Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2023 i Wine Enthusiast Magazine

Jacqueline Strum EDITOR & PUBLISHER MANAGING EDITOR, PRINT John Capone TASTING DIRECTOR Anna-Christina Cabrales CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marco Turelli EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR, DIGITAL Rachel Tepper Paley SENIOR EDITOR, PRINT Stacy Briscoe DIGITAL EDITOR Kristen Richard ASSISTANT EDITOR, PRINT Jacy Topps CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, FOOD Nils Bernstein WEB PRODUCER Samantha Sette DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Monica Simon DIGITAL VISUALS EDITOR Evan de Normandie DIGITAL DESIGNER Eric DeFreitas VISUALS PRODUCER Jesse Reiter ASSOCIATE PHOTO PRODUCER Tom Arena TASTING SENIOR EDITOR, TASTING Jim Gordon SENIOR TASTING COORDINATOR Craig Chamberlain ASSISTANT TASTING COORDINATOR Cody Wexler ASSISTANT TASTING COORDINATOR Russell Peborde SOCIAL DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA Elyse Estrella SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST Marco Bruno VIDEO SUPERVISING VIDEO PRODUCER Braxton Parr VIDEO PRODUCER Rob Martin WRITERS AT LARGE WINE Michael Alberty, Danielle Callegari, Mike DeSimone, Matt Kettmann, Christina Pickard, Jeff…

H2 Know Sure, fizz is fun, but it serves a functional role, too. “Carbonated water lengthens and acidifies drinks,” explains Camper English, author of Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails. “Plus, the bubbles help lift aromatics up out of the drink and tickle your nose.” However, not all carbonated water is alike. “I know it’s a little funny to wrap your brain around thinking about water as an ingredient, but it’s so important,” says Jena Ellenwood, cocktail educator at NYC bar Dear Irving. “Bubble size and stamina vary with each fizzy water.” And it can make a difference when added to other elements in a drink, like spirits and citrus. In addition, some can add sweet, salty or bitter flavors, so it’s important to…

Not all fish food starts this way. All beer does though. It takes tons of grain for individual producers to make finished beer and spirits. Steeped or boiled in hot water, the malt releases sugars that are fermented with yeast to create alcohol. Once the liquid has been drained from the solids, breweries and distilleries are left with an oatmeal-like substance—often referred to as spent grain—that only has a few options for use. A lot will wind up in landfills and other batches will be sent to farms to be used for animal feed (who in turn sell butchered animals back to brewery restaurants). Some grains will be composted. Over the last several years companies in the aquafarming space have seen potential for brewers’ clean waste and have been…

At the dawn of a new year, we take stock of what’s ahead. What can we do differently? What can we do more of? And perhaps most important—what can we do better? It allows us a quiet moment of hope, optimism and expectation. In my family, we love the classic act of making a list of resolutions. The thinking is even if you do only one item on your list, you’ll make your life incrementally better over the long yawn of a decade or two. A list of resolutions in the universe of wine may mean something very different depending on who you ask. It could be trying the most sought-after vintages on the Left Bank of Bordeaux. Or finally visiting some of those far-flung regions that make our…

SEAWEED IS SIMPLY THE UMBRELLA TERM FOR VARIOUS MARINE PLANTS AND ALGAE, and many varieties are not only delicious, but also extremely nutritious. They can form the base of salads and broths, and some are sold toasted as standalone snacks. It’s also possibly the most environmentally friendly edible plant there is. Seaweed pulls nitrogen and phosphorus from seawater, helping maintain those nutrients at non-dangerous levels. More important, seaweed is a remarkably efficient carbon sink: Like other plants, it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, but its speedy growth rate means it can do so up to 50 times faster than land-based forests. You’ll rarely be pairing a giant plate of seaweed with wine. Still, when wakame, kombu, nori, dulse, hijiki, Irish moss or sea lettuce is a…

On his journey through the afterlife described in the “Divine Comedy,” the medieval poet Dante Alighieri stumbles across a pope repenting in purgatory for his gluttony. The church leader isn’t in heaven yet, it turns out, as a result of his uncontrolled indulgence in eels cooked in white wine. More specifically, as Dante takes pains to emphasize, eels and wine from Lago di Bolsena—the ancient crater lake about 100 kilometers north of Rome celebrated for the delicacies produced in and around it. In the 700 years that have passed since Dante’s writing, relatively little has changed around Lake Bolsena, including the wines, even if its fame has unfairly declined. To be sure, wine made here remains extremely distinctive, and that’s thanks to the lake’s “powerful, positive influence,” as Pier…

