And the Wine Spectator Wine of the Year is . . .

WINE TALK
41

Happy for my neighbors at Roederer Estate for landing at #5. Would love to know what percentage of my fruit is in there.

42

The list is always fairly unsurprising in how commercial and mainstream it is, but this year seems to go a lot further. Pretty boring spread of wines even for them, at least no price hikes for the good stuff!

43

I was disappointed that the Carlisle 16 Papera zin wasn’t in there. WS gave it 96 and it’s <$50. There were 1000 cases made and that’s usually enough availability for WS. It was easy to find in the secondary market. I bet it comes in at #11 or 12.

44

Thanks for the great note, Jay. I’m sitting on a few recent vintages, but I’ll need to get a few old bottles.

45

The list is always fairly unsurprising in how commercial and mainstream it is, but this year seems to go a lot further. Pretty boring spread of wines even for them, at least no price hikes for the good stuff!
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I think that is part of what goes into picking the list. WS wants to list wines that the US consumer has at least a decent chance of purchasing and tasting. What’s the point of selecting $1800 Burgundies or small production wines that most of the world will never get to experience? [scratch.gif]

46

It is #12

47

Yep, Top 100 is out and no real surprises in there. MacDonald made it as did Saxum and Denner . . .

Cheers

48

The top 100 seems to suck worse than usual. A to Z Wineworks? Come on! It is just a blend of surplus juice.
It also fits WS that the choices from the Penner Ash and Cristom stables are their ripest, least subtle wines.

There are, as usual however, a few wines that I have never heard of, and wouldn’t mind trying. For instance, the Carol Shelton Coquille Blanc, and a few of the NZ and Aussie PNs.

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49

I liked seeing the Bodegas Mas Alta Black Slate Priorat “La Vilella Alta” come in at #24. I’ve had most of the last 6-7 vintages of this and it’s a great introductory wine; but the “Porrera” bottling is even better. A recent 2015 was far more restrained than previous vintages, and I suspect worth a revisit if you see it on a shelf… Just great character for the price. A few vintages I believe Parker the gave this Vilella Alta a 95 and it was in short supply but is readily available most years now…

50

I would dump my 2016 L-B for 150 if I could. I bought them to age and drink, but I’d rather have 3 bottles of 2008 Dom than 3 bottles of 2016 L-B.

51

Anyone notice our boy Brian Loring cracked the Top 100? And with an AVA wine nonetheless.

#98
Loring Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills -
Powerful, focused and well-spiced, with flavors of dark cherry, plum tart and dried beef that lengthen out nicely. Pastry notes linger midpalate, leading to a finish of cola nut and chocolate nib accents. Drink now through 2022. 900 cases made. —

CONGRATS Brian, and you might as well stop fooling around with that single vineyard stuff!

52

I think that is part of what goes into picking the list. WS wants to list wines that the US consumer has at least a decent chance of purchasing and tasting. What’s the point of selecting $1800 Burgundies or small production wines that most of the world will never get to experience? [scratch.gif]
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I’ve never had an $1800 Burgundy! To your point, there’s a lot that exists between those extremes, and the WS list just seems to exist to reinforce their commercial relationships with big brands. I don’t think it’s some fair minded move on their part to only pick wines that everyone can buy, (half the wines on the top 10 are out of my price range).

53

WS makes it clear that value and availability play a large role in determining what makes it on to the list.

"Our tasters reviewed more than 15,000 new releases in 2019; more than 6,250 of those scored 90 points or higher on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale. From that initial pool of wines, we evaluated each bottle for its combination of quality (based on score), value (price), availability (cases made or imported into the United States) and, most important, an exciting backstory, what we call the “X-factor.”

54

Loveblock makes some nice wines

55

In a different thread I advocated for Carlisle Papera Zin. Good score, great QPR and 1000 cases produced. It landed at #12. Similarly scored wines in the top ten go for 3X the price. Maybe not a lot of respect for Zin.

56

I get the assignment to pick the wines for my company legal department’s holiday dinner every January at a really nice restaurant in Minneapolis (Cafe Lurcat). Of course, I need to keep the price as low as I can, though the markups are fairly high on their list.

The last two years, I’ve picked the Black Slate La Vilella Alta as the red, and it’s really been a good wine for the price (which is still something like $54 off their list). Enough fruit and mainstream appeal to go over well with a crowd of non-geeks, pretty good character and interest to keep the wine geeks (i.e. me, and only me) enjoying it, and it works reasonably well as a cocktail wine before dinner and also with your meal.

57

This is last years…a fine accomplishment nonetheless

58

Personally, I trust the reviewers’ reviews but look at the Top 100 as an advertising drive.

The “X-Factor” is pretty much so they can pick and rank however they want. It is what it is and part of that is an ad revenue driver. They’re a business making money off of advertising driven by wine reviews. I have no doubt that advertising dollars plays a part in the X-Factor but on the other hand there are wines on the list that will never place ads in WS. So it’s a mix of driving revenue but trying to appear respectable. Kind of like our politicians saying they will take money from donors but it won’t affect how they vote. [rofl.gif]

With Duckhorn Three Palms a few years ago they obviously decided that they wanted to push a narrative that Merlot is back and who better to reward with a #1 than Duckhorn who continued to produce high end Merlot throughout the Sideways downturn and, by the way, happens to spend big bucks in advertising.

It’s also interesting that they list availability in the weightings but there are several wines that have long wait lists so can only be bought on the secondary market.

59

For fun my father-in-law and I like to try to pick up a few of the top 10 and drink over the holidays. Not necessarily the same vintage since those can be hard to find and jacked up in price. Found a '14 Léoville Barton at the local shop and they were selling 1 bottle per customer of the '16 at regular price.

60

Trophy did a good review of the 2018 Argiano…

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