Innehållsförteckning för February 28, 2016 från Wine Spectator

Coffee holds a special place in my home and in my restaurants. Growing up in the Conant household, I learned from my mother that coffee is a part of good hospitality. She always had a Moka pot waiting on the stovetop. Like many Americans, my taste in coffee has evolved over the years. But my growing appreciation only reinforces my belief that great coffee is crucial for great hospitality. In today's fine dining, no detail can be left uninspected. When I looked closely at coffee, illy became my go-to coffee for a number of reasons. First and foremost is taste. Super-acidic lighter brews may be trendy at the moment, but that is not coffee to me. I take my coffee strong and bold with no sugar and no dairy. A…

Price of Success I found your story on Bill Harlan entertaining (cover, Nov. 15, 2015), and the breadth of his business ventures worthy of the “Amazing Saga” headline. But I couldn’t get over the elephant in the room, which is the $850 price tag for his Harlan Estate wine. From the article, it seemed that the only explanation for the price was making the point that Napa wines are as good as Bordeaux first-growths. Brent Brussell Southlake, Texas Labeling for Dummies James Laube kicked the hornets’ nest with his column (“Rethinking Labels,” Dec. 15, 2015) by plunging into the imbroglio of New World/Old World labeling practices. As we know, New World wines state varieties on the label, whereas Old World wines state the place of origin. This is frustrating to…

New research suggests that wine’s health benefits don’t stop with what goes in the bottle. Chilean scientists have found that men suffering from early symptoms of diabetes or cardiovascular dis-ease who consumed a small daily dose of flour made from grape pom-ace, the solids left behind when red wine finishes fermenting, showed lower blood pressure and better blood glucose levels after 16 weeks. Some winemakers see pomace as an environmentally friendly re-source, something that can be reused in food, cosmetics or as an alter-native fuel source. For wine grape pomace flour, the grape solids are dried and ground up, producing a gluten-free substitute to baking flour. A team from the Center of Molecular Nutrition and Chronic Diseases at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile tracked the diets of 38 men,…

Building on a Dream Website www.epicureanhotel.com Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, Fla., was one of the first 13 recipients of Wine Spectator’s Grand Award, in 1981, and it remains one of only four original winners among the current 81 honorees. How has Bern’s stayed vital? A 6,800-selection list backed by a 500,000-bottle cellar. Expansion into other wine-focused ventures. An annual Winefest gathering local chefs and international wines (April 10–17). David Laxer, whose father, Bern, founded the restaurant, continues to branch out, first with his Haven wine bar, then with a retail store, and now with the 137-room Epicurean hotel, in partnership with Mainsail Lodging and Development. The Epicurean features fine-dining restaurant Élevage, with a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence; a bakery; and lobby and roof bars. Reflecting the hotel’s…

At first glance, fine wine appears glacial in its receptivity to change. We’re still talking about the 1855 classification in Bordeaux, for heaven’s sake. Seemingly everywhere, producers are seeking new ways to make wine, fueled by a revised (or at least updated) understanding of what makes wine good. Some choices, such as leaving white wines on the grape skins for weeks or even months, are radical departures from the conventional—even universal— practices of 20th-century winemaking. The same can be said for an almost antiquarian return to winemaking techniques that forgo the use of sulfur during fermentation or bottling. That would have been a radical departure even in the 19th century, never mind our own squeaky-clean time. Ambition itself has been energized for the last 50 years. Since the mid-1960s, we’ve…

Harvey Steiman joined Wine Spectator in 1983 as managing editor. Today he reviews the wines of Oregon, Washington and Australia, but his fondness for the cuisines of Italy and Spain extends to their eclectic wine options. Steiman has also been known to favor wines from New Zealand, Argentina, Germany and, when he can afford it, France. California bottles from the 1970s and 1980s still populate a corner of his cellar. As accomplished as they are, all of the New World regions I review are still figuring out just who they are. Tasting how that develops is fun and rewarding. Australia in recent years has broadened its scope beyond muscular red wines and oak-infused Chardonnays. Cooler regions are gaining traction for trim, zingy wines, even as wineries that celebrate ripeness are…

