Hope you’re still free for next Tuesday night, October 20, because you’re going to want to spend it attending the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting in San Francisco. Over the past year they have tasted over 13,000 bottlings at Wine & Spirits and these one hundred wineries came out on top, consistently delivering quality wines. This 12th annual event is produced with local chefs and artisanal purveyors serving small bites to complement tastes from the honored wineries between 6:30 and 8:30 pm at City View at METREON (135 4th Street, San Francisco). We consider this one of the best international-in-scope Food and Wine events around and if you move quickly you can still buy tickets (including a chance to get you in the door an hour earlier than most people).
Chapter 24 Vineyards
You can start the fun by pairing Champagne from Louis Roederer and Oysters from Hog Island Oyster Co., enjoy Rieslings from both Germany (Dr. Loosen) and New York (Hermann J. Weimer Vineyard), and then compare and contrast Pinot Noirs from Beaune (Bouchard Père & Fils), the Willamette Valley (Chapter 24 Vineyards), the Anderson Valley (Drew Family Cellars) and Santa Barbara County (Sandhi Wines). Then, re-acquaint yourself with Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons (Smith-Madrone and Diamond Creek Vineyards) and cap off your evening with Port from Quinta do Noval and wonderful confections from CocoTutti Confections. If that isn’t enough to fill your evening, you still have wines from another 90 wineries and food samples from at least another dozen food purveyors to choose from.
This is a sublime opportunity to sample wines from California, Oregon, Washington and New York at the same time as international wines from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Chile, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. General Admission tickets for the 2015 Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting are available online for $125 each for event entrance, a tasting glass and a one-year subscription to Wine & Spirits magazine. Or, you can splurge for a Collector’s Admission which provides you early entrance at 5:30 and the opportunity to taste special bottlings from ten different wineries. To buy your tickets, please go here (but be sure to do that by October 19).
Curious to learn more about the wineries that made the Wine & Spirits Top 100 this year in addition to the ones already mentioned? As an introduction, here are some of the other domestic winners this year:
Big Table Farm
- àMaurice Cellars (Walla Walla, Washington)
- Big Table Farm (Gaston, Oregon)
- Bergström Wines (Newberg, Oregon)
- Chanin Wine (Lompoc, California)
- Dry Creek Vineyard (Healdsburg, California)
- Joseph Phelps Vineyards (St. Helena, California)
- L’Ecole Nº 41 (Lowden, Washington)
- Nickel & Nickel (Oakville, California)
- Sheldrake Point Winery (Ovid, New York)
- Y Rousseau Wines (Napa, California)
And here are some of the other international honorees:
Cervaro della Sala from Marchesi Antinori
- Marchesi Antinori (Firenze, Italy)
- Viña Errázuriz (Aconcagua Valley, Chile)
- Gai’a Wines (Nemea, Greece)
- Krug Champagne (Reims, France)
- Luis Pato (Bairrada, Portugal)
- Bodegas Lustau (Cadiz, Spain)
- Moric (Burgenland, Austria)
- Bodega Noemìa (Patagonia, Argentina)
- Penfolds (Adelaide, Australia)
- Royal Tokaji (Tokaji, Hungary)
To see the complete list of wineries participating in the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting Event, or to purchase tickets by October 20, please go here.
In addition to wineries, Wine & Spirits also recognizes local “New & Notable Restaurants” and artisan purveyors each year. Therefore, in between sips of wine you will be able to sample offerings from establishments such as Atlas Social, Benjamin Cooper, Dynamo Donut and Coffee, Gaspar Brasserie, La Taberna, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company, Ritual Coffee Roasters, Sour Flour and more.
The Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting also marks the culmination of the annual Sommelier Scavenger Hunt, a competition focused on terroir. This year, five teams of three sommeliers each were assigned to a specific region in Australia: McLaren Vale/Adelaide Hills, Margaret River, Yarra Valley, Tasmania, Hunter Valley. The teams will participate in a taste-off on October 19 where each team will present its selection of six wines that are most expressive of the region’s terroir, culture and style. An audience of 40 leading members of the trade and the members of the other teams will taste the wines and select the winning team (who will be recognized at the Top 100 Tasting).
Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting
We have thoroughly enjoyed past Top 100 Tasting events and highly encourage you to attend yourself. Parking is easy (the 5th Street and Mission Street Garage is just across the street) or you can take public transportation (City View at Metreon is just one block south of the Powell Street Station BART exits at 4th and Market). So please, don’t miss your chance to taste highly acclaimed wines, meet the winemakers, feast on delicious bites, and enjoy an array of artisan specialties on October 20.
The Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting Event raises money and awareness for groups that work to protect water resources and a portion of ticket prices will be donated to San Francisco Baykeeper. Founded in 1989, their mission is to protect and enhance the water quality of the San Francisco Bay for the benefit of its ecosystems and human communities. They are one of twelve members of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, a non-profit organization that coordinates, supports and enhances the work of local California Waterkeepers in order to ensure Californians enjoy clean water and a healthy coast.
Founded in 1982, Wine & Spirits Magazine is published eight times a year and read by over 200,000 members of America’s wine community looking for information on wine regions and producers, the art and science of viticulture, restaurant and industry happenings, and food and wine pairing. Leading the wine magazine category, Wine & Spirits has won the James Beard Foundation award five times for excellence in wine writing.
