American Wine Awards 2005 | Food & Wine

American Wine Awards 2005
F&W‘s ninth annual American Wine Awards celebrates some of the most remarkable wineries and wine professionals in the United States. Among those selected this year by our panel of 41 distinguished judges are a five-year-old Napa winery already producing cult Syrahs and an importer who continues to discover many of Austria‘s and Germany‘s most dazzling wines. You‘ll also find our picks for the most outstanding American wines, ranging in price from $11 to $175 a bottle.
By Richard Nalley
Best Wines $20 and Under
2004 Honig Winery Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc
2002 Mount Eden Wolff Vineyard Chardonnay
2004 Miner Family Simpson Vineyard Viognier
2003 Nelms Road Merlot
2003 Joel Gott Blend No. 815 Caberet Sauvignon
2003 Seghesio Family Vineyards Sonoma Zinfandel
2003 Qupé Central Coast Syrah
2003 Castle Rock Winery Mendocino County Pinot Noir
Best Wines Over $20
2003 Rudd Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc
2002 Ramey Wine Cellars Hyde Vineyards-Carneros Chardonnay
2003 Alban Vineyards Estate Viognier
2002 Shafer Vineyard Merlot
2001 Shafer Hillside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon
2003 Biale Black Chicken Zinfandel
2002 Lewis Cellars Syrah
2002 Soter Vineyards Beacon Hill Pinot Noir
Best Bordeaux-Style Blend
2002 Peter Michael Les Pavots $135
Best Sparkling Wine
Roederer Estate Nonvintage Brut $22
Best New Winery
Pax Wine Cellars
Best Wine Importer-Distributor
Terry Theise
Winemaker of the Year
Philippe Melka
Best New Wine Shop
Crush Wine Company
Best Wines $20 and Under
Sauvignon Blanc
2004 Honig Winery Napa Valley ($15) Honig is one of Napa Valley‘s best-kept secrets-in fact, its flagship Sauvignon Blanc is a wine youÕre more likely to find on local Napa tables than read about in the national press (until now). Kristin Belair makes this classic Sauvignon in a bright, dry, zingy Loire Valley style, showcasing its fresh notes of citrus and fruit.
Chardonnay
2002 Mount Eden Wolff Vineyard ($17) Jeffrey Patterson descended from his winery‘s aerie 2,000 feet above Silicon Valley to source the grapes for this Edna Valley Chardonnay. His sure touch with the region‘s ultraripe grapes (thanks to a long growing season) has yielded this wonderfully creamy, buttery wine with notes of toasted oak.
Viognier
2004 Miner Family Simpson Vineyard ($20) Naysayers would never have believed that California‘s hot Central Valley could produce a racy, vibrant white wine like this, but the Miners have proof in the bottle. Gary Brookman ferments Simpson Vineyard grapes exclusively in stainless steel to capture all their lively acidity and delicious peach-and-honeysuckle flavor.
Merlot
2003 Nelms Road ($19) This is a "second" wine made by Rick Small at his Walla Walla-based Woodward Canyon Winery-one of the top red producers in Washington State. A smooth-drinking wine with juicy, black cherry fruit and notes of vanilla, it‘s made from lots-mostly younger vines-that didn‘t make it into his flagship Bordeaux-style red, according to Small.
Cabernet Sauvignon
2003 Joel Gott Blend No. 815 ($17) Fifth-generation farmer Joel Gott may be the hardest-working man in Napa: He owns burger stands and a specialty food market, and he makes wine. Though famed for his Zinfandel, Gott has created this plummy Cab (named for his daughter‘s birth date) from fruit sourced around the state.
Zinfandel
2003 Seghesio Family Vineyards Sonoma ($18) The Seghesios have been growing Zinfandel since 1895, so they‘ve had plenty of experience with tricky years like 2003, with its heat and cold streaks and multiple lightning strikes. By combining fruit from several vineyard sites and reducing yields, they managed to produce this lovely raspberry and spice-rich wine.
Syrah
2003 Qupé Central Coast ($16) Bob Lindquist‘s big-flavored Central Coast bottling may have reached a new quality level in 2003. Lindquist‘s ability to source grapes from some of Santa Barbara‘s most famous vineyards along with his decades of hands-on experience have culminated in this memorably peppery wine with notes of wild berries and violets.
Pinot Noir
2003 Castle Rock Winery Mendocino County ($11) Despite California Pinot Noir‘s skyrocketing popularity (and cost), Castle Rock owner Gregory Popovich was somehow able to buy high-quality, reasonably priced Pinot grapes from the cool vineyards of Mendocino. He gave them a deft touch of French-oak aging to produce this refined wine.
Best Wines Over $20
Sauvignon Blanc
2003 Rudd Vineyards ($28) In 2002, Dean & DeLuca chairman and prominent Napa Valley vintner Leslie Rudd hired Charles Thomas (Mondavi‘s former head winemaker) to create outstanding bottlings such as this. A rich and well-balanced Sauvignon Blanc, it‘s a largely barrel-fermented wine inflected with notes of tropical fruit and herbs.
Chardonnay
2002 Ramey Wine Cellars Hyde Vineyard-Carneros ($56) David Ramey has worked at many top wineries (Dominus and Rudd, to name just two), but since 1996 he has run his own outfit in Sonoma. Ramey made this dense, flowery Chardonnay with grapes from the famed Hyde Vineyard and aged it a full 21 months in French oak. It emerged sensationally complex.
Viognier
2003 Alban Vineyards Estate ($32) This winery, founded by John Alban in 1986, was the first in California entirely dedicated to Rhône varieties, red (Syrah, Grenache) and white (Viognier). He is the state‘s acknowledged master of the fickle Viognier grape. This Estate Viognier is an unctuous, exotically perfumed, full-throttle white.
Merlot
2002 Shafer Vineyard ($41) Shafer winemaker Elias Fernandez scored the first-ever double victory in this year‘s Awards for both his Hillside Cabernet and this powerful, inky Merlot. The latter manages to showcase both the fruit intensity of Napa‘s 2002 vintage and the subtle, aromatic elegance that makes the Merlot grape so highly prized.
Cabernet Sauvignon
2001 Shafer Hillside Vineyard ($175) This monumental, deeply extracted wine comes from the original vineyards John Shafer purchased in the Stags Leap District back in the 1970s. A superb vintage like 2001 resulted in this plush, power-packed Cab framed by the Stags Leap DistrictÕs trademark lush, velvety tannins.
Zinfandel
2003 Biale Black Chicken ($35) The Black Chicken Vineyard, located in a quiet residential neighborhood in the city of Napa, is the source of this juicy, supple, raspberry-inflected Zinfandel. Winemaker Al Perry ferments it in traditional open-top vats but ages it in very modern French barriques for a spectacular mix of old and new techniques.
Syrah
2002 Lewis Cellars ($60) Former Indy 500 driver Randy Lewis founded his acclaimed boutique winery back in 1992, and it is still a family-run enterprise, overseen by Lewis, his wife, Debbie, and stepson Dennis. They produce this spicy, substantial and sought-after Syrah from a vineyard 1,500 feet up on Napa‘s famed Pritchard Hill.
Pinot Noir
2002 Soter Vineyards Beacon Hill Oregon winemaker Tony Soter turns out cellar-worthy Pinots like the firm-bodied Beacon Hill, which is just now beginning to unwind. Soter‘s rigorous pruning practices makes the superb Beacon Hill Vineyard a particularly low-yielding site, producing only two tons of intensely flavored grapes per acre.