You are here:

WINE POSTS

A COMPREHENSIVE RESOURCE FOR THE TRUE CONNOISSEUR

Cristal consistently gets high champagne ratings and reviews.

Champagne Ratings: The Top Ten Wines You Should Add to Your Collection

Champagne is making a comeback. In 2011, Champagne held just one percent of the total market trade share. By 2018, this number had risen to eight percent. Why is Champagne gaining on the market? In part, the rise is due to a spate of excellent Champagne ratings and reviews from top wine critics. Recent releases like the 2008 Louis Roederer Cristal are receiving perfect scores from notable experts and this is driving up the value of Champagne as a category.

Read more
DRC and Clos de Tart make some of the best grand cru Burgundy.

Ranking the Best Grand Cru Burgundy

The reason it’s so hard to rank the best grand cru Burgundy is that personal taste plays a huge role. It also comes down to what you value most. Are you looking for a wine with a high quality-to-price ratio (QPR)? Is flavor complexity the most important factor? Or do you want to buy wine that you can resell for a profit? No matter which quality you value most in a wine, this guide will sort–and in some cases rank–grand cru Burgundy according to a few different criteria.

Read more
Pauillac wine is among the most collectible Bordeaux.

How to Start a Pauillac Wine Collection

Wines from Pauillac receive top scores from critics and can age for very long periods of time. Although producers from this area only make traditional Cabernet Sauvignon-based blends, there’s still plenty of diversity of flavor in these wines, making the tasting experience very exciting. If you want to start your own Pauillac wine collection from scratch or you’re looking for new wines to add to an already extensive collection, then this guide will help you discover the best wines that this region has to offer.

Read more
Decanting Château d'Yquem isn't common but it can be beneficial.

Decanting Château d’Yquem: Should You or Shouldn’t You?

A few years ago, a wine enthusiast wrote a letter to Wine Spectator’s Dr. Vinifera asking whether it’s safe to decant Sauternes. The letter writer had just come back from a restaurant and had been surprised to see that the sommelier poured a 1995 Château d’Yquem from a decanter. Dr. Vinifera responded that decanting Château d’Yquem certainly isn’t a common practice, but it’s also not a bad idea. Like any other fine wine, some Sauternes vintages open up with a little aeration and become more expressive.

Read more
The best Dom Perignon food pairing takes into account the vintage and style of the wine.

What Is the Best Dom Pérignon Food Pairing?

In 2015, journalist Melissa Chang was invited to a private wine tasting party built around unique Moët & Chandon Dom Pérignon food pairings. Each dish was designed specifically to complement a particular Dom Pérignon wine. The classic 2004 Dom Pérignon was served with bacon jam biscuits. A bottle of 1998 Dom Pérignon P2 was paired with smoked king salmon. The night wrapped up with glasses of 2003 Dom Pérignon Rosé followed by a sweet tofu dessert. Chang said the tasting reminded her just how versatile Dom Pérignon and other fine Champagne can be. She says, “Champagne is like a little black dress—it goes with everything.” This guide will show you how to create the ideal pairing for all the bottles in your collection.

Read more
Top-rated California Cabernet wines on display.

Ranking the Top-Rated California Cabernet

While you can show that certain vintages, labels, or producers are better than others using metrics like tasting scores, price performance, and bottle value, ranking the top-rated California Cabernet is still a subjective process. In this guide, we’ve identified some of the highest quality producers, vintages, and wine labels on the market today. While these rankings are by no means definitive, they are designed to help you gain a better understanding of which wines most collectors find worthwhile so you can add top-quality Cabernet to your collection.

Read more
A server displays a bottle of Priorat wine.

A Guide to Priorat Wine: How to Invest in the Region’s Best Bottles

Wine Enthusiast’s Michael Schachner says, “To say the Priorat has boomed is an understatement.” The Priorat wine region has become very fashionable over the past few years–and for good reason. This area is home to some of the best wine producers in the world and the most popular bottles are gaining significantly in value on the secondary market. If you want to start your own Priorat wine collection, this guide will help you get started.

Read more

Cult Wines: How to Invest in the World’s Most Popular Bottles

Cult wines are among the most popular and expensive bottles in the world, making them tempting investments for every type of collector. I’ve known collectors who have made tens of thousands of dollars by selling their cult wine collections on the secondary market. Whether you buy wine for investment purposes or to enjoy it yourself, seeking out cult wines can be worthwhile if you’ve done your research. The challenge is that these wines are exceptionally rare and valuable, often making it difficult to obtain the best vintages or get the best value for the quality. This guide can help you navigate some of these challenges and build a fantastic collection of the right cult wines for you.

Read more
2011 was one of the Château d'Yquem best vintages

What Are Château d’Yquem’s Best Vintages?

What makes a great Château d’Yquem vintage? All of these wines are excellent–the château doesn’t release a vintage if the grapes aren’t satisfactory–and they’re all designed to age for decades, so there aren’t many vintages that fall short. Still, different vintages have different strengths. You’ll find vintages that taste mature just 35 years after release and others that still taste exceptionally young at age 50. Some collectors prefer Château d’Yquem bottles that develop mature flavors fairly early whereas others prefer wines that age more slowly. This guide will help you find the best Château d’Yquem vintages based on your personal preferences and goals.

Read more
Buying wine by the case can be a wise investment

The Complete Guide to Buying Wine by the Case

Buying wine by the case is a great way to stock up on wine for a party, lay down birth year wine, or see how a top-rated vintage evolves over time. However, buying wine by the case isn’t always a simple process. For starters, not all retailers sell wine by the case. Even if you find a retailer that sells full or half cases of wine, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether you’re getting a good deal. This guide will walk you through the buying process to help you decide which cases are worth investing in and how to care for the cases you buy.

Read more
The best vintage year of Opus One is subjective.

What Is the Best Vintage Year for Opus One?

Designating one year as the best vintage year for Opus One is a difficult and subjective task; wines from two different years may both be fantastic in completely different ways. Some vintages are fruit-driven and intense in flavor, while others are delicate and bright. To pick the best vintages for your own collection, you’ll want to consider which of these two styles you prefer as well as whether you plan on reselling your bottles on the secondary market in the future. Our guide to the best Opus One vintages will help you narrow down your choices and build a rewarding collection of these iconic wines.

Read more