Top 3 Most Outstanding New or Current Releases of the YearApologizes for the length, but there’s ten regions on which to report! Special Mentions: 2014 Booker The Ripper (Grenache), 2014 Daou Vineyard Patrimony, 2014 l’Aventure Estate Cuvée, 2014 Denner Vineyards The Ditch Digger, 2014 Epoch Block B. Special Mentions: 2014 Peake Ranch Pinot Noir John Sebastiano Vineyard, 2014 Paul Lato Chardonnay Belle de Jour Duvarita Vineyard, 2014 Clos Solene Cuvée Jean. Special Mentions: 2014 Paul Lato Pinot Noir Lancelot Pisoni Vineyard, 2014 Walt Wines Pinot Noir Sierra Mar Vineyard, 2014 Testarossa Pinot Noir Garys’ Vineyard. Special Mentions: 2014 Rhys Vineyards Pinot Noir Horseshoe Hillside Vineyard, 2014 Varner Chardonnay Bee Block Spring Ridge Vineyard, 2014 Thomas Fogarty Pinot Noir Mindego Ridge Vineyard, 2014 Mindego Ridge Chardonnay.Châteauneuf du Pape While there’s plenty of good 2014s from Châteauneuf du Pape out there, they pale in comparison to the 2015s—hence I’ve opted to highlight the most recent vintage.

All the below reds were tasted as barrel samples. The quality of the whites from the southern Rhône has sky rocketed over the past decade as well, so I’ve split the whites out as well to highlight some gems. Aside from the Saint Prefert, all the whites were tasted from bottle. And since I break the region up into two parts, one focused on Châteauneuf du Pape and one for the other appellations, I’ve included a “Best of” list for each of the reports. best wine chickenThe more the merrier!best time to visit wine country in italySpecial mention to the sweet wines from the region (the VDN wines), with the 1948 and 1965 Rivesaltes Ambre from Domaine Rancy being two of the most incredible fortified wines I was able to taste this year.best wine prices houston

Special Mentions: 2014 Chateau Puech Haut Languedoc Pic Saint Loup Closerie Saint Mathieu Blanc, 2014 La Peira Terrasses du Larzac la Peira, 2014 La Peira Terrasses du Larzac La Peira Blanc, 2014 Maxime Magnon Corbières Campagnes, 2014 Domaine Anne Gros Minervois les Carretals.Southern Rhône – (Reviewed in Issue 228)These notes will be published Friday, December 30th. what is the best texas wineNorthern Rhône Reds – (Reviewed in Issue 228)These notes will be published Friday, December 30th. best wine with skateNorthern Rhône Whites – (Reviewed in Issue 228)These notes will be published Friday, December 30th. best wine list south beachGreatest Value Wines of the Year Special Mentions: 2015 Chateau de l’Ou Côtes Catalanes Infiniment de l’Ou, 2015 Domaine de Bila Haut Occultum Lapidem, 2015 Chateau Pesquié Ventoux Terrasses, 2015 Daou Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, 2015 Tensley Syrah Tensley Vineyard, 2014 Chateau Puech-Haut Pic Saint Loup Closerie du Pic, 2014 Domaine Vindemio Ventoux Amadeus, 
2014 Beau Mistral Rasteau.

I’m feeling indecisive, so here’s a list of wines I’ve had this year that made a serious impression.Best Dinner of the Year My waistline (and pathetic cycling times…I’m embarrassed to turn on Strava) are ample evidence I’ve had way too many ‘Best Dinner’ meals this year. If judging on a tip-top dining experience, a dinner with a friend at Celler de Can Roca in Girona easily takes the top spot for the year. However, I’m a bistro type of guy at heart, and I’d take a meal at l’Ami Louis in Paris (which I do about 4-5 times a year) any day—and twice on Sunday. Other notable restaurants/dinners this year include: Le Mangevins (Tain l’Hermitage, France), L’Oustalet (Gigondas, France), les Florets (Gigondas, France), La Table de Sorgues (Sorgues, France), Villa Madie (Cassis, France), Le Petit Nice (Marseille, France), Bistro Paul Bert (Paris, France), le Dôme (Paris, France), Le Train Bleu (Paris, France), Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee), Wild Ginger (Seattle, Washington), Le Divil (Perpignan, France), La Tupin (Bordeaux

, France), Laredo (Madrid, France), Flagstaff House (Boulder, CO), Frasca (Boulder, CO), Press (Napa, CA), Jade Palace (Singapore), The China Club (Hong Kong).Best Vertical/Retrospective Tasting of the Year I continue to spend a lot of time on retrospectives and older wines/vintages from my regions. These are just as much about the history of an estate as they are about the wine, and it’s always an honor and privilege to take part. Some of the standouts include:Best ‘Get-a-Life Outside of Wine’ Things of the Year We lost our sweet girl, Abby (pictured above), earlier this year to cancer. And while it made the entire year difficult, one highlight was going back through all the photos and videos, remembering the hikes, camping trips, long road trips, and wet-tongue wake up calls, as well as all the daily small - and large - things she did to brighten our lives over the past 12 years. If you have pets, give them a squeeze for me. And take lots of videos and photos - you’ll thank me later.

