Each year, Wine Spectator’s senior editors select the 10 wines that impressed them the most for their quality, value, availability and the story behind them. The following year, the magazine celebrates those wines at the annual New York Wine Experience. The Top 10 of 2022 aligned at the 2023 event, which recognized three leading Napa Valley winemakers, honored three Tuscan estates and paid tribute to some of the finest wines made across Bordeaux, the Rhône Valley, Champagne and Washington.
Tastings began with the iconic Champagne cuvée Cristal, from Louis Roederer. “Champagne, the best wine to start the day,” said owner Frédéric Rouzaud, presenting 2022’s No. 10 wine (98 points), from the 2014 vintage. The weather that year was difficult, partly due to summer rain and cold. Still, chef de cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon persevered, helped by soils with good drainage: “The secret of Cristal is that the Pinot Noir [vines] are also planted on chalky soils,” Rouzaud revealed. And the age of the vines (40 years on average) enhanced concentration in the wine, a blend of 60 percent Pinot Noir and 40 percent Chardonnay.
Washington showed what it can achieve with Cabernet Sauvignon in Wine No. 9 (95), the 2018 Columbia Valley bottling from Quilceda Creek. General manager Scott Lloyd recalled how Alex and Jeannette Golitzin founded the winery in 1979 after consulting with Alex’s uncle, legendary winemaker André Tchelistcheff. “[They] took André’s advice to heart,” said Lloyd. “‘Make one wine and make it well.’” The 2018 Cabernet is the 40th vintage and sourced primarily from Quilceda Creek’s 51-year-old Champoux Vineyard. “The 2018 growing season started out as one of the warmest,” said Lloyd. “Temperatures cooled off in September, creating ideal conditions for perfect ripening.”
The first of three Italian wines appeared with No. 8, the 2019 Saffredi (96) from Fattoria Le Pupille. Production manager Ettore Arturo Rizzi, son of owner Elisabetta Geppetti, explained that 2019 was an excellent year and a particularly important one for him. “My journey as a vintner officially begins with this vintage,” said Rizzi, who had dreamed of making wine since childhood. The red is 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 26 percent Merlot and 4 percent Petit Verdot from Le Pupille’s Saffredi vineyard, all manually harvested. “This is very important, to keep all the aromatics and the freshness of the grapes,” said Rizzi.
From one of the best-known wine families in France’s Southern Rhône Valley, Marc Perrin presented a vertical tasting of four vintages of Château de Beaucastel, including Wine No. 7, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2019 (96). A rare Châteauneuf that uses all 13 appellation-approved grape varieties, the wine consistently earns acclaim. “Warm, dry, hot,” said Perrin of the 2019 vintage, a strong year for the region. “[A] big difference over the last 20, 25 years is heat, drought, but also late summer going into October.” Perrin explained the importance of having the whole family involved in the blending process and also described their ambitious new, environmentally friendly winery.
California’s historic Robert Mondavi winery displayed how it continues to evolve as director of winemaking Kurtis Ogasawara offered wine No. 6, the Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville The Estates 2019 (94). “2019 was a pretty phenomenal vintage,” said Ogasawara. The bottling uses all five red Bordeaux varieties and is, itself, a symbol of a massive viticultural undertaking: a substantial replanting of the famous To Kalon vineyard. Its newer-parcel grapes go into The Estates. “To Kalon’s a really special place,” said Ogasawara, praising the site’s soil diversity. “There’s this energy and passion that comes through you as you’re walking through the vines.”
A scion of a leading Tuscan wine family, Albiera Antinori has proven herself as a global leader in fine wine. She continues the family tradition of excellence, exemplified in wine No. 5, Antinori Toscana Tignanello 2019 (96). Tignanello is a bellwether bottling among super Tuscans, blending the elegance of local Sangiovese with the ripe fruit and longevity of Cabernet. “Tignanello, for our family, is really the pillar of what we are now,” said Antinori. “[It] has this capability, being 80 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Cabernet, to unite the two souls of Tuscany.”
A history lesson came with No. 4, the St.-Julien 2019 (95) from Bordeaux fourth-growth Château Talbot. This was the second vintage made under general manager Jean-Michel Laporte. Owner Jean-Paul Bignon presented the red with a joyous “Bonjour!” and a tale of Talbot’s namesake, medieval English knight John Talbot. “Mother Nature—and we need Mother Nature to do a great wine—was extremely generous in 2019,” said Bignon, explaining that growing conditions were nearly perfect after spring. “We were able to harvest full and very aromatic Merlot, charming and spicy Petit Verdot … [and] Cabernet Sauvignon, rich in color, and extremely well-structured tannins and great complexity.”
HdV is a remarkable Napa collaboration between DRC’s Aubert de Villaine and famed California grapegrower Larry Hyde. Their work has been fruitful: HdV’s Chardonnay Napa Valley Hyde Vineyard 2019 (96) earned the No. 3 spot. Winemaker Guillaume Boudet explained, “The definition of our wines is what I call ‘the three Vs’: vineyard sites, varietal and vintage.” Boudet outlined all three, describing the wine’s source (the famed Hyde Vineyard in Carneros), its characteristic Chardonnay bunches and conditions in 2019. “There was a lot of energy in the vines,” he said. “All year long it was about balancing the vigor.”
With wine No. 2, Tuscany’s Montalcino took center stage, and the centuries-old Fattoria dei Barbi showed it is one of that town’s greatest estates with its Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2016 (95). “[Montalcino is] one of the 10 Italian words [most] used in the world, together with pizza, Rome and spaghetti,” said Barbi’s owner, Stefano Cinelli Colombini. For this riserva, Colombini sourced grapes from 27 Barbi vineyards—including the finest, Vigna del Fiore. “It’s a wine which can last very, very long,” he observed.
Years ago, Napa vintner and Schrader Cellars founder Fred Schrader asked Thomas Rivers Brown to make wine for his 2000 vintage, leading to what would become Schrader’s less expensive Double Diamond label. “That was the first Cabernet I ever made,” Brown said. “We sort of realized, wow, this wine is pretty amazing … things just kind of worked their way up hill from there.” Indeed, the Wine of the Year for 2022 is Schrader Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Double Diamond 2019 (94). And Brown is now one of Northern California’s most acclaimed winemakers. (Notably, Constellation Brands owns both Robert Mondavi and Schrader Cellars today.)
Brown offered the audience a winemaking philosophy. “For us, less is more,” he said. “The more you do to the wine, the less expressive the site is.” For Double Diamond, that site is the famed To Kalon. But there is more here than excellent quality and a legendary source. At just $80, the 2019 offers unmatched value in an increasingly expensive category.
Wines with Honors
1. SCHRADER CELLARS Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Double Diamond 2019
2. FATTORIA DEI BARBI Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2016
3. HDV Chardonnay Napa Valley Hyde Vineyard 2019
4. CHÂTEAU TALBOT St.-Julien 2019
5. ANTINORI Toscana Tignanello 2019
6. ROBERT MONDAVI Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville The Estates 2019
7. CHÂTEAU DE BEAUCASTEL Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2019
8. FATTORIA LE PUPILLE Toscana Saffredi 2019
9. QUILCEDA CREEK Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley 2018
10. LOUIS ROEDERER Brut Champagne Cristal 2014
Discover all of Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of 2022. We will begin revealing the Top 100 Wines of 2023 on Nov. 6, 2023.
