Tabla de contenidos para March 31, 2026 en Wine Spectator

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Christian Borel has seen a lot as wine director for his family’s restaurant, L’Auberge Provençale. The Virginia inn and restaurant boasts more than 5,400 bottles and has held a Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator since 2008. But nothing prepared Borel to sprint through his dining room shouting, “They’re stealing Romanée-Conti!” Two thieves carried out a plot Nov. 19 to steal bottles worth an estimated $42,000 made by the famed Burgundy producer. One suspect remains at large, having made off with bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 2020, Richebourg 2020, Romanée St.-Vivant 2020, Vosne-Romanée 2020, Echézeaux 2019 and Grands Echézeaux 2021. The Romanée-Conti 2020 alone is worth over $18,000 at retail. The perpetrators claimed to represent a client who was “evaluating venues for a potential event” and…

Trinchero Family Wine & Spirits has agreed to acquire California sparkling wine house Mumm Napa from Pernod Ricard. Neither party disclosed financial terms. The move, first reported by Shanken News Daily, a sister publication of Wine Spectator, deepens Trinchero’s participation in the sparkling wine sector, an underrepresented area for the company, which produces 16 million cases annually. Trinchero CEO and president Bob Torkelson told Shanken News Daily that he expects the deal to close in early 2026. Last year, Mumm Napa produced 334,000 cases. The brand offers a variety of wines retailing from about $20 to more than $100. According to Trinchero, winemaking will continue as usual at Mumm Napa, with the new ownership maintaining existing contracts with Mumm Napa’s longtime grapegrowing partners. “There’s still some life around the [sparkling…

House of MAS The all-star team of winemakers behind this wine includes Ashley Hepworth, Sally Johnson Blum and Molly Hill, who have made sought-after Napa wines from Joseph Phelps, Pride Mountain and Sequoia Grove, respectively. Their parent company is known as House of MAS, putting together their firstname initials. “We’ve realized that we can do so much more together than alone. We all have so many different attributes that we bring to the table,” says Hepworth. Their first goal was to produce a luxury rosé from Napa Valley. Napa rosés have been made mostly as an afterthought, using the more basic saignée method (bleeding off juice from fermenting must). The team farms Grenache grapes specifically for rosé, pressing the grapes directly before briefly macerating them on their skins to gain…

Khinkali Georgian dumplings, filled with cumin and chile-spiced meats, cheeses or vegetables. Proper etiquette is to eat these with your hands by holding the dumpling by the knot and biting the bottom, which allows you to slurp out the juices inside. Khachapuri A classic bread starter, oozing with stretchy farmer’s cheese. There are two prominent styles: Adjarian from the southwest, shaped like boats and topped with a runny egg and a pat of butter; or round Imeruli, encasing the cheese like a stuffed pizza crust. Pkhali Walnuts are one of the most distinguishing ingredients of Georgian cuisine, seen most prominently in phkhali: a type of vegetable pâté, blended with beets, spinach, pumpkin, eggplant or more, served with bread. Lobio This red kidney bean stew is more than what meets the…

When Drops of God was awarded top honors as best drama series at the 52nd International Emmy Awards in November 2024, Fleur Geffrier, who plays lead character Camille Léger, had little time to celebrate. The French actor was in the middle of filming season two of the multilingual hit series, set in Greece, Spain, the Republic of Georgia, Japan and multiple regions of France. The eight-episode second season premiered Jan. 21 on Apple TV. Based on Tadashi Agi’s best-selling manga series, the first season of the French-Japanese Drops of God adaptation tells the story of Léger, whose estranged father has died and left her his $150 million wine collection. The catch: In order to claim her inheritance, she must pass a series of blind tasting challenges in competition with her…

France enjoyed a beautifully warm July last year, but there was a shadow for organic grape-growers. On July 15, 2025, national health agency Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire with drew market authorization for 19 copper-based fungicides, used to combat downy mildew, as of the end of 2026. Insiders describe this as a shock to the organic wine sector. “Copper is a natural element,” said Gérard Bertrand, a French vigneron and organic farming advocate. “It’s a lot of noise for nothing.” Copper has been a key viticultural tool since 1885, when it helped stave off a downy mildew epidemic. It’s approved worldwide; critically, there is no organic equivalent. The alternatives are synthetic fungicides. The heavy metal can linger in soil and seep into water supplies, and European regulations permit farmers to…

