Since Aubert is in Napa I was not surprised to it omitted. But then when did Jeff Cohn move to Sonoma??
I was surprised to see Michael Cruse and Don Baumhefner omitted for Sparkling.Ditto Kistler, Simi, Marcassin, Paul Hobbs, Peay, Peter Michael, Dehlinger and Flowers for Chardonnay.
For Pinot no mention of Dehlinger, Swan, Twomey, Occidental, Kistler, Marcassin, William-Selyem, Phelps, Rochioli, Arista,…to name a few
For Cab…Jordan,Simi. Laurel Glen
Sometimes your eyes glaze over when reading these lists. So pardon me if I missed a few.
I would think for most wine geeks most famous wineries in Sonoma county would include:
Ramey, Cruse, Kistler, Occidental, Swan, Dehlinger, Flowers, Kistler, Marcassin, Rochioli, Peter Michael, Williams Selyem, Peay.
When people ask why are wineries x,y and z omitted it is most likely they didn’t try any wines from those wineries in the past year. Man would I love to be able to try 20 plus wines a day for a year from Sonoma just to whittle a list down to 100. I don’t think that happens for many critics if any.
They should be only trying 20 wines a day and revisiting them next day and the day after. I know a few of commented to me that they do but would love to see that in their notes.
When they are trying 100 a day they all blend together in my opinion.
Not a pay to play list (I know Linda, the author, so not it at all).
Second, not really grocery store wines. Lots of these aren’t available there.
Finally, half of the people complain when a Top 100 list includes wines that nobody can ever find (why include them? They already have great press, etc.) Linda likes to write for the consumer. I imagine her criteria included wines that people can find and purchase. She even apologies in the introduction that the list is so expensive - which it hardly is (and would be much more so if it included the wines some listed above).
If I recall from writing for the Trinitonian when I was in college - headlines are written by someone other than the author of the article. And, while I don’t disagree with your point, I think that even if the list included those wineries you felt are left out, it still wouldn’t be technically correct unless the author has tasted every single wine made in Sonoma County. So, yeah, maybe it’s a little hyperbole - but it won’t keep me up at night.
“100 Amazing Sonoma County Wines That Will Tick Off Alpha Male Wine Geeks Whose Favorite Wine Isn’t On The List” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
One thing about Sonoma county is that there are many different regions. To name a few: the Sonoma Valley, Russian River, Dry Creek, Alexander valley, the various Sonoma Coasts, etc.
You could almost do a top 100 of each region.
I counted 16 that I didn’t know. A lot of them would be available off and on in NYC, but they were never “cult” wines or anything, just nice alternatives to grocery store wines (which don’t exist in NY anyway). It’s actually not such a bad list, although I haven’t had most of them for quite some time.
Really Ray you think anyone putting a list this big is buying all their samples? No one can afford to do that.
Have you never seen these bogus gold medal winners? They are all pay to play and that is why the gold or double gold winners are mediocre wines at best.
