Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 47

JUNE 2019

TASTINGS

YEAR'S BEST

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
TASTED

RECOMMENDED

TOP WINES

BEST BUYS

US ZINFANDELS
& MIXED BLACKS,
P. 54

348

135

SICILIAN
WINES, P. 63

176

RIBERA DEL
DUERO WINES,
P. 69

145

MAIPO REDS, P. 73

ARMENIA, P. 68

URUGUAY, P. 75

216

100

IMPORTED
WINES, P. 81

436

151

TOTAL
WINES

1,535

617

312

138

FOCUS
CAMPANIAN
WHITES, P. 61

NEW RELEASES
US WINES, P. 76

Wine & Spirits recommendations start with
a panel of our peers. We present all wines to
screening panels composed of retailers, sommeliers and other wine-buying professionals. We
present flights of like wines in numbered glasses,
revealing only vintage, appellation and variety-
and price, if the wine is $15 or less. We then ask
our panelists if they would recommend the wine,
and why. Our goal is to draw on a broad universe
of tasters to help us decide which wines are worth
recommending, and to avoid the prejudices any
one critic might exercise, consciously or not,
against certain styles or types.
Our screening panels, run by a W&S editor,
recommend, on average, 20 to 30 percent
of the wines we taste. We then present all
recommended wines to the editor charged
with reviewing that region's wines. That
editor rates the wines based on the same limited
information: only vintage, appellation and variety.
Our goal with those ratings is for each reviewer
to provide you with a consistent point of view.
In the pages that follow, we present all the
wines our editors have scored 90 points or better,
as well as all the Best Buys-wines we have recommended that cost less than the median price
for their respective categories. Subscribers can
access our online database, including all wines
tasted and reviews of all recommended wines.
The label reproductions that appear in our
tasting reports are a form of advertising.
After we complete our tastings and record the
results, our marketing team offers wineries the
opportunity to draw attention to their reviews
with label reproductions. There is no obligation
to advertise, and our scores and reviews are in
no way affected by a winery's decision regarding
advertising. Neither does advertising influence
our selection of the wines we taste; our tastings
are open to all. All bottle reproductions in the
magazine are purely editorial art.

The Top Wine and Best Buy numbers are a subset of the total number of recommended wines.

SOME MEMBERS OF
OUR TASTING PANELS
FOR THIS ISSUE

LA: Daniel Viet, Carbon Beach Club * Joben Herrera,
Pizzeria Mozza * Eduardo Bolaños, Dama * Maria Garcia, The Wine House * Katie Putterlik, Otoño * Jared
Hooper, Faith & Flower * Gia Gaglieo, Urban Radish *
Danielle Françoise Fournier, Here's Looking at You

NYC: Andy Paynter, September Wines * Maxime
Blaise, The Modern * Joshua Lit, Gotham Bar & Grill
* Catherine DiGennaro, Tribeca Grill * Henrique Castillo, Hakkasan * Spencer Choi-Schagrin, Tribeca Grill *
James Conley, Keens Steakhouse * Mariko Kobayashi,
Frankly Wines * Christy Frank, Copake Wine Works

WINE & SPIRITS

JUNE 2019

Wine & Spirits - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - June 2019