Wine & Spirits - Fall 2023 - 96

Top 100 Wines
The wine is savory, with scents of mountain
forest, olive and red-soil accents supporting
plum and cassis fl avors. It's sleek and beautiful,
fi rm but comforting; the extra time in
barrel has contributed a seamless texture,
with melting plum-skin tannins tense and
fi nessed. For a tenderloin. -P.J.C. (125 cases) §
release is a posh wine, dry and lean, with
yeasty scents of apple, celery and lime. The
fl avors lean more tropical, with peach and
passion fruit, all delivered within a beautiful
structure, elegant, modestly creamy, with a
delicious mouthwatering tang. The fl avors
drive long into the fi nish, for pasta with parsley
pesto. -P.J.C. (4,500 cases) §
OREGON
BEST CHARDONNAY
95 | On Wine Hill
94 | Brooks
$38
$35
94 | Storybook Mountain $80
2019 Napa Valley Estate Reserve Zinfandel
^ Jerry Seps nurtures this wine from the
pruning of his organically farmed vines to
selecting the barrels he and his daughter
Colleen believe to hold the most promise
for long development. From a vintage with
plenty of winter rain and few summer days
approaching 100°F, his 2019 Estate Reserve
has the stamina to live for decades. For now,
it's fragrant with plum and quiet woodland
scents of mushrooms and pine. The wine's
full-on power is tamed by the grace of zinfandel
grown on a steep, northeast-facing hillside
of red volcanic soil, a cool site with ideal
conditions for elegant zin. -J.G. (402 cases) §
NEW YORK
BEST SPARKLING WINE
94 | Hermann J. Wiemer $39
2017 Seneca Lake Brut ^ Spectacularly fresh
and lively for a six-year-old sparkler, this
rested 51 months sur lie, lending the wine
a nutty elegance which fi lls the glass. Green
apple, white fl owers and lemon curd add
to the fresh impression, the wine creamy
and round with toasted-nut accents, and a
brisk lemony acidity. It's got the stuff to age,
though it's hard to resist right now. -P.J.C. §
BEST RIESLING
94 | Hillick & Hobbs
$35
2021 Seneca Lake Estate Dry Riesling ^ This
is Paul Hobbs's homecoming, a traveling
winemaker returning to his family's roots,
the winery named for his parents. This third
96
WINE & SPIR IT S
F ALL 2023
2019 Willamette Valley Reduction Chardonnay
^ Jeff Vejr believes that Oregon, having
gotten a reset on chardonnay, is in a
position to experiment. His response is this
powerfully reductive bottling, where a portion
of the wine was aged in a neutral barrel
in the cellar, while a smaller barrel was left
to its own devices outside the winery walls,
exposed and not topped off . The winter of
2019-20 was so cold that the wine left outside
didn't oxidize; in fact, it did the opposite. Vejr
usually labels this wine " Méthode Oxygène; "
in 2019, he labelled it " Reduction, " a blend of
barreled wines raised in the cellar with one
(literal) outlier. The wine starts off so salty
and off kilter it seems like less of a statement
than a cacophony, of pecorino and hazelnut
scents, sulfur, breadcrust and lime. With air,
apple and lime fl avors begin to organize the
savor and the wine becomes a kind of Janusfaced
wonder, savory and distant, fl avorful,
discordant and racy, immediate then long.
It's made from clone 548, prone to millerandage
in the clusters, which Vejr believes
contributes to the thrill ride of acidity. One
of a kind. -P.J.C. §
BEST RIESLINGS
96 | Ovum
$25
Rogue Valley Off the Grid Cedar Ranch
Vineyard Riesling ^ Like a night-blooming
fl ower, this is quiet and furled, showing
admirable structure but little in the way of
fl avor and amplitude, just scents of lime blossom
and fl avors of citrus, leanly expressed.
A day passes, and it's opened with spectacular
completeness, warming to yellow peach,
apricot and brown sugar, all of it expressing
sweetness even if the wine is not remotely
sweet. The tension this displays ties back to
the devigorating soils of Cedar Ranch, laced
with serpentine, that tension amplifi ed by
elevage in concrete eggs, structuring the wine
for aging. -P.J.C. §
2021 Willamette Valley Ara Riesling ^ For
this reserve, Winemaker Chris Williams
draws from two parcels, Brooks Estate and
Yamhill, for a yin-yang eff ect contrasting racy
and more tropical fl avors. It leads with scents
of jasmine and ginger, peach and apricot,
and demerara sugar. Its fl avors are broad-
pineapple, quince and golden apple-only to
stop on a dime with a saline, lime-zest minerality.
The two-vineyard approach off ers generosity
and tension at once, a tour de force
for contemplative sipping. -P.J.C. §
BEST PINOT NOIR
97 | Walter Scott
$80
2021 Eola-Amity Hills Sojeau Pinot Noir ^
Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon of Walter Scott
have an acreage contract at Sojeau, one of
only two producers who do. Dennis Peseau
farms the site for low yields, signifi cantly
reducing the crop load as early as June, often
harvesting 35 percent less fruit per acre than
their neighbors. Perhaps that's the reason the
wine feels so alive and complete from its fi rst
moments uncorked, with knockout aromas
of black cherry and plum skin, tea and subtle
brown spices. There's an elegant texture
encouraged by 30 percent whole clusters in
the fermentation, that texture guiding dark,
saturated fruit, electrifi ed by an obliging vintage.
The fl avors are gorgeous and pure, the
fruit sweet and savory at once, the dusty grip
fi nishes with a lavender savor from the stems.
A tour de force to cellar or to decant and pour
for duck. -P.J.C. §
WASHINGTON
BEST CABERNET SAUVIGNON
94 | Ambassador
$75
2019 Red Mountain Plenipotentiary Cabernet
Sauvignon ^ The winery's reserve, this
is jubilantly red-fruited from the get-go, red
http://www.storybookwines.com/ https://www.ambassadorwinery.com/
Wine & Spirits - Fall 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - Fall 2023
