Wine Spectator Top 100 List 2008 – Wines 8 and 7
Yesterday we had wines nine and ten. Today comes wines eight and seven.
Château de Beaucastel
Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2005
96 points / $95
15,000 cases made
France
One of the largest estates in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape appellation, this property is owned and run by the Perrin family. In 2005, they produced their best regular cuvée since 1989 (Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year in 1991). The Beaucastel vineyard produces dense and explosive wines from a collage of 13 different grapes, most notably Grenache and Mourvèdre. Each is fermented separately in concrete or wooden vats. The third year of drought, 2005 only intensified the concentration and structure of this ageworthy red.
Wine #7
Château Pontet-Canet
Pauillac 2005
96 points / $100
20,830 cases made
France
Owner Alfred Tesseron has masterminded one of the most remarkable turnarounds on Bordeaux’s Left Bank in the past decade, elevating the quality of Pontet-Canet’s wines beyond that of fifth-growth. While Pauillacs such as Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Latour draw much higher prices, Pontet-Canet too crafts powerful wines, built for aging, that express its vineyards planted on poor, gravel soils half a mile from the Gironde River.
Wine Spectator Top 100 List 2008 – Wines 10 and 9
From Wine Spectator:
Each year, Wine Spectator editors survey the wines we’ve reviewed over the past 12 months and select the most exciting for our Top 100.
In 2008, we reviewed more than 19,500 wines from around the world in blind tastings. More than 5,300 of them earned outstanding ratings (90 points or higher on our 100-point scale). We then narrowed the list down based on four criteria: quality (represented by score); value (reflected by release price); availability (measured by case production or cases imported); and an X-factor we call excitement. But no equation determines the final selections: These choices reflect our editors’ judgment and passion about the wines we tasted.
Fourteen countries are represented, making the 2008 list the most diverse group in the history of the Top 100, which debuted in 1988. Quality remains high, with an average score of 93 points, consistent with the past two years. With the dollar weak early in the year, however, prices increased, pushing this year’s average to $52 per bottle. We hope that you enjoy this list of exciting values, emerging stars and classic wines and that our Top 100 of 2008 leads you to more deeply explore the world of wine.
From: top100.winespectator.com
Seghesio
Zinfandel Sonoma County 2007
93 points / $24
68,000 cases made
California
Mollydooker
Shiraz McLaren Vale Carnival of Love 2007
95 points / $90
2,596 cases made
Australia
Click on the links to find more information about these wines. There are tasting notes and a tasting video for each wine if you follow the link.
