Top 100 Cellar Selections 2013 While American culture in general is preoccupied with the here and now, wine devotees are well accustomed to thinking long term. Laying down bottles and monitoring their evolution are passions of true enthusiasts, and this year in particular has proven to be a wine collector’s dream. With so many wonderful releases from around the world—thanks to favorable vintage conditions in many iconic wine regions, as well as more competitively priced and available offerings across the board—the stars were aligned for those looking to build or restock a wine cellar in 2013. To a large extent, our list of Top 100 Cellar Selections reflects which classic wine regions released the best vintages during the past year. In 2013, that means the list is heavy on 2010 Bordeaux and Burgundy, 2011 vintage Port and 2007 Brunello riservas. In the interest of diversity, we sprinkle in wines from a wide range of countries and grape varieties, but since most of these ageworthy wines come from established regions and top vintages, the emphasis is on quality, not value.

This is a refined list, and many of the wines are expensive—no surprise there. Many of these wines are also limited in production, and just like selections on our other Top 100 lists, some may have sold out or increased in price since our initial reviews were published. But all are collectible investments, requiring time in a properly temperature-and-humidity controlled cellar to deliver maximum pleasure. Our top-ranked Cellar Selection for 2013 is perhaps the most perfect example of such a bottling: A flawless wine from a highly lauded vintage of a style that ages extremely well for decades. Remarkably, we have six other 100-point wines included on this list, emphasizing it as one of the highest-quality lists we’ve ever released. Usually, the phrase “you’re not getting older, you’re getting better” is wishful thinking. In these wines, it is the truth. Have a favorite wine from this list? Join the conversation by tweeting with #WETOP2013 >>> See the full list of 2013’s Top 100 Cellar Selections in the PDF version, or view the list in our Buying Guide.

To see the Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2012, click here. To see Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Wines of 2013, click here. To see Wine Enthusiast’s Top 25 Beers, click here. To see 2013’s Top 50 Spirits, click here. To see the Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Best Buys, click here.Read more information about wine for beginners >>> Top 100 Cellar SelectionsTipsConsult a vintage chart to find a wine that are likely to be long-lasting.Keep the bottles someplace dark, with a fairly constant, moderate temperature, where they won't be disturbed.In the long run, the very best wine to lay down is probably one with some special significance to you.Related How-TosFinding a Customer-Friendly Wine StoreThings to Consider When Shopping for Wine OnlineBuying Wine Online: Beware the Problems One of the questions we’re often asked is: I’d like to “lay down” a case of wine for a newborn child. What should I get? It’s a lovely tradition. When Rolf Nelson was born, his godfather saved a case of 1966 Port for him and then other cases of what Mr. Nelson calls “miscellaneous stuff.”

Most of the miscellaneous stuff has been drunk by now, but Mr. Nelson has held on to the case of Port. Now that he has two sons, Cooper, who was born in 1996, and Reece, who was born last September, Mr. Nelson wants to lay some wines down for them. “It was just a wonderful thing that my godfather did for me because it opened my mind up to how wonderful food and wine could be and what a wonderful community they could foster,” says Mr. Nelson, a chef who owns Sconset Café, a 32-seat restaurant on Nantucket Island, with his wife, Cindy.can you buy wine in england on sunday Mr. Nelson’s godfather, Jamie Pope, who lives in England, “never put down first growths. glass of wine healthy or notHe gave me cru bourgeois,” Mr. Nelson says. purchase rare wine

“He didn’t want me worrying about the wine’s status. He wanted me to enjoy them.” Mr. Nelson’s idea is that he’ll start with six “high-level” bottles for each son from three different regions of the world, “and over time I’ll add to it.” Sometimes people expect the children to open the bottles on their 21st birthday, or for their college graduation, or their wedding day. best white wine at targetBut the idea is the same: a case of wine that will mature gracefully and gain some wisdom, symbolically mirroring the child. beer and wine mixed drinkAnd, of course, each bottle will be a memory of the giver of the wine and a reflection of their hopes and dreams for the child when he or she was born.best wine and spirit offers

