Top Three Wines: Saint-Emilion and Rhone Valley
February 9, 2012 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines, Wine Values
One quick scan of my January tasting notes and I immediately knew which three wines produced greater reward than any other. All are French, two from the southern Rhone Valley and one from Saint-Émilion. Besides common French ancestry, all three rank as intense values in their own class. The 1994 Vieux Telegraph recompensed fifteen years [...]
Top Three Wines – Roagna, Huet, and A Donkey & Goat
November 10, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
The fact these three wines rose to the top of an epically long list of compelling wines place them in a class of their own. One is from Sierra Foothills vineyards and a small young Berkeley, California winery while the other two are firmly ensconced in their old Barbaresco and Vouvray regions. A bonus to last month’s wine [...]
Top Three Wines: Monbousquet, Raquillet, & Mullineux
October 6, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
Top wines this month bring together strange bedfellows including a Southern Hemisphere syrah from the long ignored vineyards in South Africa’s Swartland Cape Winelands outpost, a brilliant Burgundy from the stepchild Côte Chalonnaise village of Mercurey, and Bordeaux from a refocused producer working right bank Saint-Émilion vineyards. Each one of these wines represents strong value in [...]
Top Three Wines of August: Northern and Southern Italy
September 6, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
This month’s top three wines are neither ordinary nor expensive. They are celebrations of authentic wine making and candidates for greater honor than simply top wines of the month. The wines made by Sicily’s emergent superstar Arianna Occhipinti are recipients of mounting natural winemaking acclaim, sought out by in-the-know fans of deliciously authentic wines. The Schiopetto is [...]
Top Three Wines of July: Swartland, Minervois, Santa Barbara
August 4, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
This month’s top wine wrap up spans three continents including Africa, Europe, and North America. These are all remarkably compelling wines pushing farming and élevage to the edge of their regions’ traditional boundaries. While they are all urgently recommended, securing a bottle or two of Testalonga El Bandito or A Tribute to Grace will require intense investigation and [...]
Top Three Wines of May: Loire Valley and Niagara, Ontario
June 3, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines, Wine Reviews
May’s “Top Three Wines” headline does not contain a typo. The reference to Ontario, Canada is purposeful. As a matter of fact, southern Ontario’s wine region (41°-44°) finds itself in a close latitudinal relationship with the Loire Valley (46°-47°), home turf for May’s other top wines. A couple of this month’s finishers are certain discoveries, [...]
Top Three Wines of April: Alsace, Rhone, and Loire
May 8, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines, WineZag
With a clean sweep of “Top Wines of April”, I am reminded that if I could only drink wines from one country for the rest of my life, it would be France. These April winners prove that despite a weakened dollar and skyrocketing prices for in-demand Bordeaux, Burgundy, and top Rhones, it’s still entirely possible [...]
Top Three Wines of March: Rhone Valley and Napa Valley
April 7, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
Top wines of the month handsomely represent the southern and northern Rhone Valley with perfect scores and then cross an entire ocean and continent with a winning California Cabernet. WineZag’s “top three wines of the month” section is reserved for a short list of the most compelling wines I have tasted over the previous thirty [...]
Top Three Wines of February: Champagne and Valdeorras
March 8, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines
February delivered a landslide of Champagne discovery and liquid treasures from a heretofore unknown producer in Northern Spain. The month’s top three wines represented such immense drinking pleasure that they will linger forever in my palate’s memory. Not mentioned here, and to be completely fair, is the 2005 Clos Rougeard Saumur-Champigny. This cult-like Loire Cabernet [...]
Top Three Wines of January: Spain and Bordeaux
February 8, 2011 by adamjapko
Filed under Featured, Top Three Wines, Wine Reviews, WineZag
Anointing three top January wines cast a cloudy challenge on WineZag’s monthly ritual. The first thirty-one days of this new year provided ample opportunity to taste a surfeit of over-the-top wines that unavoidably skew the aggregate three bottle price skyward, approaching $450. Plaguing fact of wine enthusiasm: Great wine can be expensive and detours are occasionally [...]
