Friends, there is arguably no better feeling than experiencing special moments with special wines. Coming out of 2020, 2021 has brought further challenges. Nonetheless, I hope this year has brought you wonderful prosperity and many memorable moments with sharing wine with your loved ones whenever possible. Despite the pandemic, I wanted to share with you some of the most special moments with the incredible wines that I was able to taste over the course of 2021. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful holiday season making many more memories with special wines and cherished relationships.
What were some of your favorite wines of 2021? Here are mine.
11) 2013 Louis Roederer ‘Cristal’ Champagne
I had to share this brilliant wine even though it fell outside the Top 10. It is not easy to make top champagne in a less than easy vintage. 2013 was a vintage that plagued much of France, including champagne. Nonetheless, the team at Louis Roererer did a flat out phenomenal job with crafting their 2013 ‘Cristal’ bottling. It might not be as weighty and big as the 2012 bottling but this champagne is full of finesse with very bright citrus fruit flavors. I’ll never forget my smile after savoring my first sip of this wine. This effort is nothing short of a world-class winemaking adventure and I hope you will have a chance to try this beautiful style of Cristal champagne.
10) 1990 Chateau Lafitte-Rothchild
My friend Tim was celebrating his birthday and generously opened a bottle of near perfectly stored 1990 Chateau Lafitte-Rothchild. I think his face said it all as he was quite literally grinning from ear to ear. It was a beautiful occasion for such a bottle with friends gathering at Aerlume in Seattle. We had reserved a room with a gorgeous view of the Puget Sound and as we sat together and tasted this wine it became more and more Burgundian with wild mushrooms, peat moss and shades of pine needles. There was still a remarkable amount of black fruits present. Surely at peak, this beauty was a treasure to consume now.
9) 2002 Chateau D’YQuem Sauternes-
Turning 41 during the pandemic was not the most fun, although it might have been a bit more fun than May 2020. For years I have cellared the 2002 Chateau D’Yqyem which was a San Diego Costco purchase when I was back in graduate school. 2002 as a vintage was less than heralded in sauternes and I have tried many top producers from 2002. None of them come close to what D’YQuem was able to accomplish in this vintage. Now fully at its peak, the 2002 shows beautiful honey and stony character with amazing weight and tension. Salty and rich, try to snag a bottle of this if you can!
8) 2016 Cayuse Vineyards ‘God Only Knows’ Red Wine-
Formerly my #1 wine of the year, the 2016 ‘God Only Knows’ is a joyride of flavor that I fully savored around the New Year while in Las Vegas. This was a special wine that my wine and I devoured in our hotel room over several hours. We both agreed that this is one of the best wines we had enjoyed in quite some time. The combination of weight, finesse and flavor range was nothing short of spectacular. The views of the Vegas strip made this even more enjoyable.
7) 2002 Piper Heidseick ‘Rare’ Champagne
2002 was an epic vintage in Champage. Sitting in our hotel room in Paris, we ventured out to one of the town’s best wine shops, Le Caves Auge. While picking out several top Chablis bottles, I spotted an older bottle of ‘Rare’ Champagne. Back at the hotel we enjoyed every last sip of this exquisite champagne. It was a hot August day which made this beautifully textured champagne even more enjoyable. Now if I can only find more!
6) 2018 HALL ‘Rainin Vineyard’ Cabernet Sauvignon
This year I did not have the chance to taste at HALL and instead spent three with the HALL director of winemaking via Zoom. I was blown away with their overall lineup and the last two wines were from their Platinum Collection. My first sip of the ‘Rainin’ was utterly extraordinary. Pillowy and soft, yet extremely powerful, words made it difficult to define how good this wine really was. This was nothing short of perfection in the bottle.
5) 2020 Kobayashi Marsanne/Roussanne
Sitting next to Travis and Mario Allen, we tasted through their lineup of wines and this one was enjoyed early on in the lineup. Travis has a deft hand over Marsanne and he is no longer crafting a 100% Marsanne bottling — rather he blends in a touch of Roussanne to add flavor complexity and more finesse. I savored this wine very slow and made sure that it was warm enough to consume, as this wine drinks considerably better at a warmer temperature. Unctuous and buttery with insanely good flavor range, Travis admitted that he was exceedingly proud of this effort. ‘No signs of smoke impact’ I said to them. What an extraordinary wine!
4) 2010 Chateau Angelus
This was now the second time in the past year that I had the chance to sample the absolutely epic 2010 Chateau Angelus. My friend Wayne had long been wanting to open this special bottle and with his parents visiting from France this presented the perfect opportunity. He had also baked a raspberry and pistachio torte which was the perfect match for the beautiful red fruits in the Merlot. We opted to slowly decant the wine and watch it evolve over several hours. Initially a bit reticent, this wine became a mind-bending journey into the Right Bank. Pillowly and soft, with refined tannins, this also was a perfect wine that we were all mesmerized by.
3) 2004 Domaine Romanee Conti ‘Eschezeaux’
This summer a friend of mine decided to crack open a bottle of 2004 DRC which was created from 35 year old, organically farmed vines. Because of the warmth of the vintage this was already extraordinary right out of the bottle and didn’t need a decant. Gobs of black truffle shavings and crunchy red fruits ensued with a finish that did not quit. What a wine that is already showing signs of its age, yet maintained a vibrant sense of tension. ‘You think this is ready to go?’ I asked my Burg collector friend. ‘Yep, I wouldn’t age this anymore’ he retorted. I nodded in agreement
2) 2019 Horsepower Vineyards ‘Fiddleneck Vineyard’ Grenache
In 2020 I had tasted with eminent vigneron Christophe Baron over Zoom and this year I had the chance to visit Cayuse in August 2021. The ‘Fiddleneck Vineyard’ is an extraordinary site that had Fiddleneck flowers all around, as this was named for the flowers. Strangely when you taste this wine there is something uniquely floral in the wine which might just be from the floral aspect in the soils. As it was in 2018, the 2019 edition is simply extraordinary. Soft and pillowy yet extremely light on its feet, this wine is unlike anything in the world. You can pay eight to ten times more money to purchase Chateau Rayas, but why do that when you can find a wine just as good at a tenth of the price?
1) 2018 Quilceda Creek ‘Columbia Valley’ Cabernet Sauvignon
I was lucky enough to try the 2018 Quilceda Creek ‘Columbia Valley’ Cabernet Sauvignon a whopping four times this year. For a 100 point wine, this is an unbelievably good tasting experience that you will want to savor on its own. Don’t throw steaks on your BBQ or put out the finest chocolates for this wine. I beseech you to open this wine and let it evolve in the decanter over a three hour period. If you are a wine lover, you will thank me. This opulent wine is powerful and dense but has gobs of finesse and salty undertones. It may just be the best Quilceda Creek I have ever tasted. While this will easily go two decades it is utterly sumptuous stuff to savor right now. Cheers!