Sonoma’s Marietta Cellars has been making wine for almost 50 years, but until now con-sumers couldn’t seek it out for a tasting, as the winery was not set up for hospitality. The Geyserville-based operation has opened its first tasting room nearby in downtown Healdsburg. The winery was founded by Chris Bilbro in 1978 and is perhaps best known for its Old Vine Red, a non-vintage, Zinfandel-based California red that remains a value, with a price tag under $20. Bilbro’s son, Scot, is both co-owner and winemaker and still makes “OVR,” but the Healdsburg tasting room focuses on the winery’s new flagship bottlings of Cabernet, Zinfandel, Riesling and Rhône-style wines. In a former life, the tasting room was a police station; Scot’s wife, Lisa Steinkamp—winery co-owner and architectural designer—updated the concrete…

In the early 1980s, Danny Meyer decided it was time to grow up. In his mid-20s, he had tried working in politics and in sales and found little success. Time to go to law school, he decided. But on the night before the LSAT, he complained to an uncle that he didn’t want to be a lawyer. His uncle replied, “You’ve been talking about food and restaurants your whole life; why don’t you do that?” Four decades later, it appears Meyer’s decision to skip the LSAT has paid off. He’s the founder and executive chairman of Union Square Hospitality Group, the company behind New York restaurants such as Gramercy Tavern, the Modern, Manhatta, Ci Siamo and the View. But the restaurant that started it all is Union Square Cafe, which…

Like many decisions made at Famille Isabel Ferrando, it starts with food. A velvety mushroom soup, made with wild mushrooms from the Ardèche mountains, provides the perfect excuse for Isabel Ferrando to open her last remaining bottle of 2009 Châteauneufdu-Pape Vieilles Vignes Clairette. It’s a rare white wine made with 100% Clairette from a single plot of 100-year-old vines—and 2009 was the first vintage she produced of the wine. The mushrooms are a gift from the Marcon family, owners of three-star Michelin Restaurant Marcon in France’s Rhône-Alps region. “You can taste the forests of the wild Ardèche mountains where they forage for them. With the salinity of the wine, the combination is pure Mediterranean, pure magic, you see?” Ferrando’s skills in the kitchen rival her acumen in the cellar, and…

The wines of Georgia seem to be having a moment. The Eastern European country is benefiting from a notable increase in tourism to the home of an 8,000-year-old wine culture, while its wide range of indigenous grape varieties, distinctive winemaking style and hearty cuisine provide fertile territory for adventurous palates. Additionally, AppleTV’s popular wine-centric series Drops of God, now in its second season, places a Georgian wine in a leading role. As this all contributes to a small but growing consumer base in the U.S. market, we take our first in-depth look at the category. Georgian wine is a small bracket. The 2024 vintage produced 15 million cases of wine, up from 13.3 million in 2020, according to Wines of Georgia, the country’s industry—and government-funded trade group. Georgia’s overall wine…

As you drive the 130 miles across Washington from Yakima to Walla Walla, the landscape doesn’t look like wine country, at least not in the same way as Bordeaux or Napa Valley. This is Columbia Valley and it’s the high desert, a rolling terrain that’s arid and warm in the summer, though cool at night, and then cold in the winter. Trees are sparse, and you’re as likely to see fields of wheat as you are vineyards. While this might seem an unlikely place to grow grapes, Columbia Valley is a unique and distinctive wine region. The reason is a synthesis of influences, starting with the two mountain ranges that flank the region. The towering Cascades to the west create a rain shadow throughout much of the valley, blocking precipitation…