The Wine Enthusiast Podcast, hosted by Jacy Topps, is your twice-monthly serving of drinks culture and the people who drive it. Recently we’ve explored what bubbles you should pop, the case for natural wine and what sustainability means for the wine industry. Listen in everywhere you get your podcasts or at winemag.com/podcast. “We need to do something immediately, because we are running out of time. I mean, the problems are here, the problems are everywhere. And if we don’t learn from that, we are being very silly.”Dr. Irina Santiago-Brown Head winemaker at Inkwell Wines EPISODE: What Does Sustainability in Wine Actually Mean? EPISODE: Intimidated by French Wine? Future 40 Tastemaker Katie Melchior Wants to Change That “Particularly in America, we say, ‘Well if it comes from France, it must be…

Taste the transformation in Portugal’s wine industry. Portuguese wine is the new world in the old. It has undergone a total transformation in the last 30 years through an explosion of new wines, new wineries and the complete renaissance of older producers. The wine tradition and the potential were always there. But until the revolution of 1974, when the fascist dictatorship was overthrown, wine was controlled by badly run cooperatives. The only region that escaped was the Douro Valley and the only independent producers were the major Port firms and a few wine merchants. Apart from the rare landmark wines, such as Barca Velha, quality table wine, as distinct from Port, really began in the 1980s with pioneers such as Dirk van der Niepoort and João d’Almeida, both as it…

“At Yacht Club, we have a major love affair with wine of all sorts,” says McLain Hedges, co-owner of the playful Denver bar. “Many, if not all, of our drinks contain some form of wine base to them.” That includes a rotating list of shaved-ice sno-balls enlivened with fortified wine—a whimsical mash-up of the classic Cobbler, a fortified wine standard served over crushed ice and the nostalgic sno-cone. Iterations have included raisin-y PX Sherry and bittersweet amer liqueur. This version centers Macvin du Jura, a blend of grape juice and must fortified with marc (distilled from grape skins and lees—akin to grappa) from Jura, then barrel-aged for at least 14 months, with a final flavor some liken to brandy. “The result is one of the most aromatic and textural…

Kakigōri is one of the great shaved-ice desserts of the world. Unlike the coarser texture of snow cones, kakigōri is fine and fluffy like soft snow, which lets the toppings diffuse throughout the dessert like a sunset casting its glow across the sky. Look for a machine that shaves thin, rather than crushes, the ice. While kakigōri is often gilded with sweetened condensed milk, Tonchin, a New York restaurant with its roots in Tokyo, uses a honey cream, which is less sticky and more complex. It’s a beautiful complement to the bright strawberry flavor. Frozen berries are preferred here since they’re packed at peak ripeness and exude a strawberry syrup as they thaw, but feel free to use very ripe—even overripe—fresh strawberries. Find which shaved ice machine works best…

In the improbable circumstance that you find yourself on the outskirts of Parlier, California, pondering 12 Olympic-size swimming pools full of earthworms, you might start to question your own place in the planet’s ecosystem. If there were a high-dive board and you climbed the ladder and dove in, you’d land with a resounding splat as you hit dense tangles of California red worms wriggling their way through woodchips soaked with effluent from the nearby O’Neill Vintners & Distillers winemaking facility—the largest such winery wastewater reclamation project in the world. If you are a wine drinker (or consume any agricultural product that produces wastewater at an industrial scale, really), then these worms, about 100–200 million of them, are cleaning up your mess. Wastewater, millions of gallons of it, produced through normal…

FOR THIS ISSUE • WE blind tasted 2,408 wines that scored 80 or above • 83 of those scored 95 or above • The average price of 90+-point wines: $54 • 112 wines from Beaujolais, Languedoc-Roussillon and Loire Valley scored 90+ points • With an average price point of $39, these French wines presented the best value Top 5 Hidden Gems Our reviewers think you absolutely should try these atypical wines. 94 Quinta Varzela da Pedra 2015 Grande Reserva (Lisboa) abv: 14% Price: $64 94 Herència Altés NV Trementinaire Garnatxa Blanca (Terra Alta) abv: 13.5% Price: $40 94 Thomas T. Thomas 2020 Estate Grown Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley) abv: 13.4% Price: $70 94 Puppione Family Wines 2021 Intero Don Miguel Vineyard Syrah (Russian River Valley) abv: 13.5% Price: $45 93…

