22. Hamilton Cellars 2010 Champoux Malbec, Horse Heaven Hills, $45
The grapes for this wine were the first crop of Malbec ever harvested at famed Champoux. In the hands of master winemaker Charlie Hoppes, they showed this site’s stunning potential for Malbec. It shows off aromas of white pepper, blueberry, dried flowers and dark chocolate. The flavors are dark and brooding with deep, rich notes of Marionberry, smoky pepper and anise. It rides the line of being extracted yet still elegant.
Production: 98 cases
Alcohol: 14.8%
Lists such as this are nice. But I content that wines with a production of less then 250 cases should not be included. There are wines here with microscopic production levels. That just amounts to teasing the vast majority of the readers.
Jim,
A valid point. I would contend that highlighting even small-production wines gives wine lovers an idea about what wineries to visit or wines to try.
Additionally, this is a bit of a slippery slope. Do we also exclude wines based on price point because they are accessible primarily to those only able to afford them?
We went into this with the thought of picking out the very best wines we tasted in 2013. During the process, we didn’t look at price point or production level. As a result, we also ended up with a lot of wines in which tens of thousands of cases were produced (in addition to small-production wines).