Wine Spectator Top 10 2018

[Mattstolz]

I remember last year the Duckhorn Three Palms merlot was #1.
A couple weeks later our DE Costco got a half dozen or so of them in for the astounding price of 69.99…when everyone else by this time was charging like 200$ or thereabouts.
I grabbed a bottle (still have) and went back to grab another thinking I was getting a great deal.
I came to my senses and decided one was fine.
I could have gotten a couple more if I wanted.

Meh

If Sassicaia shows up at my costco tomorrow for 69.99 I’m buying the whole store out though. haha!

[ykwon]

I thought it saw some the other day for 169.99 or something like that. I don’t drink muchold world so didn’t let much attention to it.

[Robert.A.Jr]

Sassicaia 2015, another perspective:

“The 2015 Sassicaia is powerful and dense in the glass, with a level of concentration that is unusual. In most vintages, Sassicaia is a wine of restraint. Although the 2015 is by no means overdone, it exudes richness and textural resonance in all of its dimensions. A rush of black cherry, mocha, grilled herbs, menthol, licorice and underbrush builds as this powerful, creamy wine shows off its muscle.”

– Antonio Galloni 95

And another from Monica Larner at WA --97 points:

The long-awaited 2015 Bolgheri Sassicaia represents a tremendous effort that comes together with seamless precision and focus. This is a confident and proud red wine from Tuscany. Starting with the primary material at hand, you sense the quality of fruit thanks to the wine’s beautifully dark appearance and the rich texture it offers to the palate. The acidity is integrated, but more freshness still would have been welcomed in my view (and would also contribute to its longevity). The bouquet is amplified both in terms of volume and length. Its playlist includes dark berry fruit, spice, leather, licorice and roasted coffee bean. Yet, the mouthfeel is extremely graceful and silky. The wine’s undisputed pedigree is showcased on the palate. It should also be noted that this edition of Sassicaia feels more ready and open to me. It will age and evolve beautifully, but the 2015 Sassicaia can also be enjoyed in the medium-term. This wine is all about the here and now.

I’m not a fan of this style of note and cringed a half dozen times when reading it.
Sass must be pleased this evolved from “91-93” in barrel to 97 WA, 95 V, WS # 1.

Her note is horrid. Completely disjointed and contradictory.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

What’s contradictory about it?

[Rory_K]

Sassicaia 2015, another perspective:

“The 2015 Sassicaia is powerful and dense in the glass, with a level of concentration that is unusual. In most vintages, Sassicaia is a wine of restraint. Although the 2015 is by no means overdone, it exudes richness and textural resonance in all of its dimensions. A rush of black cherry, mocha, grilled herbs, menthol, licorice and underbrush builds as this powerful, creamy wine shows off its muscle.”

– Antonio Galloni 95

And another from Monica Larner at WA --97 points:

The long-awaited 2015 Bolgheri Sassicaia represents a tremendous effort that comes together with seamless precision and focus. This is a confident and proud red wine from Tuscany. Starting with the primary material at hand, you sense the quality of fruit thanks to the wine’s beautifully dark appearance and the rich texture it offers to the palate. The acidity is integrated, but more freshness still would have been welcomed in my view (and would also contribute to its longevity). The bouquet is amplified both in terms of volume and length. Its playlist includes dark berry fruit, spice, leather, licorice and roasted coffee bean. Yet, the mouthfeel is extremely graceful and silky. The wine’s undisputed pedigree is showcased on the palate. It should also be noted that this edition of Sassicaia feels more ready and open to me. It will age and evolve beautifully, but the 2015 Sassicaia can also be enjoyed in the medium-term. This wine is all about the here and now.

I’m not a fan of this style of note and cringed a half dozen times when reading it.
Sass must be pleased this evolved from “91-93” in barrel to 97 WA, 95 V, WS # 1.

Her note is horrid. Completely disjointed and contradictory.

Oh my god it’s a gem…I love that she can tell the quality of the fruit by how dark it is, and that it’s all about the here and now, which obviously means it can be enjoyed medium term, and the eloquent “Starting with the primary material at hand”…

[PaulMills]

[

If Sassicaia shows up at my costco tomorrow for 69.99 I’m buying the whole store out though. haha!

If that happens, I will split it with you.

[Mattstolz]

[

If Sassicaia shows up at my costco tomorrow for 69.99 I’m buying the whole store out though. haha!

If that happens, I will split it with you.

haha if it happens i will call in the calvary so we can get it all back to our houses.

[Jim_Brennan]

Ho hum.

