Wine Spectator Announces Its 2014 Wine of the Year!

A Port from the stellar 2011 vintage has been selected as Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year for 2014, the top ranking in the magazine's annual Top 100 list of the most exciting wines. Like all Ports, it hails from the Douro River Valley in north central Portugal; this one was made by the Symington family, the region's single biggest landowner.

Wine Spectator's editors choose the Top 100 Wines on the basis of quality (score), value (price), availability (cases produced or imported) and an "X-factor" referred to as excitement.

In 2011, Port surged to remarkable heights of quality, with some vintners declaring it the best in 50 years. Powerfully fruity wines dominated the action. The Dow’s Vintage Port 2011 was the highest-scoring wine of the vintage at 99 points, or "classic" on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale. 

The Dow’s Vintage Port 2011 stands as a monument to quality and the modernization of the Douro over the past two decades. For its combination of power, quality and fair pricing, and for being the best of the best of an amazing vintage, the 2011 Dow’s Vintage Port is Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year.

Two other Portuguese wines cracked the Top 10 this year. They are both dry, red table wines from the Douro: the Prats & Symington Chryseia 2011 and the Quinta do Vale Meão 2011. A total of six Portuguese wines are ranked in the Top 100 of 2014, capping the nation’s best performance ever.

While this completes the countdown of the Top 10 wines of 2014, there are 90 more to come. A full list of the entire Top 100 will be posted on Monday, Nov. 17, at 11 a.m. ET.