<< Back to Commendations Year In Review - 2003 What a year we have been through. We began with wine prices beginning to crack (good) and fears that wineries were going to go out of business (bad).We have ended the year with a few wine prices coming down and with wineries adjusting their blends to put better wine in less expensive bottles (good), but we have seen wineries like DeLoach simply die on the vine and get sold at bankruptcy auction (sad). There are a handful of other wineries in the midst of reorganization (not so good) and probably others hoping that the other shoe does not fall on them (wishful). We started the year focused on the 1999 vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon (good) and the 2001 vintage of Zinfandel (good).We have ended the year focused on 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon (better than its reputation) and on 2001 Zinfandel (still good). Along the way, Pinot Noir continues to impress as the most improved varietal around (exciting), and both Viognier and Pinot Gris impress as losing qualitative headway as winery after winery rushes into the seeming fertile ground of the new darling varieties (to be expected). There are those who argue that Syrah will also hit the figurative wall as more and more tonnage comes into the wineries from locations that may have been chosen with too much optimism (seen before). It was easy to forget in heady times like the mid-90s that agriculture is a cyclical business subject to the same "boom and bust" cycles of other commodities. If the swings are not incredibly dramatic, they are certainly observable, and one only need look at the combination of vintage and marketplace that has brought about a drop in the list price of a wine like Beaulieu's Private Reserve as well as a reduction in the quantity produced. For some company's that kind of revenue loss could be incredibly harmful to its long-range prospects, but, Beaulieu, like Beringer, Franciscan, Domaine Chandon, Fetzer and so many others, is part of a large conglomerate, and the day-to-day fluctuations its sales and revenues is not likely to see it encountering long-term financial difficulties. Quality winemaking, however, has not kept the wolf from the door for some wineries in this year. Favorites of ours like Fife and Liparita are in bankruptcy reorganization, and one hopes that their overextended situations do not result in the same disappointing fate that has befallen DeLoach, a family-owned winery whose Zinfandels and Chardonnays have achieved great success in these pages. While there is historical precedent for these kinds of unhappy endings, it is in the bad times (comparatively, since most wineries are still functioning even if their profits are down) we see the widest swings in fortune. Grape varieties have cycles of boom and bust as well, and this past year has seen the continuing expansion of Syrah and Pinot Gris production to go along with the overall surplus that is being experienced not just in California but in vineyards around the world. Syrah, it is now said, will see a gradual slippage in overall quality as more and more production comes on stream. We see the beginnings of that inevitable cycle (does anyone remember what happened to Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1970s when thousands of acres were planted in all the wrong places?), but just as Cabernet was eventually settled in the right places and pulled out of vineyards that produced everything from asparagus juice (think the cooler areas of Monterey County) to cooked, mawkish wines from the hottest parts of the Central Valley, so too will Syrah (and Merlot for that matter) begin to experience a Darwinian thinning out of its population.The good sites will prosper, and the lesser sites will produce masses of boring, ordinary wine or will get removed from the chase altogether. We see 2003 as a year of consolidation and retrenchment in the industry. The focus on quality winemaking has not changed, but the concern for sound fiscal management has. As we end the year, there are signs of improvement in the marketplace yet the coming year is not going to free winemakers to go back to the go-go days in which they could do anything they wanted in wine styles, vineyard choice and frontline pricing and get away with it.The wineries will be helped by a good vintage for reds in 2001 and by a slight reduction in vineyard yields in the harvest just completed. As for your trusty editors at Connoisseurs' Guide, we will continue to help you find the best that California has to offer, and we will do so now in both print and electronic formats. We have avoided the boom and bust cycle of the wine business by not investing in new vineyards, but, rather by investing in more wine to taste.Our Annual Awards Banquet, such as it is, follows. WINE OF THE YEAR AWARD-Perhaps it is just the changing of the vintages, but several of our favorite wines this year are Chardonnays. In this issue alone, you will find two of the best, and leading contenders for this award, and then there is the Peter