Wine Spectator August 31, 2018

Visit WineSpectator.com/083118 to find links to all of the following resources. FREE RESOURCES FOR ALL OUR WINESPECTATOR.COM READERS: THE WORLD’S BEST WINE LISTS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Awards app helps you find restaurants with the world’s leading wine lists. Every dining destination in this app—covering all 50 U.S. states and 75+ countries—has earned a Wine Spectator award for its dedication to wine. The app allows you to search through more than 3,700 award winners to find the ultimate wine experience. RESTAURANTS.WINESPECTATOR.COM Have you visited our Restaurant Awards site? Our free online Restaurant Search has been upgraded so you can easily find the 2018 award winners, with maps. Or look for the perfect dining spot in any location by wine strengths, cuisine type, pricing and more. Plus, find all our great dining…

Since 1981, Wine Spectator has been giving awards to restaurants with excellent wine programs. We began with 13 restaurants; today, our Dining Guide lists 3,759 restaurants in all 50 states and more than 75 countries around the world. The Grand Award, our highest honor, is reserved for the most exceptional establishments. This year, seven restaurants earned the Grand Award for the first time. All together, 91 restaurants are members of this exclusive club. (A complete list, organized by state and country, appears on page 11.) It is not easy to earn a Grand Award. Most of the current winners have been in our program for many years, building their cellars, before reaching the pinnacle. We inspect every candidate for the Grand Award to ensure that the entire dining experience is worthy of…

UNITED STATES CALIFORNIA Acquerello Grand Award since 2012 Addison Grand Award since 2009 Capo Grand Award since 2015 The French Laundry Grand Award since 2007 La Toque Grand Award since 2014 Madera Grand Award since 2018 Murray Circle Grand Award since 2016 Patina Grand Award since 1994 Plumed Horse Grand Award since 2015 Restaurant Gary Danko Grand Award since 2001 The Restaurant at Meadowood Grand Award since 2016 Restaurant 301 at the Hotel Carter Grand Award since 1998 Saison Grand Award since 2014 Sierra Mar Grand Award since 2012 Spago Beverly Hills Grand Award since 2010 Spruce Grand Award since 2015 The Stonehouse Grand Award since 2014 Studio Grand Award since 2014 The Village Pub Grand Award since 2013 Wally’s Beverly Hills Grand Award since 2017 COLORADO Barolo Grill Grand Award since 2018 Element 47 Grand Award since 1997 Flagstaff House Restaurant Grand Award since 1983 FLORIDA Bern’s Steak House Grand Award since 1981 Bleu Provence Grand Award since 2015 HMF Grand Award since 1981 Marcello’s La Sirena Grand Award since 2015 LOUISIANA Commander’s Palace Grand Award since 2012 Emeril’s New Orleans Grand Award since 1999 MASSACHUSETTS Grill 23 & Bar Grand Award since 2017 Topper’s at the…

Memo on Mexico I am an avid reader of your magazine. I am enthusiastic about Spanish wines (Rioja and Ribera del Duero), French (Bordeaux and Champagne), Napa and Washington wines. But I would like to know your opinion about Mexican wines, because they are not mentioned in your magazine or in your reviews. Mario Lopez Osorio Los Mochis, Mexico Executive editor Thomas Matthews replies: Thanks for writing to Wine Spectator, and for being an avid reader. Our policy is to focus our resources on reviewing wines that are accessible to our readers, who are mostly based in the U.S. At this point, very few wines from Mexico are exported to the U.S. and even fewer are widely distributed here. As a result, we have not reviewed many Mexican wines in the past few years. However,…

Hail cut a path of destruction through the Bordeaux region on May 26, just days after two small storms struck the Médoc on May 21. The overall damage is substantial: 17,544 acres of vines were affected, and more than 8,400 acres suffered a crippling 80 percent damage, according to the CIVB, Bordeaux’s wine trade group. “The leaves were torn off, the [flower buds] torn off and the wood suffered a major impact, which means the sap won’t circulate well through the vine this year,” said Roman Tourdias, a viticulture consultant and director of the Chamber of Agriculture’s Médoc bureau. The first two storms were relatively small, but in the Médoc, 2,965 acres of vines were damaged, with 988 acres enduring 80 percent damage. “It’s impossible to say precisely the volume of loss,…

It’s not every day that an $11 million, 15,000-square-foot temple to wine-industry knowledge opens its doors. More than 600 guests, including industry leaders, gathered in late May for the grand opening of the Wine Spectator Learning Center at Sonoma State University. The facility is the new heart of the university’s Wine Business Institute, a one-of-a-kind program working to train tomorrow’s wine leaders, under the auspices of the School of Business and Economics. “Get crackin’,” was Wine Spectator editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken’s advice to the students in the crowd. The Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation anchored the financing of the new building, contributing $3 million. Shanken called the building a symbol of the past 40 years of hard work and journalism at Wine Spectator. Guests enjoyed wine and food and were encouraged…