Innehållsförteckning för May 31, 2025 från Wine Spectator

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Rioja Introductions This selection from Rioja spans a number of vintages, including the excellent 2021. The whites are based on the Viura grape; the reds are based on Tempranillo, often with Graciano, and in the Valdemar Inspiración, Graciano and Maturana Tinta. BODEGAS BHILAR Rioja White 2022 (92, $21) Silky, fragrant; raw almond, mandarin orange peel, dried white cherry, honeysuckle, mint BODEGA SIERRA DE TOLOÑO Rioja Raposo 2021 (91, $28) Wild raspberry, pomegranate purée, pink peppercorn, crushed thyme, rosemary, mineral; plush, expressive BODEGAS Y VIÑEDOS Artuke Rioja Pies Rotos 2022 (91, $23) Enticing, tense; black raspberry, warm fig, violet, mountain herbs, stony mineral BODEGA SIERRA DE TOLOÑO Rioja White 2023 (90, $21) Yellow peach, passion fruit, smoked almond, honeysuckle, ground ginger, wild rosemary; vivid, aromatic BODEGAS BERONIA Rioja Reserva 2020 (90, $25) Cassis, baked cherry…

The wines of Spain, including those of its iconic Rioja region, have long been the subject of an annual tasting report in the pages of Wine Spectator. They also feature prominently on many of our trademark lists, including the Top 100. In 2020, Bodegas Marqués de Murrieta, one of the founding wineries in Rioja, was awarded the Wine of the Year honor for its Tempranillo-based red Rioja Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial 2010 (96 points, $139). However, the last time that we took a deep dive and focused specifically on Rioja on our cover was Oct. 15, 2012. Given the excitement over the 2021 vintage in Rioja and the fact that the region is coincidentally celebrating 100 years since its formal recognition in 1925, I dispatched senior editor Alison Napjus,…

Martine Saunier, who brought the wines of Burgundy’s Henri Jayer and Domaine Leroy and Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s Château Rayas to America as a trailblazing importer, died Feb. 9 from lung cancer. She was 91. Saunier had an exceptional palate for wine, a clear vision and a fierce determination to follow her own path. Born in Paris in 1934, she spent summers in the Mâconnais, the southern-most region of Burgundy, where her aunt had vineyards. As a child, Saunier never missed a harvest and followed the winemaker around the cellar. After studying business, she took a job in public relations with Japan Airlines at its Paris offices. After meeting her future husband, a doctor from San Francisco, she moved to the West Coast of the United States in 1964. Getting a job with…

“Bob Dylan wrote about hot chile peppers in the blistering sun in Durango,” waxes Andy Nusser, chef and partner at Best of Award of Excellence–winning restaurant Casa Mono in New York, of his fascination “Bob with pimentón, a seasoning essential to Spanish cuisine. “Franciscan monks sang about them, too, and brought seeds back from the New World,” he adds. Peppers have long had cultural significance around the globe. In Spain, farmers have cultivated an array of peppers since Columbus returned with capsicums from the New World more than 500 years ago and have been producing pungent pimentón from them ever since. Pimentón (Spanish for paprika) is a powerful ingredient—a far cry from the ubiquitous grocery store paprika. Analogous to the more commonly known Hungarian paprika, pimentón is steeped in tradition…

“When you go for too much, you lose the little things,” said Aymeric de Gironde. “The idea is to pull back a bit and get further into the details. To bring minerality, and the soils here are unique, into the wine.” De Gironde told me that back in 2019 during a visit to Château Troplong-Mondot in St.-Emilion. De Gironde had been hired by the new owners to give the property a fresh direction. The previous owners (the Valette-Pariente family) had pristine vineyards—that wasn’t the issue. During their tenure they had leaned into a riper, fuller-blown expression of the wine though. In some years, that dovetailed perfectly with the vintage—the stunning 1998 is a prime example. In other years, however, the style easily dominated the overall impression of the wine. The…

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. 97 Château Léoville Barton St.-Julien 2022 $90 FRANCE Violet and iris notes hint at its purity, while the cold cast iron– and charcoal-accented structure warns that patience is required. In between is a core that offers sleek refinement, with shimmering cassis, plum and black cherry puree. Tightly drawn through the pinpoint finish, but everything is in proportion. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2030 through 2050. 10,800 cases made.—J.M. 97 Château Pichon Baron Pauillac 2022 $188 FRANCE This towering red offers a remarkable combination of freshness and weight. The well-endowed core of cassis, plum and black cherry puree shows polish and brightness, and a sleek…

