Tempest in the Top 10

Annual Top 10 lists are really nothing more than provocative ways to start arguments. You can no more name the 10 best wines of the year than you could name the 10 best centerfielders, or movies, or sunshiny days. But even in this disputatious context, the Wine Spectator’s 2001 list, published in the Dec. 31 issue, is bound to raise a furor.

Of the glossy magazine’s Top 10 wines, only one comes from the United States. And this country claimed only five of the Top 25, 10 of the Top 50 and 16 of the Top 100.

That is a radical departure from the norm. Last year, for example, half of the list was American. In fact, that was the average for the last six years.

That Top 10 showing is the worst for the country since 1992, when Americans won only one spot, swamped by the flood of 1989 Bordeaux, one of that region’s best vintages of the century. In a three-year span at the turn of the ‘90s, American wines won only five Top 10 places in three years, as French and Italian winemakers celebrated back-to-back-to-back banner years from 1988 through 1990.

This year’s sole American Top 10 wine was Viader’s 1998 Cabernet wine blend from Napa Valley. Chateau St. Michelle’s 1999 “Cold Creek Vineyard” Chardonnay was No. 16 and the 1997 Spring Mountain “Reserve” Cabernet blend was No. 17.

The best wine of the year, according to the magazine, was the 1998 Ornellaia from Tuscany. The 1998 Chateau Cheval-Blanc was No. 2. Of the Top 10 wines, five were French; four were Italian. Of the Top 100, 40 were French; 19 were Italian.

Rounding out the American entries in the Top 25 were the 1998 Mer Soleil Chardonnay (No. 23) and the 1999 Landmark Chardonnay (No. 24).

Recession?What Recession?

In the last Sotheby’s wine auction, held Dec. 1, an unidentified collector paid $167,500 for seven bottles of 1978 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Montrachet. That is almost $24,000 a bottle, a record price for white Burgundy. In all, 829 lots sold for a total of $4.3 million, nearly doubling the pre-sale estimate.