Wine Spectator November 30, 2020

Visit WineSpectator.com/113020 to find links to all of the following resources. FREE RESOURCES FOR ALL WINESPECTATOR.COM READERS TOP 100 COUNTDOWN On Dec. 7, we begin unveiling the Top 10 wines of 2020—complete with videos, tasting notes and more—culminating with the Wine of the Year on Dec. 11 and the complete Top 100 list on Dec. 14. Don’t miss the year’s most exciting wines! STRAIGHT TALK WITH WINE SPECTATOR is an Instagram Live series featuring conversations with industry newsmakers. Recent editions have featured Chilean wine star Aurelio Montes, former NFL star and Intercept Wines founder Charles Woodson, California winemakers Cathy Corison and Andy Erickson, wine book author Charles Springfield, and chefs Jose Andres, Emeril Lagasse and Charlie Palmer. (All episodes are archived on our IGTV channel for viewing anytime.) Tune in to Straight Talk…

There’s no disputing that 2020 has been a year of turmoil. The global pandemic; the country’s lock-down and economic recession; the nationwide demonstrations; the West Coast wildfires. At Wine Spectator, we count ourselves among the fortunate. None of our team fell seriously ill; we are working remotely with efficiency and commitment; our business has sur-vived, and in some respects—our digital audience, for example—it has even flourished. However, we have friends and colleagues in the wine business around the world who have suffered devastating losses. The wild-fires in Northern California wine country hit very close to home. Our offices in Napa Valley had first been shuttered during the lockdown, then were forced to close again by the oppressive smoke from the recent fires. Our staff there stuck it out, however, and has done an…

Tales From the Cellar I laughed out loud, sadly, when I read in “This Issue” (Editor’s Note) in your Sept. 30 edition about how many of us have turned to our home wine cellars during the pandemic. We typically store around 350 bottles in our modest cellar, and during Covid, while we are no longer entertaining friends at home, my wife and I decided to start consuming some of the oldest wines in our wide-ranging collection. While our storage conditions are ac-ceptable, some wines were well past their “best before” date. Among the casualties: a 1990 [Veuve Clicquot] La Grande Dame Champagne; a 2000 Rodney Strong Alexander Valley Cab; and a 2004 Pugnitello San Felice. So sad. Brian Varner Picton, Ontario Shared Sentiments I enjoyed and certainly concur with what Thomas Matthews wrote about missing the…

Now In Our IGTV Archives OCT. 20 Andy Erikson, Napa Cabernet winemaker and co-owner of Favia winery OCT. 13 Piero Antinori, president of Italy’s Marchesi Antinori OCT. 8 Philippe Pascal, owner of Burgundy winery Cellier aux Moines OCT. 6 Rick Tigner, president and CEO of Jackson Family Wines OCT. 1 Charles Springfield, sommelier, educator and author of Maneuvering Rosé Wine With Style SEPT. 22 Rajat Parr, somm, author and partner at California’s Domaine de la Côte and Sandhi and Oregon’s Evening Land SEPT. 15 Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of historic Tuscan wine giant Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi SEPT. 10 Cathy Corison, owner of Napa’s Corison Winery and an alum of Chappellet, Rombauer and Staglin WATCH ON INSTAGRAM Scan the QR code to start watching on our IGTV channel, or visit instagram.com/wine_spectator/channel…

BLUDORN, HOUSTON Aaron Bludorn hadn’t made much headway preparing to open his first restaurant when COVID-19 shutdowns began in March. While fear was his first reaction, his next was, how do we do it? He set out to make sure the restaurant would be safe for diners and staff and be a luxurious experience for guests to leave their stress at home. At the beginning of August there was a spike in cases and he had to decide whether to pull the trigger and still open. His general manager and chef de cuisine had already moved down from New York and Chicago, furloughed from their previous jobs. His wine team, Jack Mason and Molly Austad, were also recently furloughed. “They all committed to us,” Bludorn says. He believes he made the right decision. Even…

Anyone suffering from pandemic pounds? Recent shutdowns have reduced physical activity for many, and holiday season goodies are approaching. But for those who worry that a glass of wine with dinner can’t be on the diet plan, researchers in the U.K. have published a study analyzing the relationship between obesity and alcohol that’s encouraging to moderate wine drinkers. Ac-cording to the data, people who drink moderately have lower body mass in-dexes (BMI) than people who avoid alcohol. And the type of alcohol con-sumed played a key role. Published this past summer in the International Journal of Envi-ronmental Research and Public Health, the study partnered researchers from Australia and the U.K; they analyzed data amassed over four years from more than 280,000 par-ticipants as part of the U.K. Biobank Resource. Participants’ ages…