Wine Spectator’s Top 100 is a godsend on the secondary market for fine wines

There are certain awards and certain rankings, in trade terms, which are like real manna from heaven. However, only very few reach the specific weight of the “Top 100” ranking by Wine Spectator, the most influential magazine that American wine lovers read. For decades it has accompanied the best wines in the world to the limelight, including, every year, many Italian wines that are often at the top of the chart. The Italian wines are all typologies, more or less accessible to everyone, primarily from the most prestigious Italian wine territories. The wines that help “Italy 100” really soar (the Liv-ex index of the most recent physical vintages of Sassicaia, Masseto, Solaia (Antinori), Tignanello (Antinori), Ornellaia, Barbaresco di Gaja, Barolo Monfortino Riserva and Barolo Cascina Francia by Giacomo Conterno, Guado al Tasso (Antinori) and Redigaffi by Tua Rita) and, in general, Italian fine wines on the secondary wine market. In other words, Barolo, with Massolino’s 2016 at position number 7, and Brunello di Montalcino, with Le Lucerè 2015 di San Filippo, which was among the first three positions.
Brunello di Montalcino, as we said, has been on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 ranking 69 times, and Barolo follows at 67 times. It is no coincidence that, because of the continuing decline of Bordeaux, Italy is soaring on the fine wine market, where, in November 2020, Italian wines were worth 15.1% of the trade. This is also thanks to a Barolo wine, Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino, by far the wine that has moved the most value in the world with its 2013 vintage, on a top 10 which also includes Sassicaia 2017 of Tenuta San Guido and Tignanello 2016 by Antinori. Accessibility is the strong point of Italian wines, and they could find even more on the Wine Spectator ranking, closing out 2020. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between critics and the market, which is demonstrated by the sudden appreciation that the only wine listed on the Liv-ex 1000 in the top 10 of the “Top 100” enjoyed. Bollinger La Grand Année 2012, firmly at position number 10, came in at 870 Sterling pounds per case, after dropping as low as 790 Sterling pounds per case in the summer.