Saturday, January 08, 2005


Every year, The Chronicle Wine section staff and our weekly panel of tasters -- mostly wine retailers and sommeliers -- select our favorite 100 wines sampled during the previous 12 months. In 2004, we threw our crew a curveball by asking them to consider wines produced in Oregon, Idaho and Washington state. In doing so, we made an already difficult (though pleasantly so) decision more difficult, by introducing new candidates for spots on The Chronicle's "Top 100 Wines of 2004" list and reducing the opportunities for California bottlings....