The best wine in the world for 2016? It is not a prestigious French reserve, it is not an exuberant Italian wine, it is not a rigorous Alsatian wine, nor a rampant Spanish wine. The Old Continent must bow down to a 2013 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the Lewis winery, made in California.
This is the decision of the most authoritative world wine culture magazine, Wine Spectator, which decreed the Top 100 of the best and most exciting wines of this year.
At the Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013 the judges of the magazine have assigned the score of 95/100, we are almost perfect. At this point it is legitimate to ask how much the best wine in the world can cost. Soon said, and here too a big surprise: the price is around 100 dollars per bottle. Much, much less than the prestigious and high-sounding French-Italian-German-German-Spanish labels. A curiosity about it. In the selection of the judges of the American magazine, the most expensive wine is not always the best one. In fact, last year's list of one hundred wines had included wines that cost 10 dollars alongside the much more expensive ones.
The Napa Walley cellar belongs to a former car driver Randy Lewis, protagonist of a terrible accident in Indianapolis which forced him to retire from car racing. Hanging up his helmet Lewis threw himself into viticulture - it was 1992 - with the same desire to win that drove him in car racing, involving his whole family over time. The stated philosophy of his company is to aim only for excellence by choosing "rootstocks with reduced vigor and a selection of clones to have balanced vineyards and modest yields, but producing maximum flavours". The results have been seen.
And the wines that took second and third place are also American. Respectively the Chardonnay Dundee Hills Evenstad Reserve 2014 of Domaine Serene produced in the Oregon valley which obtained the score of 95/100; the Beaux Frères Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge also produced by a company in Oregon. Finally off the podium but in fourth position is a wine from old Europe, a Bordeaux from the French region of Barsac, the Château Climens Barsac 2013.
Italy has managed to place itself with honor among the top ten wines in the world with two labels of high international prestige. That is, with the Barbaresco Asili Riserva 2011 of the Barbaresco Producers, which stands in fifth position and the Antinori Tignanello 2013 which had a score of 94/100 which occupies the number 8. .
The magazine reserves an enthusiastic definition for the "Produttori del Barbaresco": «One of the best cooperatives in the world of contemporary wine». The cooperative winery was born in 1958 from an intuition of Don Fiorino Marengo, then parish priest of Barbaresco, who brought together nineteen farmers and founded the Produttori del Barbaresco «for the qualification and guarantee of Barbaresco». With the results that we know today. Today the winery has 50 members with about 110 hectares of Nebbiolo vineyards and controls most of the historical "crus" of the area
The Tignanello of the Marchesi Antinori, one of the most loved Italian wines abroad, is a wine that represents a milestone in Italian production: the first Sangiovese to be aged in barriques, the first modern red wine blended with non-traditional varieties, such as Cabernet, and among the first red wines in Chianti not to use white grapes. Produced with a selection of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc after aging in barriques for about 12 months, it rests in the bottle for a further year of aging.
For the record, in the 2015 edition of the Top 100 of Wine Spectator, Italy always placed two wines among the top ten: the Brunello di Montalcino 2010 Il Poggione at no. 4 and Masi's Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Vaio Armaron 2008 Serego Alighieri in eighth position (it seems like destiny…)
Again and again for the record, in the almost thirty-year history of this ranking which all wine enthusiasts of the world look to, our country has managed three times to place itself on the podium of the absolute winner above all, and it was in 2006, with the Brunello di Montalcino 2001 Tenuta Nuova by Casanova di Neri, in 2001 with the Ornellaia 1998 by Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, and in 2000 with the Solaia 1997. But it must also be said that it was excluded from the top 100 list three times. .
