Innholdsfortegnelse for March 31, 2017 i Wine Spectator

ItalyVisit www.winespectator.com/033117 to find links to all of the following resources. Free resources for all our WineSpectator.com readers: WINE & HEALTH TIPS In “Hot Topics in Health,” we share the past year’s biggest news and most provocative questions regarding moderate drinking and its role in brain health, aging, diabetes, cancer and more. Keep on top of the latest research through our regular Health News reports, ask questions in Wine & Health Q&A and sign up for Wine & Healthy Living, our free twice-monthly e-mail newsletter. NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS For wine lovers and the trade, our website is the place to go to find out which big-name wineries have been sold, the possible impact of Brexit on the wine mar-ket, who is being prosecuted for counterfeiting or other wine fraud, and much…

“Roasted ar-tichoke is really in the top five of hardest things to pair with,” notes Gretchen Thomas, wine director of Barce-lona Wine Bar. Luck-ily, she and culinary director Christopher Lee like a challenge. Boasting one of the largest Spanish wine programs in the country, this Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence–winning constellation of tapas restaurants has a pioneering spirit, championing Spanish wines up and down the East Coast. In many cases, Thomas says, “We’re presenting to our guests something new that the city maybe never had before we opened up.” In November 2016, the group opened a location on Nashville’s Music Row, and in December, it launched a new space in Norwalk, Conn., up the street from its for-mer flagship. Lee has done stints at Wine Spectator award–winning haute…

What of Chardon-nay today? You’d think that, what with so many wines, there’s little left to say about Chardonnay. It’s a known universe—or so we think. You can’t say, for example, that Chardon-nay is at a crossroads. It’s not. Produc-ers everywhere have long since decided whether to price high or bulk low. Instead, the state of Chardonnay today involves a clamor for hard-to- attract attention. This is true for indi-vidual producers as well as entire new zones of Chardonnay production, both of which are seeking recognition for their wines’ originality and distinction. Some of the most compelling “new” Chardonnays made outside Burgundy are appearing in greater numbers from more diverse places than ever before. And they can be, in a word, fabulous. To cite just one example, recently I was…

A merican businessman Stan Kroenke, who owns Screaming Eagle, Jonata and The Hilt vine-yards in California, as well as sev-eral sports franchises, has bought a majority stake in Burgundy winery Domaine Bon-neau du Martray, for an undisclosed price. Bonneau du Martray, whose cellars are in Pernand-Vergelesses, has been in the Le Bault de la Morinière family since the French Revolution. The current genera-tion is led by four brothers, including estate manager Jean-Charles Le Bault de la Morinière. The family will remain part-ners in the domaine. “It’s really two fami-lies getting together,” said Armand de Maigret, who manages Kroenke’s wine properties and will oversee production at Bonneau du Martray. “The plan is for me to be the leader and to learn as much as I can from Jean-Charles. It’s a fantastic…

“What’s new?” is just about the best question you can ask at the cheese counter. Any good cheesemonger is guaranteed to come up with plenty of delicious answers. To arrive at a suitably exciting “all-new” plate, nearly 50 candidates from all over the fine-cheese landscape were whittled down to 20 finalists—and even-tually to this elite eight. (Some of these cheeses have been around in Europe for several years but only recently became available in the United States.) When putting together a tasting, it’s important to strive for variety, breadth and depth. Generally speaking, you want to start with milder, lighter cheeses and move gradually to stronger, heavier ones. Also, try to alternate textures, tastes and milk types: sweet and sour (acidic); dense and aerated; cow, sheep and goat. (For more…

LEFT AND RIGHT Here are some values from the new vintage of Bordeaux. Both the Right Bank (St.-Emilion and Pomerol are the famous appellations) and Left Bank (think St.-Estèphe, Pauillac, Mar-gaux and Pessac-Léognan) are represented, with excellent wines at down-to-earth prices. CHÂTEAU MONBOUSQUET St.-Emilion 2014 (93, $40) Fig paste, blackberry pâte de fruit, bramble, ganache, licorice; hefty, extracted CHÂTEAU BROWN Pessac-Léognan 2014 (92, $20) Steeped black currant, plum, loam CHÂTEAU DASSAULT St.-Emilion 2014 (92, $28) Pure, polished; fig, blackberry, boysen-berry confiture, graphite, sweet tobacco CHÂTEAU LAROZE St.-Emilion 2014 (92, $22) Fig, blackberry confiture, licorice, sweet tobacco, bramble; broad, fleshy CHÂTEAU BARDE-HAUT St.-Emilion 2014 (91, $28) Fleshy; dark currant, fig, blackberry compote, dark tobacco, roasted alder CHÂTEAU BRISSON Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux 2014 (91, $22) Steeped currant, blackberry, dried anise, apple…

