Wine & Spirits - Winter 2016 - 104

100 BEST WINES OF THE YEAR
and tobacco, with a streak of graphite adding to the textural richness. The wine shows
great balance, freshness and persistence, and
promises long cellaring potential. (W&S
12/15) § Massanois Imports, Washington, DC
207559

96 | Ciacci Piccolomini
d'Aragona

$75

2010 Brunello di Montalcino Pianrosso ^
Harvested from Ciacci Piccolomini's 29-acre
Pianrosso vineyard in Brunello's southern
Castelnuovo dell'Abate zone, and aged three
years in Slavonian casks, this 2010 is a gorgeous wine. Its concentrated flavors offer
remarkable clarity and precision, showing
juicy black cherry infused with notes of clove,
thyme and black tea. Firm tannins grip the
edges without impeding any of the vibrant
flavors, which linger for more than a minute. Immensely enjoyable now, this will offer
many years of pleasure. (W&S 12/15) § Indigenous Selections, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

BEST TUSCANY RED: CHANTI
210864

93 | Rocca di Montegrossi

$56

2010 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione
Vigneto San Marcellino ^ Marco RicasoliFiridolfi harvests fruit for this Gran Selezione
from two parcels planted in the rocky soils
of his Gaiole estate, one with 50-year-old
vines and a younger parcel with 20-year-old
vines. He blends in five percent pugnitello,
a thick-skinned indigenous variety added to
his estate in the late 1990s, creating a dark
and firmly structured Chianti Classico with
flavors of toasted pine nuts, black tea and
rich spice accents from 28 months in French
barriques and casks. Another two or three
years in the cellar will bring all of the elements into harmony, but this is delicious now
for pouring with cinghiali ragù. (W&S 4/16) §
North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

BEST TUSCANY DESSERT
210859

sugar. The wine aged six years in small casks
of cherry, oak and mulberry wood, leaving a
dark amber nectar that is packed with flavors
of dried plum, fig and honey, accented by
notes of star anise and orange rind. Smooth
and velvety in texture, the wine begins to
develop notes of smoked almonds, caramelized dates, chocolate and coffee. A layer of
slatey minerality adds firmness and leaves
a cool, refreshing impression on the finish.
Pairing this with anything sweet would be
overkill; contrast the wine's richness and heft
with a salty blue cheese. (W&S 4/16) § North
Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA

own in 2008. While most of the Rippon vineyard faces north, this block faces east; it's an
area close to the lake where fine schist gravels
are layered with clay. This 2012 is a firm statement of a place in a bottle, the roseate scent
and elegant texture as saturated as the high
mountain air, the cool, umami tannins gripping and mineral-inflected. It offers delicious
refinement in a wine that shares the expression of one of the most beautiful pinot noir
terroirs in the world. (W&S 4/16) § Station
Imports, San Jose, CA

N E W ZE AL AND

BEST VINH O VERDE

BEST PINOT NOIR

95 | Soalheiro

94 | Rippon

$85

2012 Lake Wanaka Emma's Block Pinot
Noir ^ West of Lake Wanaka, the Main Divide
rises up to white peaks, with glaciers that
once carved out the site of the Rippon vineyard still visible at the top of the mountains.
The glacial deposits on the hillside above the
lake include schist rock, spreading out into
schist gravels closer to the shore. Those gravels washed down a creek from Mount Roy,
a peak to the west that tops out at 6,000
feet. Rolfe Mills planted his first experimental vines at Rippon in 1975, later creating a
commercial vineyard in 1982, and planting
Emma's Block in 1991. His son, Nick, began
separating out Emma's Block to bottle on its

$115/375ml

104

BUYING GUIDE 2017

WINE & SPIRITS

$46

2012 Martinborough Single Vineyard Te
Muna Road Vineyard Pinot Noir ^ This is a
Narnia wine, its flavors otherworldly, their
shape as regal and bold as a lion's mane,
the ruff of a strange and magical beast feeding on onion grass, herbs, flowers and then
meat grilled over an open fire. It has a vibrant
lightness and energy that lives in the shadows. This grows on the top terrace at Te
Muna Road, where the Huangarua River
left a deep bed of gravel and stones under
a thin surface of sandy loam more than
20,000 years ago. Steve Smith, MW, planted
eight clones of pinot noir segmented into
40 blocks, harvested late after a cool season,
fermented with 10 percent whole clusters in
oak vats and stainless steel tanks, and aged
the wine in French oak barriques (25 percent
new). All of that combines into a pinot noir
with outrageous complexity and the vitality
to support it for a decade in the bottle. (W&S
4/16) § Kobrand, Purchase, NY
117826

95 | Rocca di
Montegrossi

2006 Vin Santo del Chianti Classico ^ Malvasia grapes for Marco Ricasoli-Firidolfi's Vin
Santo were harvested in October and hung
to dry on vertical nets suspended from the
rafters on sliding racks, allowing air to circulate and keep the bunches dry while workers
remove any unclean berries. The bunches
dried for three months, concentrating the
sugars in the shriveled berries and leaving
only ten percent of the original yield and
a staggering 406 grams per liter of residual

214096

117828

94 | Craggy Range

PORTUGAL

$26

2014 Vinho Verde Primeiras Vinhas
Alvarinho ^ "In 2014, we picked the grapes
in the rain," Luís Cerdeiro admits. "We were
removing water from the picking boxes."
Though his expectations were low, his top
wines turned out to be stunning. While he
describes his 2015s as more open and ready
to drink, he says the 2014s are "more closed,
more fresh, more acid, more mineral." If you
like wines that carry the Atlantic in their
DNA, few do it with more briskness and
beauty than this vintage of Primeiras Vinhas,
from the vines Cerdeiro's father planted in
1974. Spend some time with a glass and the
wine keeps expanding and forming new flavors, cloud formations of grapefruit, lemon
pith, baked pear and pale earthiness. For all
its fruit exposition and refreshing acidity, this
is subtle enough to decant for oysters. (W&S
8/16) § Wine In-Motion USA, Union, NJ

BEST BAIRRADA
211344

94 | Vadio

$36

2006 Bairrada Red ^ Luís Patrão, who makes
the red wines at Esporão in the Alentejo,
started this project in 2005 with Eduarda,
his partner from Brazil, and his father,
Dinis. His family has a block of baga vines,
planted sometime before 1932, when Portugal started registering vineyards. They farm
it organically, providing the fruit for what is
now a ten-year-old wine. It has matured to
graceful refinement, taking on the fennellike notes of an older Barolo, as well as the
tarriness of tannins. Those tannins bring a
tomato-leaf character to the bright cherry
core of fruit. Decant this gentle red for pork
roasted with fennel. (W&S 4/16) § Langdon
Shiverick, Los Angeles, CA

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