Bruce Sanderson joined Wine Spectator in 1993 as a tasting coordinator, becoming tasting director in 1995, and then a senior editor in 1999. Sanderson’s early career as a model and actor took him from his native Canada to Germany, where he became passionate about wine. He entered the wine industry after moving to New York in 1990, gaining experience with specialty retailer Burgundy Wine Company and working as a sommelier at the famed Windows on the World restaurant. His current tasting beats include France’s Burgundy, and Piedmont and Tuscany, in Italy. When he’s not visiting wine regions for business or pleasure, Sanderson enjoys listening to jazz, both live and recorded, cooking, dining out and golf. Officially, I’ve covered Burgundy for about 11 years. However, I have tasted the wines, visited…

Alison Napjus has worked in Wine Spectator’s New York office since 2000. A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, she saw a Grand Award wine list in the making during her time as a manager at New York’s Tribeca Grill, prompting her to seek a position where she could immerse herself in the world of wine. She fulfilled that goal with an entry-level position at Wine Spectator, later training as a taster and ultimately covering wines from Champagne and Alsace, as well as regions throughout Italy. She was promoted to senior editor in 2012. When her passport is not in use for work or pleasure, Napjus can be found dining out or cooking in, running along the East River, or enjoying some good fiction. I fell in love…

Wine giant Jackson Family Wines has had its eye on Oregon for a long time. Late founder Jess Jackson was looking at the Willamette Valley as far back as 1990, but he had mixed feelings about the region’s potential. Fast-forward to 2015 and Jackson Family is now one of the biggest vineyard owners in the state. “We did our homework, tasting what other people were making,” says company chairman Barbara Banke. “We like that it’s different from California. In some cases, the Pinot Noirs are a little more savory, and the acid balance is different, but you don’t need the same percentage of alcohol to get the levels of ripeness we want.” Best known for its main brand, Kendall-Jackson, Jackson Family Wines owns dozens of labels around the world, including…

John Glaser just passed a whisky milestone. It wasn’t nearly as long in coming as those multiple-centennials that the category occasionally claims, but remained notable nonetheless. It was 15 years ago that the young spirits marketer quit his job at industry giant Diageo to launch a startup called Compass Box Whisky. Keep in mind that, in the year 2000, the brown spirits boom hadn’t reverberated, craft whisky makers had yet to challenge the establishment, and the one bright spot in the foundering Scotch market was single malts. So, against all logic, Glaser set his sights on what was then a well-populated but steadily declining arena: Scotch whisky blends. A decade and a half later, Glaser, who printed his first business cards with the title “Whisky Zealot,” has proven himself a…

Highly Recommended\ The issue’s most impressive wines. Includes top-scorers and wines that represent optimal purchases based on thei 95Evening Land Chardonnay Eola-Amity Hills Seven Springs Vineyard Summum 2013 $90 OREGON Taut, focused and juicy, with lemon, lemon verbena and mineral overtones to the lithe, lively, opentextured pear and apple flavors, which linger expressively as the finish floats on. Drink now through 2023. 288 cases made.—H.S. 95 Lewis Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013 $90 CALIFORNIA Remarkably elegant and refined for a wine of this size and depth, with tiers of plum, blackberry and currant flavors, as well as subtle touches of black licorice that remain pure and graceful on the long, lingering aftertaste. Drink now through 2028. 1,600 cases made.—J.L. 95 Joh. Jos. Prum Riesling Auslese Mosel Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2013 $58…

