Brands

Here is a small sampling of some of the larger wineries, which represent only a portion of the hundreds of wine brands available.

Yellow tail

Not only is the cuddly wallaby the No. 1 U.S. wine import, it is one of the top-selling wine brands in the U.S., period. In our past tests, these inexpensive Australian wines were rated Very Good or Excellent in 8 varietals (not including Riesling or shiraz). The Casella family, which runs Yellow tail, started making wine in Italy in 1820. About 127 years later, the family moved to Australia and 12 years after that (now we're talking 1969), they started their own winery in South Eastern Australia. Exports began in 2000. The name Yellow tail was chosen almost on a whim, when someone spotted it in a textbook description of a rock-footed yellow wallaby. Today, the winery makes 11 red wines (including four "reserve" wines), five whites (including two "reserve"), one rosé, and two sparkling wines.

Beringer

Founded in 1876, Beringer is the oldest continuously operating winery in California's Napa Valley. Jacob Beringer, the German immigrant who started the company, chose the spot because the rocky, well-drained soils resembled the soil of his native Rhine Valley. Beringer produces dozens of wines, including 26 that retail for less than about $15 (these include the Stone Cellars by Beringer brand) and 11 that retail for about $100 a bottle or more. Its chardonnay has been at the top in our testing; the other Beringer whites don't always fare as well.

Columbia Crest

This Washington state winery produces varietals that regularly perform well in our Ratings—yet it just celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2008. The first white varietal wines (from the 1986 vintage) were released in 1987; the first red varietal wines (from the 1984 vintage), in 1988. The Columbia Crest Grand Estates label, priced at about $11 per bottle, includes particularly notable red wines (merlot, cabernet, and shiraz). The winery also produces three other labels: Two Vines (large production, "fruit forward, approachable" wines, about $8), Horse Heaven Hills or H3 (small production, about $15 per bottle), and Reserve (small lot production, about $25 to $30 per bottle).

Kendall-Jackson

Kendall-Jackson is based in Sonoma County, Calif., but its 14,000 acres of vineyards reach as far north as Mendocino County and as far south as Santa Barbara. We have tested two K-J labels—Vintner's Reserve (made from grapes grown in several regions) and Grand Reserve (grapes come from just one or two regions)—which are generally decent, but at about $15 to $20 are still on the pricy side of the wines we test. K-J has two more-exclusive labels: Highland Estates (wines made from one estate within a region) and "highly collectable" Stature (limited production wines that are a blend of hand-picked cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petite verdot and malbec). Jess Jackson, who founded the company, grew up in San Francisco and trained as a lawyer, but after his family bought a pear and walnut orchard in Lakeport, Calif., they converted it to a vineyard and sold their first bottle of Kendall-Jackson (Kendall was Jess's former wife's maiden name) in 1982.

Château Ste. Michelle

The Washington state vineyards that became Château Ste. Michelle date back to 1934, just after the repeal of Prohibition, though it wasn't until 1967 that a line of premium wines called "Ste. Michelle Vintners" was introduced. ("Château" was added to the name nine years later when a French-style château was built for the company outside of Seattle.) The company now produces six tiers of wine from Columbia Valley, the large-production wines that we test, to the very limited production Ethos, made from no more than one percent of a vintage and reflecting "Old World complexity and elegance with concentrated Washington fruit." While the Château Ste. Michelle Riesling wines we tested were very good, the other varietals were generally good, but not great. Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the parent company, also owns Columbia Crest (and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars).

Bogle

Based along the Sacramento River in Clarksburg, Calif., Bogle Vineyards grows 1,200 acres of grapes that it blends with grapes from vineyards from other parts of California. Father and son, Warren and Chris Bogle, planted their first grapes in 1968 and founded the winery 10 years later. The family still runs the business, which produces "value brand wines" in 11 varietals. Its merlot and zinfandel wines have been CR Best Buys.

Lindemans

Dr. Henry Lindeman was ahead of his time. He became fascinated with the medicinal benefits of wine in the mid-19th century. After immigrating from his native England to Australia in 1840, he planted Riesling, verdelho, and shiraz vines on his 330-acre property in New South Wales and by 1858 he was exporting Lindemans Cawarra (the name of his estate) Claret back to the United Kingdom. Henry's grandson, Eric, who took over in 1918, was the last of the Lindemans to work for the family company. In the intervening 90 years, the company went public and grew to have vineyards all over South Eastern Australia. Four tiers of wine are available in the U.S., including the large-production Bin Series—described by the company as "the heart and soul of Lindemans, with more than one million bottles enjoyed by people throughout the world, every week of the year." In our tests, Lindemans' wines that cost about $10 or less have been good but not great.

