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th 30 Annual Wine&S& pirits BUYING GUIDE SPECIAL ISSUE 100 Best Wines 100 Best Buys TOP 100Wineries of 2016 WINTER 2016 wineandspiritsmagazine.com $9.99 US $10.99 Canada Display until December 31, 2016 th 30 Annual Copyright 2016 Wine & Spirits Magazine; this article may not be sold, Wine&S& pirits BUYING GUIDE SPECIAL ISSUE 100 altered in any way, or circulated without this statement. Best Wines 100 Best Buys Wine & Spirits presents the best of more than 14,500 wines TOP tasted annually, along with James Beard Award-winning coverage of Five of our Top 100: 100 Wineries top wine and food destinations, perspectives and news. of 2016 Fleury, Blandy’s, C. von Schubert, WINTER 2016 wineandspiritsmagazine.com $9.99 US $10.99 Canada Subscribe today for access to our online database of reviews at Display until December 31, 2016 Dominus and Ochota Barrels Five of our Top 100: Fleury, Blandy’s, C. von Schubert, Dominus and Ochota Barrels wineandspiritsmagazine.com or call 888-695-4660. 30th Annual Buying Guide Wine&Spirits PREMIER CRU: The wineries that have earned the most Top 100 awards. If there were a way to game the system, making great wine year after year, perhaps Penfolds has fi gured it out. Tend your own cabernet and syrah vines dating back more than a century. Build teams of growers to compete and win as they climb the quality scale. Nurture your wine- makers from within and keep them on for decades: Only two chief winemakers—John Duval and Peter Gago—are responsible for the array of exceptional South Australian wines that earned Penfolds more W&S Top 100 honors than any winery in the world. Though the rare Special Bin releases may reach the pinnacles at Penfolds, Grange sets 25 Awards Penfolds (2016) the bar for syrah-based wines worldwide: The wine earned an excep- Block 42 at Penfolds’ Kalimna Vineyard in Barossa, planted in the tional score in 18 vintages from 1991 to 2010, including 97 points for 1880s, may be the oldest cabernet sauvignon vines in the world. the 1991 and 1996. Benchmarks: Grange, RWT Shiraz, Bin 707 Cabernet, St. Henri Shiraz 22 Awards Concha y Toro (2017) Concha y Toro may be best known in the Loosen’s experience with late-harvest wines. (The 2005 is the highest-scoring Monte Bello US for its value-priced Frontera and Casil- The extremely rare 2008 Single Berry Select to date, at 97 points.) Ridge has also made lero del Diablo wines, largely produced from earned a 96-point score this year. The Eroica ageworthy zinfandels since the 1960s, so if fruit their team purchases throughout Chile. program has been a boon for their other, you fi nd a Lytton Springs or Geyserville from But around the time we started our Buy- more widely available rieslings as well: The the 1990s, snap it up. ing Guide, Concha y Toro started buying 2014 Columbia Valley Dry Riesling, a $9 Look for: Monte Bello, Santa Cruz Moun- up some of the most prized vineyard land wine, was recently awarded 90 points. tains Estate Cabernet, Monte Bello Chardon- in Chile, adding to their Puente Alto Vine- Benchmarks: Eroica, Eroica Gold, Eroica nay, Lytton Springs yard—where Enrique Tirado makes Don Single Berry Select Melchor —with Peumo, likely the greatest 17 Awards site in Chile for carmenère. That site grows 19 Awards Shafer (2015) the Terrunyo Carmenère (95 points, 2007 Marchesi Antinori (2017) When John Shafer made his fi rst caber- and 2011) and the Carmín de Peumo Carme- Seven centuries of winemaking puts 30 years net from his hillsides under the Stags Leap nère (96 points, 2005 and 2010), reds that of scorekeeping into perspective, but it’s Escarpment in 1978, the tannins were so soft earned Concha y Toro its rarifi ed place in the been quite a 30-year run for Antinori: It has and luxurious people thought it was blended pantheon of New World wine. earned more Top 100 awards than any other with merlot. Hillside Select became a cult Benchmarks: Terrunyo Carmenère, Carmín Italian winery, particularly for its work with wine when his son, Doug, and winemaker, de Peumo Carmenère, Don Melchor, Terru- Bordeaux planted on some of Tuscany’s best Elias Fernandez, released the 1991. More nyo Pirque Viejo Cabernet vineyard land. Some of the greatest hits: recently their vineyard expansion in the Stags Solaia 1990 (96 points), 1992 Tignanello (94 Leap District has helped them create One 22 Awards points) and, most recently, the 2011 Guado al Point Five, a cabernet with all the depth of Chateau Ste. Michelle (2017) Tasso (95 points). Hillside Select at less than half the price. Chateau Ste. Michelle, our most awarded US Benchmarks: Solaia, Tignanello, Guado al Benchmarks: Hillside Select, One Point Five winery, put Washington State on the world Tasso cabernets wine map. It excels with Columbia