ARGENTINA 89 Ernesto Catena Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza Siesta 2013 $27 Big and richly spiced, offering well-structured flavors of plum and dried cherry. Burly tannins show midpalate, presenting a mineralinfused finish. Drink now through 2018.—K.M. 89 Ernesto Catena Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza Tahuan 2014 $16 Broad and lush, with a surplus of rich spicy notes that accent the flavors of plum tart and cherry pie, topped with a dollop of cream. Dried mint and sage details fill the chocolate mousse finish. Drink now through 2020.—K.M. 89 Familia Rutini Cabernet Sauvignon Mendoza Encuentro 2013 $19 A lithe red, with concentrated flavors of red plum, cherry and currant that are supported by fresh acidity. Forest floor notes combine with savory accents on the finish. Drink now through 2019. 4,000 cases made.—K.M. 88 Valentin Bianchi…

Visit www.winespectator.com/022916 to find links to all of the following resources. Free resources for all our WineSpectator.com readers: TOP STORIES OF 2015 What were the hottest topics of the past year? We rounded up the most popular articles, blogs, tasting reports, videos and Unfiltered items for 2015. Find out what you missed, or revisit your favorites of the past 12 months, in our News & Features section. 2015 HARVEST REPORTS With the newest wines now aging in winery cellars, Wine Specta-tor editors provide an early look at expected vintage quality in key European and North American regions, such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa, Sonoma and more. VALENTINE’S DAY We’ve got everything you need for an inspired night of romance: A recipe to impress from one of the country’s top chefs, standout…

FOCUS ON OREGON The 2013 vintage in Oregon presented challenges, with rain at harvest, but still produced many successes, as the wines here attest. The 2014 growing season, on the other hand, was warm, yielding rich reds and whites that deliver immediate pleasure. Folin’s Passive Aggressive is a red blend based on Syrah. CHERRY HILL Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills 2013 (93, $29) Cherry, raspberry, mineral, savory; focused, lively THE FOUR GRACES Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2013 (92, $32) Plum, currant, floral, white pepper; vibrant, harmonious BROOKS Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Runaway Red 2014 (91, $23) Fresh, open-knit; cherry, cranberry, raspberry BROOKS Pinot Blanc Willamette Valley 2014 (90, $18) Pear, quince, spice; sleek, crisp FOLIN Passive Aggressive Rogue Valley 2013 (90, $15) Firm, taut; blueberry, currant  LEFT COAST Chardonnay Willamette Valley…

Thomas Matthews discovered the wine world as a grape picker in Bordeaux during the harvest of 1979. The hard labor was challenging but the culture was inspiring. He then worked as a bartender in New York and a freelance writer in France before joining Wine Spectator in 1988. He became executive editor in 1999 and is the magazine’s lead taster on the wines of Spain. Matthews lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sara, a photographer. I have witnessed a revolution in Spanish wine. When I lived in Granada, back in the late 1970s, Rioja and Sherry were pretty much the only games in town. By 1990, when I began reviewing the country’s wines for Wine Spectator, that was beginning to change, as Ribera del Duero introduced a bigger, bolder style…

A native New Yorker, James Molesworth pursued anthropology and Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1992. It wasn’t his intention to make a career in the wine business, but his first job after graduating was with a Manhattan retailer, and he was soon hooked. After a stint as a sommelier, he joined Wine Spectator in 1997. He and his wife, Nancy, live in Manhattan with their two daughters. The Molesworths spend their weekends in the Hudson Valley, where they enjoy cooking and pulling corks with friends. Bordeaux: It’s hip again. In recent years it was trendy to “Bordeaux bash”—prices had gotten excruciatingly high after the 2009 and 2010 vintages, and the region had an image of producing only elite wines aimed at label…

Senior editor Tim Fish, based in Napa Valley, is Wine Spectator’s lead taster for California Zinfandel, Rhône-style reds and Merlot. He has more than three decades’ experience as a newspaper and magazine journalist and has written about food and wine for 25 years. He was food-and-wine editor of The Press Democrat in Sonoma County before joining Wine Spectator in 2001. Fish lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his wife and teenage son. Zinfandel and Syrah have a lot in common. They show similar personalities, variations on a theme. That holds true for Syrah’s red Rhône siblings Grenache and Mourvèdre as well. There’s a certain authenticity to them, and even when the wines are tamed and refined you can’t help but sense a brute lurking beneath the surface. In California, Zinfandel…

