Wine Spectator’s Top Wine List 2008 – The Top Wine
Here it is, the day every wine-lover has been waiting for. Without further ado, Wine Spectator’s Top Wine for 2008:
Casa Lapostolle
Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2005
96 points / $75
5,987 cases made
Chile
This is Wine Spectator's Top Wine for 2008 the Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2005.
Since its outstanding debut 1997 vintage, Casa Lapostolle’s Clos Apalta bottling has helped to establish Chile as a premier red-wine region. Owner Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle and her team created a blend of Chile’s distinctive Carmenère variety, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the estate’s oldest vines in Colchagua’s Apalta sub-valley, then kept refining: fermenting in smaller lots, hand-destemming berries and constructing a gravity-flow winery. All this came to fruition in the long, warm, dry 2005 vintage, easily Chile’s modern best. Marnier and new winemaker Jacques Begarie blended in 4 percent Petit Verdot for the first time, adding aroma and color. Rich and velvety, the 2005 Clos Apalta should reward cellaring. The wine’s price has remained relatively modest through the years.
Wine Spectator’s Top 100 List 2008 – Wines 4, 3 and 2
Yesterday Wine Spectator revealed their fifth and sixth best wines of the year. Today they have revealed wines four, three and two.
Château Guiraud
Sauternes 2005
97 points / $57
9,165 cases made
France
Bordeaux’s sweet wines shared the limelight in the region’s legendary 2005 vintage. Many châteaus, like Guiraud, long under the direction of Xavier Planty, produced their best wine ever. During the harvest, grape pickers passed painstakingly through the estate’s 210 acres of 35-year-old Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc vineyards, selecting only grapes affected by botrytis. By harvest’s end, each acre yielded only enough grapes for 54 cases of wine, with about 20 percent of that set aside for the estate’s second label.
Quinta do Crasto
Douro Reserva Old Vines 2005
95 points / $40
1,500 cases imported
Portugal
This red from Portugal’s Douro River Valley is at the crest of the new wave of high-quality table wines issuing from the historic heartland of Port. Up to 30 different grape varieties from old-vine vineyards compose this refined blend. Some of the grapes are foot-trodden in lagares during initial fermentation, and the wine is then aged 18 months in French (85 percent) and American oak. It is neither fined nor filtered before bottling. The winemaking team includes Manuel Lobo, Dominic Morris and Tomás Roquette.
Wine #2
Château Rauzan-Ségla
Margaux 2005
97 points / $100
10,000 cases made
France
Estate manager John Kolasa claims that nature did the lion’s share of the work in 2005, leaving him and his team with a relatively simple job. Yet vast investment at the estate since the mid-1990s by the owners, who also control Chanel, enabled Rauzan to reap the benefits of a great growing season. The estate’s grand vin, which reached a quality pinnacle in 2005, is 54.5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 39 percent Merlot, 5 percent Petit Verdot and 1.5 percent Cabernet Franc, selected from 74 of the 128.5 acres of vineyards.
Tomorrow is the big day: Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year! Before then check out the above links to the top wines to see tasting notes for each wine along with video of a tasting of the wine.
Wine Spectator Top 100 List 2008 – Wines 6 and 5
Yesterday they revealed wines eight and seven. Today it’s wines six and five.
Happy drinking!
Wine #6
Pio Cesare
Barolo 2004
94 points / $62
7,000 cases made
Italy
This big, juicy, chewy wine is one of Piedmont’s most reliable and widely available quality blended Barolos. Pio Boffa represents the fourth generation to run this estate, located in the heart of Barolo’s capital of Alba. He sources Nebbiolo grapes from the winery’s own vineyards in the Serralunga d’Alba commune and supplements them with grapes from trusted suppliers in the region.
Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe
Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 2005
95 points / $55
15,830 cases made
France
Brothers Daniel and Frédéric Brunier represent the third generation of Bruniers to run this famed estate. With a large (173 acre) contiguous vineyard, a rarity in the appellation, the Bruniers rely heavily on Grenache, Mourvèdre and Syrah to produce their top red cuvée. Tight and almost gravelly in feel when young, the wine has a proven ability to reward cellaring. The 2005 is a blue-chip bottling from a structure-driven vintage.
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.
