanguine red, with notes of hot stone to the raspberry, dried cherry and floral flavors. The savory finish has some minerally accents. Drink now through 2021. 20,000 cases imported. —K.M. 90 Bodega Piedra Negra L’Esprit…

The wildfires that raced through Northern California last October devastated large tracts of Sonoma and Napa, killing 44 people, burning 240,000 acres and destroying an estimated 8,900 structures, many of them homes. We reported on the devastation in real time on WineSpectator.com, even as some of our editors were forced to evacuate. It was a terrifying time. If there is a consolation to find it’s that in the end, the wine industry, the heart of the region’s culture, was largely spared. Few vineyards were lost, little wine was damaged, and today wine country residents are working together to rebuild their infrastructure and restore their economy. For our cover story, Napa bureau chief Kim Marcus and senior editor MaryAnn Worobiec interviewed vintners, restaurateurs and others who are central to the work…

Conaway is well aware that Napa faces challenges. But he is more and more alarmed about where the region is headed. For thirty years, author James Conaway has been chronicling the saga of Napa Valley. The final entry in his Napa trilogy, Napa at Last Light: America’s Eden in an Age of Calamity (Simon & Schuster, 2018), isn’t really about wine or the Napa most people think of. But it is the talk of the valley, and the questions it raises are not going away. In the American imagination, this picturesque region is a mecca for wine lovers. Beautiful vineyards line the country roads, tasting rooms abound, and eating and drinking don’t get any better. Sure, Napa is congested, but that goes hand in hand with popularity. What highways or…

The slopes of Napa County’s Atlas Peak were some of the first ablaze, and near the mountain’s base stands Signorello Estate winery. Beamed around the world, the images of flames consuming its Italianate stonework became some of the most powerful from the wine country fires of 2017. There seemed little hope that anything remained. Yet when the smoke cleared, Signorello had mostly survived, its wines intact and its vineyard still alive. Only the structure that housed its tasting room, offices and laboratory had burned. By late January, most of the wreckage had been cleared from the site, and owner Ray Signorello was thinking about when he could start re-building—perhaps sometime this summer. Now, in spring 2018, the slopes above the winery are a vivid emerald hue, carpeted by grasses and…

The fire hovered ominously over the Kunde Estate property in Sonoma for days. The tasting room served as an evacuation shelter not only for family members, but also for winemaker Zach Long, who slept in the tasting room eight straight nights while trying to manage the 22 different fermentations under way. Long admits that not everything went according to plan. All of the winery’s winemaking data is stored on a Web-based server. There was no power and no Internet, and the 75-mile-per-hour winds blew all the tank identification cards away. “I had to trust my memory that I remembered what was in every tank, and just taste, taste, taste,” explains Long. “I carried a note-book and kept track of every detail. I don’t think any of us realized how dependent…

is an intimate wine country destination, less developed than Napa Valley, its neighbor to the east, but appealing to many for that very reason. • At its heart lies the city of Sonoma, arguably the birthplace of California. The surrounding oak-studded countryside is home to the state’s oldest vineyards (1824), the oldest commercial winery in California (Buena Vista, 1857) and California’s oldest still-family-owned winery (Gundlach Bundschu, 1858). Roots run deep here, and farming is the lifeblood for many. The Bundschus, Benzigers, Kundes, Sangiacomos and others have kept their family winegrowing businesses thriving for several generations. Touring the area, it’s easy to imagine how it looked 100 years ago, with many historical structures—some dating to the Mission period—well-preserved. And while wine tourism has increased the hustle-bustle of late, there are few…

