Wine: The year’s favorites

We taste thousands of wines throughout the year, and some leave “memorable” impressions, said Ray Isle in Food & Wine. For me, favorites ranged from a modest Riesling I had while “playing cards upstairs in a restaurant in Chinatown” to a revival of a Bordeaux that had been long forgotten.

2008 Hermann J. Wiemer Magdalena Vineyard Riesling ($36). New York’s Finger Lakes region is producing Rieslings “worthy of being poured” alongside the best of Germany and Austria. This bottle is “powerful and sleek, with white peach and citrus notes and a lingering finish.”

2001 Bodegas Marqués de Murrieta Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial ($55). This “classic” Rioja exemplifies everything that makes the Spanish wine so appealing—“silky cherry fruit,” an earthy note, and “enough age” to bring its flavor and structure into perfect balance.

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Château Palmer Historical XIXth C. Wine ($250). One of the greatest châteaux in Bordeaux produced this “fascinating” wine, a re-creation of a long-lost Bordeaux style.