For those of you who have already basked in your epiphany wine experience, allow me to congratulate you. And if you are not sure if you have had it or not, then it most definitely has not happened, as it is unmistakably crystal clear when it does occur. The beauty of the epiphany wine moment is that you never know when that illuminating discovery of the senses will come and knock you off your feet. My moment came early on in my wine journey, and as it happens would end up leading me into wine as a career. I was living in New York City and going to school for my Master’s in Education while working to put myself through school. I had always been interested in, and enjoyed, wine…

“Cicero ate oysters to nourish his eloquence, and the ancients used them with a startlingly cold-blooded combination of gastronomy and pure hygiene.”–M.F.K. Fisher, from “Consider The Oyster” (1941) You can’t talk about this country’s waterways and coastal histories without oysters. The United States’ estuaries (where rivers meet the sea), such as Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, were largely comprised of oyster reefs, which purified the water, gave habitat to other marine life and provided stability to shorelines. Just as important, they were one of the most abundant food sources for millennia. There are middens (shell deposits) in the U.S. that show continuous oyster consumption for over 5,000 years. Florida’s Mound Key, south of Fort Myers, contains the shells of almost 20 billion oysters that were harvested by the Calusa tribe.…

The Buying Guide includes ratings and reviews of new-release and selected older beverage alcohol products evaluated by Wine Enthusiast magazine’s editors and other qualified tasters. Regular contributors to our Buying Guide include Tasting Director Anna-Christina Cabrales (Burgundy, Rhone), Senior Editor, Tasting Jim Gordon (Napa, Sonoma), Senior Tasting Coordinator Craig Chamberlain (Virginia), Senior Editor, Print Stacy Briscoe (California), Assistant Editor Jacy Topps (Languedoc-Roussillon, Vin de France) and Writers at Large Michael Alberty (Oregon, Washington, Canada), Mike DeSimone (Spain, Croatia, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Armenia, Hungary), John Holl (Beer), Matt Kettmann (Central and South Coast California), Kara Newman (Spirits), Christina Pickard (Australia, New Zealand, England, New York), Emily Saladino (Greece, Georgia), Layla Shlack (Alsace), Jesica Vargas (South America and South Africa), Roger Voss (Portugal, France: Bordeaux, Beaujolais, Champagne, Loire, Provence, Southwest France), Aleks…

You may have noticed that in our reviews for whiskey—including Irish whiskey—we often include tasting notes about how the spirit presents before and after a splash of water is added. Why do this? Even just a few drops of water can transform whiskey in some way. It can lighten or integrate flavors, coax certain nuances forward or back, or introduce new flavors that weren’t there before (hey, where’d that mocha note come from?). Often it just snaps the whole picture into focus. Why do this? Even just a few drops of water can transform whiskey in some way. The pros understand and even encourage this. “On a professional basis in the lab, we will always dilute our whiskey to about 25/28% or 50/56 proof,” explains Darryl McNally, founder-distiller with Limavady…

Over the last two years, brewers have been releasing Cold IPAs, a fresh take on a style that combines lager yeast with a traditional West Coast India pale ale recipe. Brewers of all sizes are capitalizing on the trend and working quick to get their own on shelves and on tap. Kevin Davey, the brewer at Wayfinder Beer in Portland, Oregon, widely credited with creating the style, has been shepherding the larger industry on recipes and best practices. He wants to ensure that Cold IPA isn’t simply a fad. He also wants to help create a brewing standard in the new category so that the style has some consistency in the marketplace as it attracts and retains new drinkers. Cold IPA, a fresh take on a style that combines lager…

The sky lit up with pastel shades of orange, pink and lavender. Fluffy clouds danced across the horizon. The rugged peaks of South Africa’s natural giants Simonsberg, Groot Drakenstein and Die Twee Pieke surrounded us, standing tall and majestic in the distance. The view in every direction was utterly breathtaking—a Stellenbosch sunset that was truly a feast for the eyes. The guests, out on the lawn clinking glasses of Cap Classique, ate it up. I was in the bathroom crying. The Western Cape, which makes up most of South Africa’s Winelands, is overwhelmingly beautiful. The wine made there is equally alluring. While visiting the country for the first time, I got a double-edged lesson on the sense of place wine can deliver. To enjoy a glass of South African…