Valley merlot, cabernet, chardonnay and, particu- 18 Awards 17 Awards larly, riesling. The riesling program reached Ridge (2017) Boutari (2014) new heights after 1999, when Ste. Michelle When Paul Draper retired earlier this year, he Boutari is a leader in the contemporary partnered with Ernst Loosen, best known capped o a winemaking career that earned Greek wine revolution, a 137-year-old com- for his coveted rieslings from ancient, own- him respect not only in the US, but around pany that fi rst landed in our Top 100 in 1989. rooted vines on vertiginous slopes of the the world—it’s not surprising that, under his At the time, the company was launching a Mosel. Their joint Eroica project has consis- watch, Ridge has earned more Top 100 nods winery in Santorini; it has since become the tently resulted in Washington’s top dry ries- than any other California winery. Monte standard-bearer for Santorini wines—both ling, which regularly earns 93 and 94-point Bello, the winery’s fl agship from the begin- the bright, clean stainless steel–fermented scores. More recently, they’ve capitalized on ning, never seems to have an o vintage. style and the richer barrel-fermented style. 24 WINE & SPIRITS BUYING GUIDE 2017 REGIONAL 2016 TOP 100 WINERIES TOP Bob Bertheau Founded: 1934 Winemakers: Bob Bertheau and Ernst Loosen Viticulturist: Kevin Corliss Acres owned: 3,500 Annual production: 3,000,000 cases Estate grown: 40% Owner: Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Location: Woodinville, WA Chateau Ste. Michelle Website: smwe.com Chateau Ste. Michelle, Washington State’s oldest and largest winery, Riesling For All: The other Eroica rieslings are much more has earned 22 Top 100 awards, the most of any producer in the United widely available. One recent addition is Gold, a semi-dry, States. But its most impressive achievement may be in its extensive Auslese-style bottling that also benefi ts from the concen- work with riesling. trating e ects of botrytis, taking on a delicious tropical richness, the distinctions of which a guy like Loosen can Another Rendezvous with Riesling: In 2016, Chateau Ste. Michelle appreciate immensely. “There is usually a very nice apri- hosted the fi fth Riesling Rendezvous, an event that brings together cot character in the aroma,” says Loosen, “which we sel- riesling producers from all over the world to compare notes, share dom see in the Mosel.” experiences and wines, and consider what “dry” means in Canada, Overall, Loosen has always been thrilled with the Germany, Austria, France, Australia, New Zealand, Oregon and, not levels of botrytis that he encounters in Washington, as least, Washington State. Chateau Ste. Michelle is one of the driving well as its quality. “Botrytis in Germany is much more forces behind riesling’s global renaissance and is, in fact, the world’s risky because of the wet climate,” explains Loosen. largest riesling producer. Most of this volume consists of a ordable, “We often have to do a lot of negative selection to reliable appellation wines—dry and o -dry versions. The team saves remove bad botrytis before we can harvest the good their best for Eroica, a partnership with Mosel superstar Ernst Loosen fruit. But what we get in Washington is usually very that began in 1999 and has become the hallmark of their production. good, with clean, dry, shriveled berries that are extremely concentrated.” The Latest (Greatest) Harvest: Each year, Ste. Michelle and Eroica set up Meanwhile, the original Eroica continues to set a late-harvest riesling program on a scale that few wineries can match. the standard for dry American riesling. And this year, Loosen and Ste. Michelle winemaker Bob Bertheau let as much as we were astonished by the crisp, pure fl avors of Chateau ten acres of riesling hang late into the season, most of it in the dips Ste. Michelle’s 2014 Columbia Valley Dry Riesling, priced at $9. It’s and draws of their Horse Heaven Hills vineyard, waiting for botrytis one of our 100 Best Buys of the Year. —P.J.C. and, sometimes, freezing weather. Botrytis is almost inevitable here, where fog from the Columbia River creeps in at night and hangs until morning. Clusters and berries with 100 percent botrytis—“not a speck of green,” says Bertheau—go into the Single Berry Select, with sugar levels approaching 55 degrees Brix. The result, in certain sea- TOP-SCORING WINES sons, is spectacular, like the wine from 2008 (a miniscule 21 cases of half-bottles were made in the vintage). It’s an irrepressibly immense, 96 ’08 HH Hills Eroica Single Berry Select Riesling $200 (12/15) wildly powerful late-harvest wine seemingly crammed with fl avor and 93 ’13 Columbia Valley Eroica Gold Riesling $30 (12/15) an electric, mouthwatering jolt of acidity, a thrill-ride of weight and momentum.