Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022 - 92

TOP 100 WINES
in the Sebastopol Hills, believing syrah would
struggle to ripen there and, in that struggle,
create distinctive wines. Greg Adams grows
the wine, and this vintage proves Singer's
theory, sunny and exotic in its pepper spice,
cool and oceanic in its brisk red-currant savor
and salty complexity, holding the ghost of
vegetal-toned fruit just as it turns toward
sweetness. You can taste the diurnal shift
of the hills as the wine moves from red fruit
to coastal forest. If you love the syrahs Anthill
Farm produces from Peters Vineyard in
Annapolis, you should add this wine to your
collection. -J.G. §
with exotic scents of cedar, pine tips, olive
and smoke, and the scents expand as the
wine opens to cardamom, tobacco and mace.
It's fantastically pleasurable, composed, texturally
seamless, relatively quiet, impossibly
elegant and balanced. A tour de force, this is
ready for something braised, like lamb shoulder.
-P.J.C. (200 cases) §
and blueberries of the season. Tannins wrap
that fruit in darkness, but they can't suppress
its explosive power. This only improves with
days of air, as it will improve for decades in
the cellar. -J.G. (118 cases) §
95 | Melville
$40
96 | Drew
$55
2018 Mendocino Ridge Perli Vineyard
Syrah ^ We happened to blind-taste the Valenti
Ranch and the Perli from 2018 and '19
side by side. And then continued to follow
them over the course of a week, each rising
to its own cresting wave of fl avor at a different
point in time. In the end, the Perli
2018 sustained that rise the longest, bringing
an edge of refi nement to syrah from forested
hills above Mendocino's Pacifi c coast.
What's exciting about this wine is how it
sings so clearly of that place with a voice
that could only be syrah, a marriage of variety
and site that strikes a joyous chord. And I
don't mean that poetically: The wine vibrates
with energy, as though the fruit is vocalized
directly out of the acidity, a cool crush of forest
berries along with scents of conifer and
forest mushrooms. The wine is centered on
the plump feel of the fruit in the context of
a low pH, its time in bottle leading it toward
calm, subtle complexities. -J.G. (51 cases) §
95 | Terre Rouge
$100
2018 Sierra Foothills Ascent Syrah ^ If
the Sierra Foothills have an icon wine, Bill
Easton's Ascent may be it. The fruit of multiple
high-elevation vineyards, this aged for
two years in new French oak barrels, off ering
an assemblage par excellence, as fi nely crafted
as any in Easton's repertoire. The 2018 leads
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2019 Sta. Rita Hills Estate Syrah ^ Chad
Melville's estate-grown syrah leans on the
Estrella River clone, a selection that's late to
bloom and late to ripen-it is typically harvested
in November, the whole clusters submitted
to a cold soak, native fermentation,
and aging in neutral barrels. It's low-intervention
winemaking with a stunning result:
The wildly exotic aromas bring lavender, violets,
plum, smoked tea, olive and, above all,
pepper-like walking under a pepper tree
on a warm afternoon as the fruit nears peak
ripeness. The fl avors are exotic, lush and
herbal at once, delivered with a creamy texture
and fi ne leafy tannins, elegant and long.
It's drinking beautifully now and would be a
wonder to follow as it ages. -P.J.C.
BEST ZINFANDELS
96 | Dutton-Goldfi eld
$55
2019 Russian River Valley Morelli Lane
Vineyard Zinfandel ^ The Morelli family
settled on a ridge just north of Occidental,
where they began farming vines in the 1890s.
This 1.8-acre parcel of head-trained, dryfarmed
zinfandel had been left untended for
years before the Dutton family resuscitated
the vineyard in 1995. Dan Goldfi eld treats the
fruit of those ancient vines as if they were
pinot noir, with a seven-day cold soak prior
to fermentation in small, open-top fermenters.
The wine ages in French oak barrels (40
percent new) but gives no overt indication of
that aging, presenting, instead, a beautiful
scent of zinnias, of a garden mid-summer,
of a cool evening with the fresh raspberries
96 | Storybook Mountain $55
2018 Napa Valley Eastern Exposures Zinfandel
^ The cool eastern exposures of a volcanic
hillside overlooking Mt. St. Helena
produced this gold standard of Napa Valley
red wine. Tastings Editor Corey Warren
described its scent as California forest, citrus,
blackberry and herb. That Californiawoodlands
scent appeared in my notes as
madrone, pine and wild blueberry. This is a
savory red, all about brisk tension in its structure
and freshness in its fruit. The lively interplay
of fl oral, herbal, fruity and umami is a
window into the complexity this will develop
with age. Drink some now to enjoy a Napa
Valley classic in its youth, then cellar the rest
for a decade or more. -J.G. (592 cases) §
NEW YORK
BEST RIESLING
94 | Ravines
$33
2019 Finger Lakes Dry Riesling Argetsinger
Vineyard This vintage of Argetsinger
is all about energy. Grown at Ravines' leased
http://www.storybookwines.com https://melvillewinery.com/ https://www.drewwines.com/ https://enjoy.ravineswine.com/product/Dry-Riesling-Argetsinger-Vineyard-2019
Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022

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