Jared Etzel and Marc-Andre Roy are following in big footsteps, modeling their new winery Domaine Roy on Beaux Freres, the prominent Willamette Valley Pinot Noir estate in which their fathers are partners. “A lot of the philosophy has been adapted from Beaux Freres,” Jared says. “But it’s a different terroir and a different generation.” Relying on the guidance of their dads—winemaker Mike Etzel and entrepreneur Robert Roy—the duo went looking for what Jared describes as a “home run” site in Willamette Valley. During a torrential rain storm in October 2012, they found the site they wanted in a 50-year-old hazelnut orchard in Dundee. Top vineyards for Bergstrom and others were all around, and the property offered great potential, sloping gently southeast from 600 to 400 feet, with soils composed of…

Want to know what 2016 holds for wine? Last July, Constellation, one of the world’s leading wine companies, made jaws drop when it announced it would pay $315 million for Meiomi, the California Pinot Noir brand Joe Wagner had developed with the help of his father, Chuck. The $22-a-bottle Pinot is a runaway best seller, surging from 90,000 cases sold in 2010 to a projected 700,000 in 2015. But the deal was for a brand only—no vineyards or winery. What were Constellation executives thinking? Like several other large companies, they are looking for growth in the premium end of the wine business. The American wine market, the world’s largest, has split into two tiers. According to Impact Databank, a sister publication of Wine Spectator, in 2014, sales of table wines…

If you have been looking for an issue devoted to great wine values, this is it. I am proud that Wine Spectator enjoys a readership of more than 3.5 million wine lovers around the world. What keeps our readers loyal? Our secret weapon is the vast experience of our senior editors. Take Jim Laube and Harvey Steiman. Each has been with Wine Spectator for more than 30 years. Not far behind, with more than 20 years at the magazine, are Tom Matthews, Kim Marcus and Bruce Sanderson. Together, our senior tasters have more experience than the staff of any other wine publication on earth. They review thousands of wines each year in our independent blind tastings. In this issue, however, I challenged Tom and his team to go one step…

Can a glass of wine a day keep the doctor away? New research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel supports the theory that a daily single serving of wine, combined with the right diet, offers health benefits. Researchers there have found that one glass a day can help type-2 diabetes patients, decreasing risk factors for heart disease and diabetes complications while increasing levels of HDL (or “good”) cholesterol. Multiple studies have shown that wine drinkers who consume moderate amounts of the beverage are less likely to develop type-2 diabetes than those who abstain from alcohol. The authors of the new study, published in the Oct. 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, wanted to better understand the relationship between diabetes and alcohol, specifically its effect on cardiometabolic…

On Nov. 13–14, 2015, chefs and vintners from across the United States flocked to New Orleans for the Emeril Lagasse Foundation’s 11th annual Carnivale du Vin, which raised more than $3 million for chil-dren’s education and culinary charity programs, a $750,000 increase over last year’s event. “My wife, Alden, and I are overjoyed with the suc-cess of the foundation’s most recent fundraising weekend,” said Lagasse. The foundation has raised more than $7 million since its inception in 2002. The weekend-long festivities kicked off with a re-cord-breaking 5,000 guests packing Friday eve-ning’s Boudin, Bourbon & Beer event outside the Superdome. Saturday’s black-tie gala included a live auction and a five-course meal for more than 650 attendees, cooked by high school students in the culinary program at the New Orleans Center for…

Emily Luchetti thinks dessert should be simple. “You want to bite into it and then automatically, reactively, instinctually, your hand moves to take another bite because it’s so good,” she says. Luchetti was working at Jeremiah Tower’s San Francisco restaurant Stars in the mid-1980s, first as a line cook, then as lunch chef, when she discovered her love of baking. “I felt like I’d found my home,” she says. She was pastry chef of Stars for eight years before moving on to San Francisco’s Farallon, then Waterbar, both winners of Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence. With six cookbooks to her name, Luchetti now runs the pastry programs of San Francisco restaurants the Cavalier, the Marlow and Park Tavern. In a world where many triumphs are the work of…

Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, the calendar flips and it’s time to start over again. Wine has its own temporal tides, and along we go with them, ready or not. While I look forward to what comes next, I also reflect on the valuable lessons of the past. What’s new drives most wine lovers’ curiosity, and the world is awash right now with opportunities for discovery. New regions appear on the radar. New faces emerge, along with new perspectives. Sometimes there even are new grapes—or really old grapes reborn and reinvented. And there are always new vintages ahead. Then there are the older vintages waiting to be rediscovered. Here’s a sign of the times: In the past year, there’s been a revival of interest in…

Senior editorJames Laube has been writing about wine since 1978 and for Wine Spectator since 1981, using his base in Napa Valley as a starting point for exploring the wine world. He has written four books about the Golden State’s wines and pursued his interest in Southern Hemisphere wine regions with travels in Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa, among his recent sojourns. He is lead taster on California Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. California is delivering a run of strong vintages for its most popular wines. On top of that, the wines are showing marked improvement as producers learn more about their vineyards and tweak styles. The fine-tuning for Cabernet, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is aimed toward wines with greater density, focus, balance and depth, and away from…

Kim Marcus is managing editor and lead taster on an eclectic mix of European and South American regions. His first job out of college was as a newspaper reporter in Napa Valley, and he started working for Wine Spectator magazine in 1988. He is a fourth-generation native Californian whose ancestors include Central Valley grapegrowers. When he is not reviewing wines, Marcus enjoys cooking, hiking and gardening. Diversity is the name of the game when it comes to the collection of wines from the regions I cover. In the New World, these include Chile and Argentina; in the Old World, Portugal, the south of France, Germany, Austria and a smattering of other places, Greece among them. Malbec is the pot of gold for Argentina, whose vintners have turned it into a…

MaryAnn Worobiec has been with Wine Spectator since 1997. She is the senior editor responsible for reviewing the wines of New Zealand, as well as white wines and Petite Sirahs from California. In addition, she is senior tasting coordinator in the magazine’s Napa, Calif., office. A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in political science and sociology, Worobiec worked for the Ohio House of Representatives before falling in love with wine. Reviewing wine is a pretty exciting job already, but I’ve been extra lucky to witness and report on the explosion of some new and exciting wine categories. New Zealand wines are on fire. Since I started covering New Zealand in 2010, its Sauvignon Blancs have become one of the fastest-growing categories in wine. In that same time,…

When he started his Colene Clemens winery in 2005, Joe Stark didn’t have any experience in wine, unless drinking it counts. He did know Willamette Valley, having grown up there, and after years of looking, he found a promising if untested site for a vineyard. Then he put his considerable resources as a prosperous cabinet manufacturer into developing his dream. What might have been a long shot worked out for Colene Clemens, which after just a few vintages is producing impressive wines. Consider the focused and expressive Pinot Noir Chehalem Mountains Adriane 2013 (90, $50) or the Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2013 (91, $28), a blend of estate fruit that’s sleek and polished. The 122-acre estate, named for Stark’s mother-in-law, tumbles down a steep hillside where the Chehalem Mountains and…

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 Australia, Oregon, Washington Thomas Matthews Spain Kim Marcus Argentina, Austria,…

DR. VINNY Dear Dr. Vinny, Is “Fine Champagne Cognac” made in the Champagne region? Is it made from Champagne grapes? —Jerry, Leawood, Kan. Dear Jerry, Actually, neither. Cognac is a brandy made in the Cognac region of western France, about 80 miles north of Bordeaux; it’s made mostly from Ugni Blanc grapes. Champagne, made in the region of the same name located about 100 miles northeast of Paris, can be made from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier grapes. But then it gets a little confusing, because there is something called Fine Champagne Cognac. Within Cognac are six growing regions, including one named Grande Champagne and another named Petite Champagne. Fine Champagne Cognac is made from a blend of grapes from these two regions. How’d they all end up named…