Last year at this time, I published notes on the most spectacular cabernet- and merlot-based red wines I tasted on my annual late-winter tour of the best Napa Valley wine addresses. This year’s top scorers are mostly from the wonderfully rich, velvety, balanced 2009 vintage, a consistently excellent year in which growers could pick perfectly ripe grapes without raisining of the fruit.
I call this article “wine porn” because these are flamboyantly rich, arresting wines that most consumers will read about but never experience first-hand. But that moniker is a bit unfair. These wines may be gloriously endowed but they are natural beauties–some of the world’s most extravagantly rich and seamless reds. I should note that all of these wines rated 96 points or higher in Issue 162 of the International Wine Cellar. READ MORE »
