The list that wine buffs around the world expect with anticipation every year is out: Wine Spectator’s Top 100, which “honors successful wineries, regions and vintages around the world,” based on quality, value, availability and excitement.
And, as is always the case, Italy stars with 20 wines, making it the second country with the most wines in the list, after the U.S. with 27 entries. The Italian wine grabbing the top spot, 4th overall (the podium is all American), is the Tuscan Brunello di Montalcino 2010 from Tenuta Il Poggione. Among the top ten is also the Veneto wine Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2008 produced by Masi (8th).
Wine Spectator editors seemed to have a thing for Brunello this year, with four more of those in the list: Brunello di Montalcino 2010 La Serena (13th), Brunello di Montalcino 2010 Montosoli Altesino (18th), Brunello di Montalcino 2010 Pertimali Livio Sassetti (27th), and Brunello di Montalcino 2010 Collosorbo (43rd).
In general, the appreciation for Tuscan wines is confirmed by the presence of Bolgheri, Chianti Classico, and Nobile di Montepulciano; the ranking also includes wines from Piedmont, Sicily, Friuli, Puglia and, surprisingly perhaps, Basilicata.
If you want to get your hands on any of the Italian wines on the list, you’d better hurry up: Wine-Searcher, the web search engine dedicated to wine, reports that “interest in the wines listed tends to skyrocket and search results on Wine-Searcher go through the roof once the list is made public.”
For the full Wine Spectator 'Top 100' 2015 list, click here.
And if you want to learn more about Italian wines, visit our dedicated section.
