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Wine & Spirits Top 100 Wineries and Wines of 2022 have been announced, and we are thrilled to see eight of our winery partners included. We are tremendously proud to represent the best of the best, and congratulate our suppliers for this outstanding achievement! 
Terre Rouge Easton Wines
(please click here to read the full article)
Bill Easton has pursued Rhône varieties his entire winemaking career, but his old-vine Zinfandels reflect his past like few wines can. His Ascent and High Slopes Syrahs express mountain soils and diurnal shifts in their firm structure. Terre Rouge wines aren’t flashy, but they end up acceding to the high altitude drama of the Sierras—rugged, full of mineral tension and a burly energy.
 
With Terre Rouge 2018 Syrah Sierra Foothills Ascent (95 Pts), Bill Easton draws from as many as 15 blocks, varying them by cluster count, harvest date, vinification and élevage. By blending time, there are usually about a half-dozen paths to the final mix. The 2018 reflects that level of care, with exotic scents of cedar, pine tips, olive, pepper and smoke, continuing to expand into cardamom, tobacco and mace. It’s composed, texturally seamless and balanced—one for the ages.
For more wines from Terre Rouge Easton Wines, visit lcbo.com

 
The Eyrie Vineyards
(please click here to read the full article)
The first to see vinous potential in the Willamette Valley, the Lett family continues to maximize that potential, over fifty years in. In the 1960s, David and Diana Lett established the Willamette Valley as a place to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, producing wines that have a sense of dirt in the bottle, in the best way.

Since 2009, their son, Jason, has maintained that level of excellence, doubling down on the terroir delivery by moving to ambient-yeast fermentation and adding site-specific bottlings, tripling the number of cuvées produced by The Eyrie Vineyards.

Roland Green includes an older plot of own-rooted vines adjacent to a young block on heat-tolerant rootstocks. It yielded a 2018 of admirable tension: You can taste the old-vine poise in scents of turned soil and tanbark, blood and cherries, along with youthful notes of rose petals and star anise. The Eyrie Vineyards Dundee Hills Roland Green Pinot Noir 2018 (95 Pts) is luxurious, the savor tugging at the fruit with a gentle insistence, with a cherry-skin concentration to the texture that’s wildly appealing.

For more wines from The Eyrie Vineyards, visit lcbo.com

E. Guigal 
(please click here to read the full article)
From everyday wines to opulent single-parcel selections, Guigal shows off the Rhône Valley in its best light. This is Guigal’s 16th appearance as one of the Top 100 Wineries of the Year, having had an almost unbroken string of successes since 2008. The winery began taking its current shape in the 1960s, when Marcel Guigal built up the négociant business by forging personal relationships with growers up and down the length of the river. Those relationships have in turn allowed Guigal to build the estate to its current size, the portfolio packed with choice parcels from St-Joseph to Côte-Rôtie.

Pulled from the historic heart of the appellation, where the vines cling to a steep gneiss-based slope, the 2018 E. Guigal St-Joseph Lieu Dit Rouge (97 Pts) is almost forbidding in its polished, well-oaked façade. Those mahogany tones course along lean, firm lines, the wine compact and concentrated, a nugget of dense black fruit wrapped in tannins and lashed with notes of licorice and spice. This is built for the long term.

For more wines from E. Guigal, visit lcbo.com or browse our consignment portfolio at thecaseforwine.com

 
Petrolo
(please click here to read the full article)
Petrolo has risen from an obscure corner of Tuscany and carved out a reputation for world-class Merlot and Sangiovese. Petrolo lies in the wooded hills of Val d’Arno di Sopra, just beyond Chianti Classico’s eastern border. Luca Sanjust, the current proprietor along with his mother, Lucia, brought this estate to prominence with Galatrona, a single-vineyard Merlot. 