CHILE Cabernet Sauvignon & Blends 95 Viñedo Chadwick Puente Alto 2022 $390 A complex and multilayered version, with aromas of violet, crushed fennel seed, damp earth and graphite that give way to a rich, commanding and well-defined core of black cherry, plum and cassis elements. A subtle saline edge checks in, lending a mouthwatering quality as this moves to the lengthy finish around dense, structured tannins, plus late echoes of dried mint and bay leaf. Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2040. 803 cases made, 300 cases imported.—A.R. 95 Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto Don Melchor Vineyard 2022 $185 See Collectibles, page 89. 94 Viña Almaviva Puente Alto 2022 $180 This complex red slowly reveals itself as opening notes of dried violet, cedar wood and turmeric give…

Peter M.F. Sichel’s life was the stuff of cinematic thrillers, complete with a daring escape from Nazis, tours as a spymaster for the CIA and a respected career as a wine executive and educator. Sichel died Feb. 24. He was 104. Born in 1922, in Mainz, Germany, Sichel grew up in a Jewish family that owned the H. Sichel Söhne wine house. When the Nazi party took control of Germany, his parents left for France. Peter was interning at the Bordeaux office in 1940 when the Germans conquered France, and he was imprisoned. He escaped, traveling through Spain and Portugal before reaching the United States. When the U.S. entered the war, Sichel enlisted and, with his fluency in German, was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, the government’s fledging…

When craving a complex, textured, powerfully structured white wine, few people reach for a bottle of Muscadet. The flood of simple, lean wine from this western Loire region in decades past trained most wine drinkers to expect nothing more than a crisp white that (famously) pairs well with oysters. Yet just like the cold Atlantic squalls that blast its vineyards, the winds of change have been blowing through Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, the wine’s most important and largest appellation. A determined group of ambitious producers has been dialing into the assets of the place—a single noble grape variety, old vines, unique geology, a tradition of long aging on lees—and turning out serious, intensely mineral, cellar-worthy wines that check a lot of the same boxes as great Burgundy at a fraction…

“I have a surprise,” said Enrique Tirado during a recent visit to our Napa offices. The CEO and winemaker for the reigning Wine Spectator Wine of the Year, Viña Don Melchor, retrieves a bottle with a red foil and a white label with “DM01” written vertically in gold and red letters. “After 35 years of this parcel concept, where Don Melchor is the best blend from the different parcels, in 2022, we decided to create a new wine, Las Parcelas,” he explains. Releasing a new wine is relatively commonplace for most wineries, but when you have a nearly 40-year legacy of creating one wine from one vineyard, doing something new is significant. Even with the Wine of the Year crown achieved, Don Melchor remains resolute in delivering extraordinary wines and positioning…

Tom Colicchio might be the most recognized chef in the U.S. thanks to his role as a judge on Top Chef since it began in 2006. Previously, he worked with some of food’s great eminences—Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, Per Se and more and Danny Meyer of Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern and the Shake Shack chain among them—before becoming an eminence himself, first with his New York City flagship, Craft, and then at times approaching 20 others across categories and the country. He also used his position to form the Independent Restaurant Coalition to support the industry during the pandemic. But as he explains in his new memoir Why I Cook, co-written with Joshua David Stein, he has pulled back and simplified, applying a lifetime of learning to…

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). 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. Bruce Sanderson Burgundy, Piedmont, Tuscany James Molesworth California Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, Bordeaux, Port MaryAnn Worobiec California Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, Australia, New Zealand Alison Napjus Spain, Italy, Champagne, South Africa Tim Fish California Zinfandel and Merlot, Oregon, Washington, U.S. sparkling wines Aaron Romano Argentina, Chile, California Rhônes Kristen Bieler Rhône Valley and other France, Germany, Austria How…

CALIFORNIA Cabernet Sauvignon 94 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford Sycamore Vineyard 2021 $200 This is Rutherford from the get-go, with a large, broad-shouldered core of cassis and black cherry notes liberally laced with singed cedar and tobacco. A well-buried iron detail provides a steady underpinning on the fine-grained and lengthy finish. Solid. Best from 2027 through 2040. 1,641 cases made.—J.M. 94 Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Family Reserve 2021 $175 This sports dark and winey cassis and plum reduction notes, with a brushstroke of tar in the mix as well. Echoes of sweet bay and violet fill in on the finish, along with a curl of alder smoke. Offers grip and nice cut, with a well of fruit in reserve. Best from 2027 through 2040. 400 cases made.—J.M. 94 Mount Eden…