97 Canalicchio di Sopra Brunello di Montalcino 2013 $79 ITALY Plump and bursting with cherry, strawberry and mineral aromas and flavors, this racy red evokes harmony and freshness, with hints of spice, chocolate and tobacco as it plays out gracefully on the long aftertaste. There’s structure here, with all the components integrated. Best from 2020 through 2035. 2,870 cases made. —B.S. 96 Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona Brunello di Montalcino 2013 $60 ITALY Exuding cherry, strawberry, floral and tobacco aromas and flavors, this effusive, fruity style is bright and elegant, with terrific harmony and a long, mouthwatering finish that leaves a mineral impression. Very compelling. Best from 2020 through 2036. 3,500 cases made. —B.S. 96 Lisini Brunello di Montalcino 2013 $60 ITALY Exuding cherry, strawberry and floral flavors tinged with iron, earth…

This Buying Guide contains ratings of new releases from around the world. Complete tasting notes are provided for 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. Hundreds of additional reviews appear each month 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 California, Argentina, Chile Bruce Sanderson Italy, Burgundy, Austria James Molesworth Bordeaux, Rhône Valley, Loire Valley,…

CALIFORNIA Chardonnay 95 Lewis Chardonnay Russian River Valley Barcaglia Lane 2016 $75 See Highly Recommended, page 99. 94 Arista Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2015 $56 See Highly Recommended, page 99. 94 Arista Chardonnay Russian River Valley Ritchie Vineyard 2015 $78 Mouthfilling and creamy, with rich fig, apricot, white peach and honeydew flavors and toasty oak. Broad and expansive on the finish. Drink now through 2023. 480 cases made.—J.L. 94 Scherrer Chardonnay Russian River Valley Helfer Vineyard 2015 $50 Lightly aromatic, with peach, fig and nectarine flavors highlighted by spicy toasty oak. Maintains intensity without being weighty. Sails on the finish. Drink now through 2023. 140 cases made.—J.L. 93 Arista Chardonnay Russian River Valley Banfield Vineyard 2015 $78 Rich and full-bodied, featuring a weighty medley of fig, apricot, melon and nectarine…

Michigan Misfortune “Consumers Caught in Shipping Crossfire” (Grapevine, April 30) gets my blood boiling, especially the statement about Michigan passing a law last year prohibiting out-of-state retailers from shipping wine into our state. I am from Michigan and enjoy ordering any wine I please by simply pulling up a website and ordering it. I was not aware that our state had gone back to the dark ages. I plan to buy and drink zero wine from Michigan until this is changed. I am in several wine clubs as well and hope this won’t affect that either. Jim Hug Brighton, Mich. Mad in Missouri As a purchaser and collector of wines from out of state for over 35 years, I was never concerned that my children were going to buy Château…

Robert Haas Robert Haas, wine merchant and co-founder of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, died March 18 at his home. He was 90. Born in Brooklyn, Haas started in wine at an early age, working at his father’s Manhattan wine and spirits retailer, M. Lehmann. In 1950, he began traveling as a buyer; when his father retired in the 1960s, Haas used the connections he’d made to create his own import business. During Haas’ first buying trip to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, he visited Château de Beaucastel and began a relationship with its proprietors, the Perrin family. In 1989, Haas and the Perrins scoured California for limestone soils and a maritime climate similar to Châteauneuf’s. They purchased 120 acres in the western hills of Paso Robles. Rhône grapes were not extensively grown…

There’s already a palpable buzz in the air when a compact man in a cow costume leaps onto the stage. He cups a cordless mic and greets the crowd with a booming “Moo! Baa! Maa!” eliciting cheers. Shouting over the pulse of bass-heavy hip-hop, he commences to bust moves you’d expect from a rap star like Snoop Dogg, not a peripatetic cheese importer based out of a refrigerated warehouse in Long Island City, Queens. Adam Moskowitz takes his job selling cheese seriously, but not too seriously: This is glaringly evident tonight as he emcees the Cheese-monger Invitational (CMI), a convivial contest he created in the style of an underground rave. An avowed rascal who claims to be nothing more than a hard-working ware-houseman, Moskowitz is in reality one of America’s…

