Wine Spectator April 30, 2018

Visit www.winespectator.com/043018 to find links to all of the following resources. FREE RESOURCES FOR ALL OUR WINESPECTATOR.COM READERS: SPRING ENTERTAINING Celebrate the change of seasons with fresh new recipes from some of the country’s best chefs. Whether you’re celebrating Passover, Easter, a birthday or an anniversary, we’ll make it easy, with meals just right for milder weather and our editors’ picks of highly rated wines. PRIVATE GUIDE TO DINING Our twice-monthly, free email newsletter spotlights the best restaurants for wine lovers, from bucket-list destinations to perfect pizza places. Get great wine picks for dining out, keep on top of drinks trends, learn about new restaurant openings and more. Sign up! WINE SPECTATOR VIDEO Watch all our great wine tips, winemaker interviews and tastings on your desktop, laptop, tab-let or phone. Tune in each week…

In the 1940s, Italian aristocrat Mario Incisa della Rocchetta decided to escape the development closing in on his home near Rome in favor of a more bucolic life. He and his wife settled on land inherited from her family, on an obscure stretch of the Tuscan coast called Bolgheri. Living in the more remote area, Incisa della Rocchetta missed the fine Bordeaux wines he had grown to enjoy, so he planted Cabernet Franc to make wine to drink at home with family and friends. Today, the descendant of that wine, Sassicaia, is a global benchmark. From a historical perspective, it is common to think of Italy in terms of its glorious past—the monuments of Greece and Rome, the Renaissance. But Italians have never trapped themselves in tradition, especially when it comes…

Wine to the People I live in a large retirement community in Highlands Ranch, Colo. I write a food and wine article for our monthly Gazette, as well as contribute to a wine and food program on our community TV station. As such I am always on the lookout for good wines that are afford-able. My rule of thumb is “88 points and above at afford-able prices ($30 or less).” When your article “Our Ultimate Guide to Value” (Jan. 31 – Feb. 28) came out it was a godsend. I always go through Wine Spectator before heading to the liquor store and make a list of wines to look for. I also have wine tastings in our apartment and occasionally teach a class on wine. Merlin Neff Highlands Ranch, Colo. Crossing the Border It’s time…

WINE FOOD PEOPLE COLLECTING Wine lovers have access to more and better wines than ever before. Local selections have broadened, and wines carried by in-state distributors can be purchased online and delivered straight to our doorsteps by local retailers and national or regional companies like Wine.com and Total Wine. In most states, consumers can have wine shipped to them directly from wineries all over the United States. But what happens when no one in-state carries that special bottle of Burgundy we’re looking for? Buying it from out of state isn’t as easy as it used to be. In the past two years, some states have passed stricter retailer direct-to-consumer shipping laws, while others have tightened enforcement. That has retailers angry and consumers feeling caught in the middle of a fight. In 2015, New York…

A study analyzing the impact of last year’s wine-country wildfires by Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute shows that the blazes’ long-term effects on the wine industry should not be as bad as feared, though the toll on many area residents has been severe. The fires burned across seven counties in Northern California in October, killing 44 people and burning close to 9,000 structures. Rebuilding will take years, and the loss of homes has exacerbated an existing housing shortage. For recovery to take hold, the region will need local businesses to remain strong. The SSU group surveyed more than 200 vineyard and winery stakeholders in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Lake and Mendocino counties and found that most of the damage to wineries was marginal. According to the findings, 99.8 percent of North Coast…

Just two weeks after the flames of the Thomas wildfire subsided, heavy rain fell on the scorched hillsides above the Santa Barbara community of Montecito, Calif., sending a river of mud, trees, rocks and debris cascading down. The mudslides, which began on Jan. 9, killed at least 21 people, with two others missing, and destroyed dozens of homes. San Ysidro Ranch, a historic resort and the home of Wine Spectator Grand Award–winning Stone-house restaurant, sustained heavy damage. A gas line ruptured during the mudslides, starting a fire that destroyed half the resort’s buildings. Several other buildings were buried by mud and debris. Fortunately, the resort staff had been evacuated the day before. U.S. Highway 101 was closed for several weeks as state officials cleared it, cutting off Santa Barbara from its main…