When the 2014 vintage was released en primeur (for sale as futures while the wines are still in barrel), the dollar was running at about 1.14 to the euro. In ad-dition, prices on the ’14s generally saw only modest increases over the ’13 and ’12 vintages, both years decidedly lower in quality. Since then, the remaining stocks of wines have typically seen increases of 10 percent to 20 percent from négociants, yet today the dollar stands at 1.06:1 to the euro, helping to offset any rise in prices. The result is that 2014 is a buyer’s vintage. Yields did run lower in 2014, however, so some alacrity is needed on the part of consumers who wish to secure any remaining bottles of the top wines. With the excellent 2015 and…

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 Lisini Brunello di Montalcino Ugolaia 2010 $119 ITALY This complex red shows a duality between its rose, strawberry and currant aromas and its savory notes of earth, tobacco and mineral. The muscular structure is more allied to the latter, but this remains fresh, resonant and long. You could match this to a grilled steak now or let mellow for a few years. Best from 2019 through 2035. 700 cases made.—B.S. 97 Saxum James Berry Vineyard Paso Robles Willow Creek District 2014 $98 CALIFORNIA A dramatic wine that weds power and opulence, main-taining impeccable balance along the way. Brooding dark berry and loamy mineral aromas lead…

One and Only I enjoyed the letter from Nicholas Dulmovic about Ronald Reagan’s appreciation of great wine (Feedback, Dec. 31, 2016). In the letter, Mr. Dulmovic speculated that the president had other bottles of 1911 Château Margaux aside from the one he served for his and Nancy’s 40th wed-ding anniversary. My wife and I know how President Reagan got that bottle; we doubt he had an-other one. On a private tour of Bordeaux in the early ’90s, we visited Margaux for a tast-ing. Our guide, an American wine broker and judge who was married to a Frenchman from Bordeaux, was a friend of the Château Margaux mar-keting director. During the tasting, we had an interesting discussion about the winery’s extensive library. As one of several examples, the market-ing director told…

Debbie Lewis, Napa Star Debbie Lewis, cofounder of Napa Valley’s Lewis Cel-lars, died Jan. 4 after a year-long battle with cancer. She was 72. Just a month earlier, Lewis Cellars’ 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon was named Wine Spectator’s 2016 Wine of the Year. “Debbie was the rock, the steady hand of our family and of Lewis Cellars,” said her husband, Randy. “There would be no Lewis Cellars without Debbie. She quietly worked to make Lewis Cel-lars the best it could be, inspiring us all to do the same.” Born and raised in Northern California, Lewis taught kin-dergarten before tapping a longtime interest in wine, working in retail sales and co-managing a wine bar. She met Randy Lewis, then an up-and-coming race car driver, at a wine-tasting group in the late 1970s.…

Instead of destroying the California wine industry in the 1980s, the phylloxera epidemic transformed it. At first, it appeared only as a small withered patch in a vineyard near Rutherford, in the heart of Napa Valley, barely noticeable except for a few stubby vines with muted growth. No one paid much attention until the little patches grew larger and spread to more areas. It was then that vintners knew they faced a crisis: Vineyards in Napa Valley were dying, and little could be done to save most of them. Entomologists quickly identified the malady in the mid-1980s as phyllox-era, the name for the tiny aphids that feast on grapevine roots. Phylloxera is more than a pest. It’s a slow-moving monster with an insatiable appetite. Phylloxera had attacked California before, devastating…

CHÂTEAU DAUZAC This Margaux fifth-growth has been a sleeper. But new management installed in 2013 is focused on both raising quality and delivering value, while also opening the château’s doors to tourism. For more than two decades, Château Dauzac had been owned by insur-ance company MAIF in partnership with Vignobles André Lurton, which had managed the estate since 1992. But when Lurton’s company decided to sell its stake, MAIF took full control, bringing in Laurent Fortin as managing director. In 2016, the estate took precision harvest-ing to a new level by introducing a cutting-edge technology called Multiplex that opti-cally scans every grape, measuring phenolic maturity. The culled data pairs with Google Maps to create a map of the vineyard that is color-coded for maturity levels. This allows pickers to work…

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 At large Thomas Matthews Spain Kim Marcus Argentina, California, Chile…