Last year, the honor went to another Californian, Tablas Creek - a leader in the propagation and use of Rhône varietals in California and an eloquent champion of viticological diversity and sustainable vineyard practices in the Paso Robles region.Īs proud as we are of California wines, of course, we’ve never intended to celebrate only the wineries of the Golden State. Our winner the first time we essayed this competition was not the newest, most obscure favorite of America's coolest wine stewards, but the Napa Valley's 1971-vintage Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery, known primarily for its exemplary cabernet sauvignon and unexpectedly sophisticated riesling. To arrive at our selections, we asked a panel of wine writers and bloggers (including our own regular wine contributors), sommeliers and wine merchants, and wine-savvy chefs to offer us their nominations for this honor. The idea was to celebrate one wine producer from anywhere in the world that has produced consistently fine wines over a substantial period of time but has also served as an innovator and/or inspiration in the world of wine, whether dynamically or simply by example. In early 2015, for the first time, we honored a Winery of the Year. That's an immense number of producers to try to get a handle on, but try we have. Even the U.S., which is new to winemaking compared to our European counterparts, has at least 8,000 commercial wine-producers, and probably more. That may or may not be in the right ballpark - but there are more than 900,000 designated vineyards in Italy alone (not every one corresponding to a winery, of course, though many of them do) and about 28,000 actual wineries in France. Nobody knows exactly how many wineries or wine-producing entities there are around the world, but some estimates put the number as high as 2 million. What all this adds up to is that in America we have the chance to sample wines bearing thousands upon thousands of different labels, wines made from hundreds of different grapes both famous and obscure, wines priced from almost nothing (hello, Three-Buck Chuck) to thousands of dollars. Then there's our own wealth of wine, not just from the major players - California, Oregon, Washington, and New York - but from Virginia, Michigan, Idaho, Texas, and literally every other state in the union (though Alaska's wines are admittedly made with juice from elsewhere). The adventurous can sniff out bottles from Moldovaand Croatia, Lebanon and Turkey, Switzerland and Luxembourg, Mexico and India and Japan.
Our supermarkets - in our more enlightened states, at any rate - offer aisles upon aisles of pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and more from Chile, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, and the exotically named grüner veltliner from Austria has become practically a commonplace. The wines of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and California, from world-renowned trophy bottles to lesser-known bargains with funny names, crowd our wine shop shelves and restaurant wine lists. We have access to a broader array of wines - at every price level, from every corner of the winemaking world - than any other nation. It's safe to say that there is no better place in the world for wine-lovers than the good old U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