When is it ever anything but? Which is a good thing, since it really is just a gratuitous way to capitalize on wines that were already sold through.

[J_D_o_v_e]

Sassicaia 2015, another perspective:

“The 2015 Sassicaia is powerful and dense in the glass, with a level of concentration that is unusual. In most vintages, Sassicaia is a wine of restraint. Although the 2015 is by no means overdone, it exudes richness and textural resonance in all of its dimensions. A rush of black cherry, mocha, grilled herbs, menthol, licorice and underbrush builds as this powerful, creamy wine shows off its muscle.”

– Antonio Galloni 95

And another from Monica Larner at WA --97 points:

The long-awaited 2015 Bolgheri Sassicaia represents a tremendous effort that comes together with seamless precision and focus. This is a confident and proud red wine from Tuscany. Starting with the primary material at hand, you sense the quality of fruit thanks to the wine’s beautifully dark appearance and the rich texture it offers to the palate. The acidity is integrated, but more freshness still would have been welcomed in my view (and would also contribute to its longevity). The bouquet is amplified both in terms of volume and length. Its playlist includes dark berry fruit, spice, leather, licorice and roasted coffee bean. Yet, the mouthfeel is extremely graceful and silky. The wine’s undisputed pedigree is showcased on the palate. It should also be noted that this edition of Sassicaia feels more ready and open to me. It will age and evolve beautifully, but the 2015 Sassicaia can also be enjoyed in the medium-term. This wine is all about the here and now.

I’m not a fan of this style of note and cringed a half dozen times when reading it.
Sass must be pleased this evolved from “91-93” in barrel to 97 WA, 95 V, WS # 1.

Her note is horrid. Completely disjointed and contradictory.

Hard to argue that.

[John_Peacock]

With the busy pre-Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving event weekends for the Willamette Valley coming up soon, I know that Colene Clemens is gearing up to be VERY busy thanks to this ranking. I’ll report back after the weekends to let you all know if there was noticeable impact to tasting traffic.

The 2015 Colene Clemens Dopp Creek actually sold out shortly after the score was announced on Spectator’s Insider a month ago.

The Wine Spectator impact was certainly felt this weekend. Pre-Thanksgiving is always a wine club pick up event at Colene Clemens, this weekend we saw 50% more guests than last year, and did more than 100% more in sales. The winery was previously seeing positive growth in guest counts and sales year over year, but nowhere near those levels.

[larry_schaffer]

Top 100 now released. . .

Congrats to Brian Loring who snuck in there! Kudos indeed!!!

Cheers

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

My only complaint about this list in general is that when I was a total n00b, I got sucked in to trying to find a lot of the top 100 wines after the list was released- thought it could be used as a shopping list. Geez that was a long time ago and I vividly recall how naive I was driving from store to store hoping to find some of these. Actually nowadays there is a higher likelihood of finding anything with all of the interwebz stores.

[Paul_McCourt]

I can’t remember the last time I picked up a Wine Spectator in the years since I stopped subscribing. I’m going to have to grab a copy out of curiosity

[MChang]

There’s a lot of good wines on that list. I don’t see why you couldn’t use it as a shopping list.

[AndrewH]

There’s a lot of good wines on that list. I don’t see why you couldn’t use it as a shopping list.

Only problem is so do a lot of other people. Most wine stores might have 10-15 of the bottles in the top 100 beforehand, and probably will sell out the top 10 (except maybe the one mass-produced one), if not most of the rest, pretty quickly.

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

With a lookback of a full year, most wines were already long sold out, was my experience 20 years ago

[Joe_B]

There’s a lot of good wines on that list. I don’t see why you couldn’t use it as a shopping list.

I may not drink a ton of wine but when I do, it isn’t off of the wine spectator top 100 list.

[MChang]

Even in the top 10 I’ve bought large quantities of the wines. I just took a look and have at least 6 bottles of 15 of the wines on the list.

[Mattstolz]

i agree there are some really good wines on this top 100 list. There would be some misses, but theres some I have bought plenty of. Patty green got one on there, Loring has one, most of the top 10 is solid. I think if this was your shopping list you’d find far more hits than misses on this list.

[Yao_C]

Her note is horrid. Completely disjointed and contradictory.

Hard to argue that.

Had it a few weeks ago and her note contradicts my experience. It’s neither especially dark fruited nor richly textured

From my note: “acid driven; a decent drink but didn’t seem hugely special; decent plus.” Perhaps I need to work on my tasting skills to get on the level displayed here