When Giulio Gambelli found a plot of clay-rich soil on the Petrolo estate in 1989, he recommended planting Merlot to blend with Sangiovese. The first vintage was 1994, and the results were so good that Petrolo bottled a portion separately, creating Galatrona, a distinctly Tuscan rendering of Merlot. The flavours of fresh plum in the 2019 Petrolo Val d’Arno di Sopra Galatrona (96 Pts) are densely packed with notes of dark chocolate and tobacco and enlivened by flecks of graphite and mint. It’s hard to resist those vibrant flavours and supple tannins now, yet this has plenty of cellaring potential.

For more wines from Petrolo, please contact The Case For Wine

 
Sandrone
(please click here to read the full article)
Luciano Sandrone’s four decades of winemaking experience lead to wines that are captivating in their youth yet capable of aging gracefully. All the Sandrone Barolos are the product of meticulously maintained vines pruned to low yields, their fruit fermented on ambient yeasts in temperature-controlled tanks and aged in 500-liter French oak barrels.

The grapes that produce the 2016 Sandrone Barolo Vite Talin (98 Pts) were grafted from a vine that caught Luciano Sandrone’s attention in 1987; it was eventually proven to be a low yielding clone of Nebbiolo. This is the third release of Vite Talin, and while it shows the dense concentration characteristic of this wine, it also captures the freshness of the 2016 vintage in its delicate lavender scents and exhilarating acidity. Tightly wound flavours of black plum and dark cherry brim with umami savor, unfolding after a few hours in the glass to reveal notes of salted black licorice, hoisin and a brilliant streak of salinity.

For more wines from Sandrone, browse our consignment portfolio at thecaseforwine.com
 

The following producers are also among
Wine & Spirits Top 100 Wines of 2022:
Domaines Schlumberger
(please click here to read the article)
Now run by the 6th and 7th generations, Domaines Schlumberger was founded in 1810 by Nicolas Schlumberger, who established vineyards on the renowned slopes above the town of Guebwiller.

The 2016 Domaines Schlumberger Alsace Grand Cru Kessler Pinot Gris (96 Pts) stands out as a big wine with an immediately pungent apricot scent. Decant it, and the flavours integrate, developing an exotic yellow plum brightness that seems to interact with every taste bud; it sets the mouth watering for all sorts of foods, whether white fish crudo or an Alsatian savory tart. This is all satin-cushioned deliciousness.

For more wines from Domaines Schlumberger, please visit lcbo.com

Bodegas Muga
(please click here to read the full article)
Located in Haro's historic Barrio de la Estación, where Rioja's great classic wineries can be found, Bodegas Muga offers wines which combine elegance and finesse, tradition and innovation — wines of a superior category that we can always accept as benchmarks, and serve without any fear of disappointment.

The grapes in the 2016 Muga Selección Especial (96 Pts) grow at high altitudes, in high-density plantings on ancient terraces above the Ebro river, some of the vines dating to 1946. Those alluvial soils and old vines performed remarkably well in 2016, delivering a fresh blend (Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo) with cool, silken tannins and the sort of peppery spice you might find in fresh pressed olive oil. It’s bright and juicy, layering thyme and rosemary fragrance into the fruit complexity. A glorious young Rioja to age, or to drink now with roast suckling pig.

For more wines from Bodegas Muga, visit lcbo.com

 
Ransom Wines
(please click here to read the full article)
Nestled in the Willamette Valley just outside of Portland, Oregon, Ransom Winery & Distillery has been blending traditional old-world craftsmanship with a modern new-world twist since its inception in 1997. By prioritizing sustainability and stewardship for the land and the planet, their farm has been certified organic since 2011. 

A steal for the price, the Ransom Willamette Valley Jigsaw Pinot Noir 2019 (91 Pts) leads with wood spice and violets, tobacco leaf and dark cherry. It’s a touch stodgy, with a lean texture and not all that much acidity at play in the wine, but it does have the solid grip for something rich, like duck confit.

For more wines from Ransom Wines, please contact The Case For Wine

 
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