Wine Spectator November 30, 2016

Visit www.winespectator.com/113016 to find links to all of the following resources. Free resources for all our WineSpectator.com readers: TOP 100 COUNTDOWN On Nov. 28, we begin unveiling the Top 10 wines of 2016—with videos, tasting notes and more— culminating with the Wine of the Year on Dec. 2 and the complete Top 100 list on Dec. 5. Don’t miss the year’s most exciting wines! Visit www.winespectator.com/top100. NEW YORK WINE EXPERIENCE Relive your favorite moments or catch up on what you missed at this year’s great lineup of tastings and seminars. Our full coverage of the event, held Oct. 20–22, brings the world’s best winemakers and chefs to you with photos, articles and videos. BREAKING NEWS To find out what wine lovers are talking about, head to www.winespectator.com/news. From the latest on fires in wine…

We have watched with interest over the years as children have succeeded their parents in the wine business. It’s not always an easy— or a successful—transition. Family dynamics, business demands and changing markets all present hurdles that must be met and overcome. In a remarkable achievement, for the first time, three generations of one family have all appeared on the cover of Wine Spectator: the Wagners of Napa Valley’s Caymus Vineyards. Patriarch Charlie Wagner was first, in our Feb. 15, 1987, issue. Charlie later appeared with his son, Chuck, on the cover our Sept. 30, 1993, issue. This issue spotlights Chuck’s son Joe Wagner. (Robert Mondavi holds the record for most Wine Spectator covers, at six.) Charlie and Chuck founded Caymus in 1972 and built it into a Cabernet powerhouse, twice earning Wine…

More Shelf Talk The two letters below are a continuation of feedback we received in response to Marvin R. Shanken’s challenge to wine retailers to ensure that shelf-talkers present accurate and credible information (Editor’s Letter, Sept. 30). The bulk of responses were published in the Feedback page of the Oct. 15 issue. Misleading shelf-talkers have long been a frustration of mine at our local wine superstore. I saw an egregious example of this [recently] at our local supermarket (HEB) in Houston. The issue was a talker for Robert Mondavi Oakville Cabernet: The talker showed that Wine Spectator had rated the 2012 vintage (the one on the shelf) at 95. The talker showed “Highly Rated,” [which] immediately got my interest. Lucky for me, I have the Wine Spectator app on my iPhone, so I…

In a surprising turn for a onetime rising star in the wine industry, Charles Banks walked into a federal courthouse in San Antonio wearing handcuffs on Sept. 9 after surrendering to authorities. Two days earlier, a federal grand jury had indicted the financial advisor and founder of Terroir Capital—which owns or manages more than a dozen wineries in California, New Zealand, South Africa and Burgundy—on two counts of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The case stems from allegations made by former NBA star Tim Duncan, a longtime Banks client, who says he was duped out of millions of dollars in investments Banks made on his behalf. Banks first met Duncan in 1998 while working as a financial advisor for pro athletes at…

Eleven years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws preventing wineries from shipping directly to consumers, wine retailers are mounting their own challenge. Lawyers filed a complaint in a Chicago federal court on Sept. 1, arguing that an Illinois prohibition on retailer-to-consumer direct wine shipping is unconstitutional. The same firm is pursuing a similar complaint in Missouri. The Illinois suit, Lebamoff Enterprises, Inc. et al v. Rauner et al, states that Irwin Berkley, a Chicago-area resident, wants to buy “wines that are sold out in Illinois but are still available from retail stores in other states, older vintage wines and limited-production allocated wines” and have them shipped to his home from Cap n’ Cork, a chain of Indiana stores owned by fellow plaintiff Lebamoff Enterprises, but cannot. “We think that the…

In order to meet the challenges of the coming decade, Wine Spectator is pleased to announce two major promotions. Kim Marcus, formerly managing editor of Wine Spectator at the New York headquarters, has been named bureau chief in our Napa office, where he will join senior editor James Laube and the entire West Coast team. Cordelia Winton will succeed Marcus as the magazine’s managing editor in New York. Both journalists have been with Wine Spectator for many years. “We are expanding our coverage of California wine. Marcus is perfectly qualified for the task,” said editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken. Marcus joined Wine Spectator in 1988 as a news reporter in the San Francisco office; he was previously editor of the St. Helena Star. He moved to New York in 1993 and became…