While pushing the boundary on the ‘Outside of Wine’ theme, Traci and I went on a Bourbon/Whiskey trip this last year or two and have visited distilleries, blown a ton of money and drank way too much Whiskey for our own good. Nevertheless, we’ve had a blast. Some great Bourbons this year (among others) include the Old Blowhard 26, Elijah Craig 18, Four Roses Small Batch, Rhetoric Orphan Barrel, Pappy Van Winkle (10, 20 & 23), Blanton’s Single Barrel, Willett Pot Still Reserve, Jim Beam Distiller Masterpiece and Jefferson Reserve Small Batch. I’m going to sneak in a Bourbon (maybe Cognac!) report sometime soon… Lastly, our nephew visited over the summer and we hung out at Keystone doing some serious downhill mountain biking runs. I struggled to hang with the little whipper snapper, but made it through the day and was, again, reminded of why I love Colorado!When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie released the first vintage of rosé from their $60 million estate in Provence last year, major wine publications like Wine Spectator and Decanter gave it rave reviews.

Wine Spectator later included it as the only rosé on its list of the best 100 wines of the year, effectively crowning it the best rosé in the world. Now, the magazine has devoted seven pages of its June issue to Pitt and “the inside story of Château Miraval,” the property where Pitt, Jolie, and renowned French winemaker Marc Perrin produce the pink wine officially known as Jolie-Pitt & Perrin Côte de Provence Rosé Miraval. So Wine Spectator loves Brad Pitt. Sadly, the feeling does not appear to be mutual: Most of the Pitt quotes in the Wine Spectator profile have a canned, airless quality, as though they were typed into the body of an email by a diligent publicist. In in-person interviews, Pitt usually seems to have a modicum of self-awareness, but in this Wine Spectator profile (written by Robert Camuto), he comes across at times as tone-deaf and weirdly disdainful of his neighbors who make wine for a living. First, Pitt implies that he revolutionized Provençal winemaking:

For better or worse, given my compulsive nature, if we are going to be in the wine business, let’s make the best wine we can. The business model didn’t make sense to me. So I asked the question, “Why can’t we make a world-class wine in Provence?” Let’s approach it like a film, and let’s make something we can be proud of and all people can enjoy. Then, he promises to continue to revolutionize Provençal winemaking by doing something no one’s done before: What really interests me now are the reds. It’s generally believed that Provence is not capable of producing a fine red. I, with Marc and Pierre [Perrin], would like to create a wine which utilizes the best attributes of our terroir, and outside the restrictions of the AOC, like what the Italians have achieved with their super Tuscans. We envision a superb Provence red. Give us seven years. Finally, Pitt suggests that Provençal winemaking has revolutionized his very identity: I’m a farmer now.

I love learning about the land and which field is most suitable for which grape, the drama of September and October: Are we picking today? Where are the sugar levels? How is the acidity? Is it going to rain? Now, it’s great that Brad Pitt has taken an interest and invested a portion of his massive fortune in winemaking. And it’s great that he’s actually involved in the winemaking process, spending lots of time at his estate, tasting each batch of vino, learning about viniculture. But those things don’t make Pitt a farmer. Those things make Pitt a savvy businessman. Farmers don’t get to jet off to movie premieres and schedule in film shoots during growing season; they’re out in the fields every morning, no matter what, because the success of this year’s crop is usually the difference between staying afloat and going bankrupt. (Furthermore, the Wine Spectator piece makes it clear that there are plenty of people at Miraval who actually do the dirty work: Perrin, and estate manager Gary Bradbury, and a briefly mentioned “team of workers” who are presumably responsible for the most menial tasks.)

To be fair to Pitt, his suggestion that he, Jolie, and Perrin might be able to make an exceptional Provençal red is not so outlandish. I asked Michael Steinberger, Slate’s erstwhile wine critic and the author of The Wine Savant, what he thought of Pitt’s swagger. “In wine, you are ultimately only as good as the land you own,” he told me in an email. “A great winemaker can't make a great wine from a crappy site; the best he or she can hope to achieve is to maximize the potential of that vineyard. So Pitt and Jolie can throw a lot of money at this project, but they are only going to succeed in making a first-rate red if the land is capable of yielding one.” And the land has potential: Currently, only 8 percent of the Jolie-Pitt estate is being used to grow grapes, which means there’s a lot of undiscovered terroir at Miraval. Plus, as Perrin told Wine Spectator, “Miraval is its own valley, with exposures in all directions. There are few estates in the world that have their own valley.