ORIGINAL ZIN This selection of Zinfandels celebrates America’s grape in all its full-flavored glory. Never lacking in body or bold flavors, it’s a wine that satisfies all year round—in winter with hearty foods and in summer as the perfect accompaniment for grilling. MIRAFLORES Zinfandel El Dorado 2015 (93, $30) Brooding, refined; floral, black cherry, licorice, dark plum, mineral, smoked pepper CAROL SHELTON Zinfandel Cucamonga Valley Monga Zin Old Vine Lopez Vineyard 2016 (91, $22) Lively; floral, pomegranate, cherry, sweet anise, briar, spice ALEXANDER VALLEY VINEYARDS Zinfandel Alexander Valley 2015 (90, $20) Zesty, briary; black raspberry, cracked pepper, licorice DRY CREEK Zinfandel Sonoma County Heritage Vines 2016 (90, $24) Raspberry, grilled anise, white pepper; old-school CAROL SHELTON Zinfandel Lodi Pizazz Zin Piazza Ranch Old Vine 2015 (90, $19) Baked cherry, anise,…

In the ongoing pursuit of greatness in wine, much is left out, most strikingly any sort of working definition. No word is more frequently invoked in writing about fine wine than “great.” All of the world’s best wines, red and white, are always so described—and always have been. The French, for their part, have for centuries categorized their finest wines as grands vins and some of their most exalted vineyards as grands crus. So it’s not just us aspirational newcomers who apply the term. Yet in this pursuit of greatness, much is left out, most strikingly any sort of working definition. When you think about it, this is pretty amazing. Although innumerable writers and wine lovers have individually arrived at their own personal definitions of what constitutes greatness in wine,…

The work of elevating a wine starts in the vineyard, and Sauvignon Blanc is no exception. The variety is seeing a surge of interest in California, as vintners look to drive up quality by locking into sites that have a reputation for exceptional grapes. The result is that site-specific expressions are on the rise, a trend that dovetails with greater experimentation in the cellar, where winemakers are making more sophisticated choices. Across the Golden State, there’s a new enthusiasm for this white grape, as producers and consumers alike are recognizing its value and versatility. “I’ve learned to respect Sauvignon Blanc as one of the two great white wines of the world,” says Merry Edwards, one of the first winemakers to succeed with the variety in California. Her Sauvignon Blanc Russian…

97 Altesino Brunello di Montalcino Montosoli 2013 $125 ITALY Balsamic notes of juniper, sage and eucalyptus are buried underneath the cherry and plum fruit in this expressive, supple red, which is dense and well-structured, with excellent balance and a long after-taste of iron and saline. Just a tad richer and broader than the blended Brunello. Best from 2021 through 2038. 1,250 cases made. —B.S. 96 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova 2013 $105 ITALY Sweet, ripe strawberry and cherry fruit melds seamlessly with the dense, refined structure of this red. Saline, licorice and spice accents add complexity as this lingers gracefully on the finish, showing terrific harmony and expression. Best from 2021 through 2037. 5,831 cases made. —B.S. 96 Louis Jadot Corton-Charlemagne Domaine des Héritiers 2015 $190 FRANCE…

It’s a familiar feeling. You’re at the market looking for dinner fixings—something delicious and easy. “You see a huge pile of sunflower sprouts or purslane, and you’re like, ‘That looks amazing, but what would I do with that?’” chef Andrea Reusing describes. Reusing is in her element answering this sort of question. A sustainability-minded ingredient whisperer whose flair for spontaneity led her to write the cookbook Cooking in the Moment(Clarkson Potter, 2011), she brings a pragmatic locavore approach to her duo of celebrated North Carolina restaurants: the Asian-inflected Lantern in Chapel Hill and the American melting-pot spot the Durham. Recently, wanting to cook wild black bass, Reusing was inspired by the weedy purslane that spreads through American backyards in warm weather. “I really love purslane,” she says. “It’s surprising, I…