Wine Spectator has named the Paul Hobbs Cabernet Sauvignon Coombsville 2023 its Wine of the Year for 2026, the No. 1 spot on the magazine's annual Top 100. The magazine lists the wine at 95 points and a price of $120, with 8,730 cases made, which works out to roughly 105,000 bottles. The rest of the Top 10 is already public, and the full Top 100 is scheduled to go up on Monday, November 16.

The wine at No. 1

Coombsville is a federally recognized American Viticultural Area, or AVA, inside Napa Valley. An AVA is a grape-growing region whose boundaries are set by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and a label that names one tells you where most of the grapes were grown. The Paul Hobbs bottling is a Cabernet Sauvignon from that one district, from the 2023 vintage.

The magazine's write-up frames the pick as a sign of where Napa Cabernet is heading: smaller single-vineyard bottlings, a renewed focus on freshness and on farming, and a step back from the very heavy, high-priced style that drew critics in the 2000s. It also says the wine met the criteria it applies to its top pick, pointing to the score, the size of the production and the price.

The production figure is the part that matters most to a buyer. A Wine of the Year is usually chosen in part because people can actually find it, and 8,730 cases is a large run for a Napa Cabernet at this level. That does not guarantee a bottle on every shelf. Stock tends to move quickly after a No. 1 announcement, and shelf prices vary by state and by store.

The rest of the Top 10

As published on the magazine's Top 10 pages, with each wine's score and listed price:

  • No. 1: Paul Hobbs Cabernet Sauvignon Coombsville 2023 (Napa Valley), 95 points, $120
  • No. 2: Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Rabajà Riserva 2021 (Piedmont), 98 points, $91
  • No. 3: Penfolds Cabernet-Shiraz South Australia Bin 389 2024, 95 points, $80
  • No. 4: Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino 2021 (Tuscany), 95 points, $54
  • No. 5: Château St.-Pierre St.-Julien 2023 (Bordeaux), 95 points, $50
  • No. 6: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District Fay 2023 (Napa Valley), 95 points, $200
  • No. 7: Law Sagacious Adelaida District 2023 (Paso Robles), 96 points, $90
  • No. 8: Château Carbonnieux Pessac-Léognan White 2023 (Bordeaux), 95 points, $55
  • No. 9: Bodegas y Viñedos Alion Ribera del Duero 2022 (Spain), 95 points, $200
  • No. 10: Melville Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills 2024 (California), 94 points, $46

Two things stand out in that list for a reader shopping this season. Red wine holds nine of the ten places; the one white is the Carbonnieux from Pessac-Léognan, a Bordeaux appellation known for whites made mostly from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. And four of the ten carry a listed price of $55 or less: the Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir at $46, the St.-Julien at $50, the Brunello at $54 and the white Bordeaux at $55.

How to read the prices

The prices above are the ones the magazine lists for each wine, not a quote from any shop. Imported wines are priced after shipping, importer and distributor margins, and those differ from state to state. Use the listed price as a guide and expect to see a range. The production and import figures on each Top 10 page (cases made for domestic wines, cases imported for the rest) are the quickest way to judge how hard a bottle will be to find: the Barbaresco Riserva, for example, lists 900 cases imported, while the Brunello lists 7,500.

What happens next

The full Top 100 list is due on Wine Spectator's Top 100 site on November 16, and the magazine says its profiles of all 100 wines run in its December 31 issue, on newsstands December 2. If one of the Top 10 is on your holiday list, ask your local shop now whether it has the vintage named above, since the list is for that vintage only and a different year on the shelf is a different wine.

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