About the "Top 100" Lists
About Wine Enthusiast's Top 100 Cellar Selections:
According to the magazine, "Wine collecting isn’t all about investing in the latest Bordeaux futures or snagging highly allocated cult Napa Cabs. It isn’t even solely relegated to those who have the space and capital for temperature-controlled home storage complete with floor-to-ceiling racking. Sure, those things can be part of wine collecting. But at its base level, the act of storing wine for later enjoyment might be something that you already do...Each year, we release the Top 100 Cellar Selections list, a ranking of the best wines tasted throughout the year that exhibit pedigree, structure and staying power—the hallmarks of ageworthy wines. All these bottles will stand the test of time, of course to varying degrees depending on region, variety, vintage and style, yet look to the reviews from our expert tasting panel for insight on when best to pop the cork."
You might expect to find lots of premium Bordeaux and Burgundy, Barolo and Napa Cabs on this list, and you will, but there are plenty of other - and even affordable - examples of excellent age-worthy wines!
About Wine Spectator's Top 100 list:
Each year since 1988, Wine Spectator has released its Top 100 list, where the editors select the most exciting wines from the thousands reviewed during the course of the year. These wines are a diverse group—ranging from emerging labels and regions to traditional estates exploring new directions—and all generate the excitement we call the “X-factor.”
Their selection also prioritizes quality (based on score), value (based on price) and availability (based on the number of cases either made or imported into the United States). These criteria are applied to the wines that rated outstanding (90 points or higher on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale) each year to determine the Top 100.