The sale of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates in December was not surprising, but it brought more questions than answers—for both the company and all of Washington state wine. Though SMWE is the state’s oldest and largest winery, it has struggled to find its footing for years, going through a series of owners and leadership strategies. When New York–based private equity firm Sycamore Partners bought SMWE for $1.2 billion from tobacco giant Altria in 2021, things went from bad to worse. Finally, in December, Sycamore sold all of SMWE’s Washington wine holdings to the Wyckoff family, which owns a large agribusiness company in Yakima Valley. No price was announced, but the deal includes all of SMWE’s Washington brands, such as the flagship Ste. Michelle label, Columbia Crest and 14 Hands. Also…

Glenora Wine Cellars has been sold by Gene Pierce and Scott Welliver to FLX Family Winery, led by area natives Brian and Kevin Lilly. Neither party disclosed the purchase price, but Glenora was listed in 2022 at $10.8 million. The brothers’ primary business is in TV and radio, but they have expanded their ventures to include Lilly Family Farm and Horseheads Brewery, both in New York, as well as wine festivals in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Brian Lilly said they were drawn to Glenora’s legacy, location and long-term potential and aim to “focus on stability, creativity and refinement rather than growth.” They have retained the staff and anticipate no operational changes. Located on Seneca Lake, Glenora was a pioneer of small local wineries as corporate ones were shifting to…

It was a sweet wine lover’s dream: thousands of bottles, including rare vintages of Château d’Yquem dating from 1928 to 2019, sourced straight from the cellar of the Sauternes estate’s longtime manager and co-owner, Count Alexandre de Lur Saluces. On Nov. 13, French auctioneer Daguerre opened bidding for approximately 2,500 bottles from the late winemaker’s collection, including not just rare Yquem but other top Sauternes, plus gems from Burgundy, Bordeaux and beyond. The sale was conducted online and in person at Paris’ Hôtel Drouot. When the bidding was done, the result was impressive: 98% of the lots were sold for a total of €784,200, or more than $914,000, well above the high estimate of €400,000. Drouot reported an even split between in-person and remote bidding. De Lur Saluces, who died…

There’s a lot to love about the 2023 vintage in the Rhône Valley. Despite a lack of consensus among the region’s producers about the year’s precise level of quality compared with previous vintages—including the more powerful and more uniformly praised 2022s—the dozens of vintners I spoke with from the north to the south are happy with the balance and accessibility of their 2023 bottlings. Speaking for myself, I am a fan of 2023 for its energy, pleasure and charm. It’s a vintage that yielded many great wines, along with some truly exceptional ones. Particularly in the Northern Rhône, where the legendary Syrah-based reds of Cornas, Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage can be tightly wound with aggressive tannins for years after release, the ’23s are a welcome change of pace. Offering smoother, more…

In Georgian lore, when god was dividing the globe into nations, the Georgians were the last to arrive, and all the available land had been given out. When asked why they were tardy, the Georgians said they had been feasting and toasting to god’s health. Impressed, god gave the Georgians the most beautiful piece of land god had kept aside, tucked between the mountains and sea. That’s how sanctified feasting is within Georgian culture. Over the past decade, with more Georgian wine coming to the United States, Georgian restaurants have proliferated across major cities, inviting diners to the tradition of the supra, or feast, and to the pride of Georgian culture. For restaurateur and author Rose Previte, Georgian supras are among the greatest culinary experiences she’s ever had. The owner…

SPOTLIGHT ON 2023 OREGON PINOT NOIR “Fans of Oregon wines can applaud the recent trifecta of strong vintages, culminating with the 2023 harvest, a relative breeze after the heat of 2021 and the uncertainty of 2022. Winemakers describe the year’s Pinots as supple and distinctive.” —Tim Fish ABOUT THE BUYING GUIDE The Buying Guide contains ratings of new releases from around the world. Complete tasting notes are provided for new releases scoring 85 or more points (on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale). Hundreds of additional reviews appear each month on www.winespectator.com. Each review carries the initials of the Wine Spectator editor who blind-tasted and scored the wine and wrote the review, based on the regional specializations indicated. Bruce Sanderson | Burgundy, Piedmont, Tuscany James Molesworth | California Cabernet Sauvignon and…