Michael brace reviewed in October. And while there are challengers in the other varieties such as Ojai's brilliant Syrah from the Roll Ranch and Talley's always incredible Rosemary's Vineyard Pinot Noir, our choice for the Wine of The Year is the Paul Hobbs Cuvee Augustina Chardonnay 2001, a deep, unctuous version of the grape that simply delights the senses from first to last. NICE SURPRISE OF THE YEAR AWARD-It is too often said that Chardonnay is overripe, overoaked and overweight. The responses by winemakers to those claims are often positive but not always successful. For example, a few producers have gone out of their ways to make unoaked Chardonnay, and, by our lights, they have generally produced nothing of interest. At least until now. With a tip of the hat to Dan Lee, and a nicer guy you would not be likely to meet, we salute his ** Morgan Metallico Chardonnay 2002 for its incredible job of proving that not all Chardonnays need to be writ in large letters or aged in new French oak barrels. WINERY OF THE YEAR AWARD-If this were the movies, we could write "Round up the usual subjects" because the contenders include folks like two-time winner, Duckhorn, and last year's winner, Rosenblum, not to mention outstanding performances by Lewis, Talley and Hobbs. But not surprisingly, in a year that has seen Chardonnay come out of its shell, our Winery of The Year is Ramey Wine Cellars for its many superb Chardonnays and its spectacular Jericho Canyon Napa Valley Red Wine. BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD-In a year in which the new wine books have not exactly thrilled us comes an insider's book of maps from the Chicago Wine School.Writer Patrick Fegan is one of the leading teachers about wine, and the maps he has developed for his own classes hold no candle to the beautiful renditions that one finds in the atlases of Hugh Johnson and Oz Clark.Rather, these maps are teaching tools and they allow the person wanting an unpretty but accurate view of appellation locations to get that view in an unfettered form. We make great use of the Fegan maps and point out that they are not road maps or coffee table maps but working maps intended for serious students of wine geography.These are maps for wine geeks, and that must be why we like them. (CWS, 312-266-9463 or www.wineschool.com and click on "new wine book"). OUTSTANDING QUALITY TO PRICE RATIO AWARDS In the year past, the brand that has more often than any other received our GOOD VALUE notation is the Francis Coppola Diamond Series. Both the 2001 Zinfandel and the 2001 Pinot Noir rated at * yet are priced to be easy on the pocketbook at about $15. Admittedly, that feat is more easily accomplished with Zin than Pinot, but it is almost impossible with Pinot and Coppola has done it.Special Mention must be made of two long-running GOOD VALUES, both Zinfandel.The Ravenswood Vintners Blend and the Rosenblum Vintners Cuvee have earned their spurs in more years than not and can often be found for less than $10. YEAR IN REVIEW continues with your faithful editors' selections for the best wines we have tasted this year. Chardonnay returns to claim its fair share of spots, and Pinot Noir keeps up its drumbeat of seductive offerings. Cabernet Sauvignon is somewhat less successful, primarily because the 2000 vintage has produced so few *** wines. There are a fair number of wineries that have stayed on the list, and the admirable wines from newcomer (to this list) David Ramey show again why his Ramey Wine Cellars is our Winery Of The Year. Wines in the "Top Ten" category are all *** winners, while "Best Of The Rest" is chosen from any other wines but are all ** awardees this time around. STEPHEN ELIOT -- The Top Ten Wines of 2003 Merry Edwards Pinot Noir Windsor Gardens 2000 Paul Hobbs Chardonnay Cuvee Augustina 2001 IO Syrah Ryan Road 2001 Lewis Chardonnay Barcaglia Lane 2001 Ojai Syrah Roll Ranch 2000 Ramey Cabernet Sauvignon Jericho Canyon 2001 Ramey Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard 2000 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Montebello 2000 Talley Pinot Noir Rosemary's Vineyard 2000 Von Strasser Zinfandel Monhoff Vineyard 2000 Best Of The Rest Duckhorn Cabernet Sauvignon Monitor Ledge Vineyard 2000 Rosenblum Zinfandel Rockpile Road Vineyard 2001 Morgan Chardonnay Metallico 2002 Ravenswood Zinfandel Old Hill Ranch 2001 JC Cellars Syrah Rockpile Vineyard 2001 CHARLES OLKEN -- The Top Ten Wines of 2003 Paul Hobbs Chardonnay Cuvee Augustina 2001 Peter Michael Chardonnay Belle Cote 2001 Ojai Syrah Roll Ranch 2000 Pride Mountain Viognier 2001 Ramey Cabernet Sauvignon Jericho Canyon 2001 Ramey Chardonnay Hudson Vineyard 2001 Rosenblum Zinfandel Maggie's Reserve 2001 J. Schram Sparkling Wine 1997 Siduri Pinot Noir Garys' Vineyard 2001 Talley Pinot Noir Rosemary's Vineyard 2000 Best Of The Rest Delectus Merlot Stanton Vineyard 2000 Domaine De La Terre Rouge Ascent" Syrah 2000 Duckhorn Cabernet Sauvignon Monitor Ledge Vineyard 2000 Gary Farrell Chardonnay Rochioli-Allen 2001 JC Cellars Syrah Rockpile Vineyard 2001