Hogue

Founded in 1982 by the brothers Mike and Gary Hogue, this Washington State winery's first vintage produced 2,000 cases of chenin blanc and Riesling. Today the winery produces more than 650,000 cases of 11 varietals in three core lines—Hogue (suggested retail: $9.99), Genesis by Hogue Cellars (suggested retail: $16), and the Reserves (suggested retail: $30). Hogue—the largest of the lines, representing 70 percent of production—switched from cork to screw caps after 2004, when an in-house study showed that screw caps "hold fruit and maintain freshness more effectively." In February 2008, Mike and another Washington wine family, along with the longtime Hogue Cellars winemaker David Forsythe, started up a new winery, called Mercer Estates. A spokeswoman at Hogue said that the wine style at Hogue had not changed since the departure of Forsythe. In the last couple of years, we've found Hogue wines to be good, but not great. "The exception was the very good Hogue Columbia Valley Riesling, about $9." Hogue and Clos du Bois have the same parent company, Constellation Brands.

Concha y Toro

The largest Chilean producer and exporter of wines today, Concha y Toro was founded in 1883 when the businessman and politician Don Melcho Concha y Toro brought grape vines from the Bordeaux region of France to plant in Chile's Maipo Valley. Today the company owns 22,270 acres (88 percent of which is vineyard) in Chile and Argentina, and cultivates mainly cabernet sauvignon, carménère, chardonnay, merlot, and sauvignon blanc. More than half of Concha y Toro's exports go to Europe; just over 15 percent go to the United States. The red varietal wines and the chardonnay we tested have been very good in the Casillero del Diablo (about $9) and Marques de Casa (about $19) lines. Frontera has also been a good value performer at about $5 per bottle.

Clos du Bois

The Sonoma-based winery has nothing to do with France. It's just that when Frank Woods was planning to name his new winery "Woods Vineyard," his kids were studying French and pushed for the more exotic name "Clos du Bois", or "enclosure in the woods." The company's first wines came out in 1974—a chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon. Today Clos du Bois offers 10 varietals in its most popular "Classic" line (about $12 to $16 a bottle), eight higher-end "Sonoma Reserve" wines (about $16 to $22 a bottle), and three limited production "Proprietary" wines (about $22 to $50 a bottle). Its pinot grigio, about $14, was rated excellent in our test. Its zinfandel and merlot were very good, if a little pricy, at about $14 and $22 respectively.

Jacob's Creek

Jacob's Creek, founded in 1845 on Jacob's Creek in the Barossa Valley of Australia, produced its first vintage, a Riesling, in 1848. Today this large winery makes five tiers of wine—classic, sparkling, Three Vines (wines made of three varietals), Reserve, and Heritage Collection. We have tested wines in the classic and reserve lines. Of those, we recommend only the Reserve Shiraz, about $13.

Sterling

Napa Valley-based Sterling Vineyards makes wines that range in price from about $12 to about $400 a bottle. (Full disclosure: The $400 bottle is a 3-liter, 10-year-old cabernet. The dearest 750 ml bottle is a 1999 cabernet for about $95.) The wines in the more modest range are, according to the associate winemaker Julie Schreiber, "classically varietal-fruit focused wines." She continued, "They exemplify Napa Valley flavors, and have purity of character." We found the Sterling cabernet sauvignon to be very good. The label's sauvignon blanc was less so. Sterling released a line of organic wines in September 2008, beginning with a chardonnay and a sauvignon blanc. A cabernet sauvignon organic wine is to be released in April 2009.

Château St. Jean

Established in 1973, the Sonoma-based winery is named after Jean Sheffield Merzoian, the sister-in-law, wife, and sister of the three founders. The winery calls itself "Sonoma's first and foremost champion of single vineyard designated wines," which are wines made from the grapes of one vineyard to reflect the unique flavor and intensity of grapes cultivated in one particular spot. The less-expensive Château St. Jean wines don't name a single vineyard, but are labeled simply, "Sonoma County." But even those rarely retail for less than about $15 a bottle.

See also:

Beer

Chocolates

Wine chillers

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