So, what would we recommend? It’s a very difficult question to answer, because we’re being asked to suggest something that will be good 20 years down the road or more. That said, 20 years isn’t nearly as long as it seems when it comes to wine. Many Bordeaux from 1982 are still great. And a case of 1980 California Cabernet Sauvignon would be a delicious present for anyone turning 21 this year. In this case, storage matters. In general, as you know, we say you shouldn’t get obsessive about storage, since most wines are drunk right away. But these will be around for many years. A gift of a few bottles shouldn’t require you to buy an expensive storage system, but be sure to keep these gifts someplace dark, with a fairly constant, moderate temperature, where they won’t be disturbed. The classic wine to put away for the kids is a case of first-growth Bordeaux, like Château Lafite-Rothschild. That’s certainly a fine idea if you can afford it, but most of us can’t.

Keep in mind that anything worth keeping all those years won’t be released to the market for at least a couple of years after the child is born anyway, so you have plenty of time to research this — and to wait for your dot-com stocks to recover so that you can afford that Lafite after all. We try not to dwell on vintages very much, because there are so many variables. But this is one case where you might want to consult a vintage chart (they’re often next to the cash registers at wine stores). There are some so-so years in Bordeaux, for instance, in which the wines aren’t likely to be long-lasting, while the same year might be a great one in, say, California. Assuming it’s not a terrible year, a mid-range Bordeaux is a good idea. Our favorite, Gruaud-Larose, would be a treat in 20 years, for instance. If the child happens to be born in a great year in Bordeaux, even a lesser known, lower-priced Bordeaux would be fine. We were lucky: Media was born in 1989 and Zoë was born in 1990, both excellent years in France.

Also consider a big California Cabernet Sauvignon. We’ve had some outstanding California Cabernets over the years that were clearly built to last. Some wineries have reputations for making “big” wines. We always recommend Sullivan, Burgess and Steltzner as lay-down wines, since we’ve had good luck ourselves with aging them. We think Staglin wines will get better with age, as will some of the higher-end Beringer wines, but there are plenty of California Cabernets that will age well. We’ve also had some Zinfandels from California — from Sausal, for instance — that we think could last just about forever. Don’t feel that you need to spend a fortune. We, and many of our readers, are constantly amazed at how well the inexpensive red wines of Louis M. Martini Winery age. As it happens, Louis P. Martini, son of Louis M. Martini, kept a cellar for each of his children beginning with wines from the year they were born. His daughter Carolyn, who heads the company now, brought a 1947 Barbera, from the year of her birth, to the Weekend Journal’s Open That Bottle Night party in Napa in November.

It was still delicious. You can find your own Cabernet or other red wine to save. Ask a wine merchant for a recommendation and take it home. If you find it difficult to drink because it’s so full of tannins that it makes your mouth pucker — if it tastes “hard,” which you’ll know when you taste it — then it’s probably a good candidate to lay down. If it’s soft and approachable, it probably isn’t. Port is a good choice, since it lasts forever and gets better with age. It’s also such an elegant, grown-up drink that it has a special resonance in marking a coming-of-age. The problem is that not every year is good enough to be called a vintage year in Oporto, so you can’t be sure you will be able to save a case from the child’s birth year. That’s also the problem with Sauternes. This great sweet wine is, to us, the perfect wine to lay down, the one we recommend most often. It’s sweet — like the child — and it gets better with age. Not only that, but the wine gets more beautiful in its clear bottle as the years go on, changing from yellow to gold to orange, like a sunset that lasts many years.

This means that the child can appreciate the wine for years before he or she can drink it, just by looking at it. But some years are so terrible that little or no Sauternes is made. In the long run, the very best wine to lay down is probably one with some special significance to you, and that significance could be merely that it’s your favorite wine. Paul Kemp of Seattle was 16 years old when his father gave him a keepsake. It was a bottle of 1974 Heitz Cellar “Martha’s Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon, one of America’s most famous wines, simply because he was so excited about it. “He got interested in wine at an early age because of me,” explains Paul’s father, Fred Kemp, a chemical engineer. That’s putting it mildly. In high school in West Hartford, Conn., Paul gave talks in his French class about wine — except he couldn’t talk about wine itself because it was an alcoholic beverage, so he discussed the labels and how much students could learn from them about language, syntax and geography.