When I think back to all the wines I have tasted, all the places I have visited, and all of the people in the business I have seen in 2011, I’d just like to say, “Thanks”.

I am raising a glass of the outstanding 2008 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs, one of the world’s best bubblies. Made from grapes from the North Coast of California, this sparkler simply shines with elegance and style. Brightly bursts with ripe apple aroma, with a trace of yeast autolysis; poised and proper on the palate.

I’d like to invite an order of fresh, unadorned Dungeness crab to join me at the table. Happy New Year to all of you (us)!

Take a trip to Healdsburg, California and you will find more than just one of California's trendiest wine towns! (Photo by Wilfred Wong, June 3, 2011, Healdsburg, CA)

Caymus Vineyards is one of my favorite haunts since I first tasted their wines in the early 1970's. I have been to this winery numerous times over the last four decades. (Wow! that is a lot of years!) This is one place every Cabernet lover must visit! Highway 29 in Rutherford. (Photo by Wilfred Wong, October 10, 2011, Rutherford, CA)

Now let's make this simple! With the holidays, we enjoy lots of family, friends, neighbors or some combination of all of the above! While us crazy wine and food types often search and search for the ultimate Pinot Noir (possibly the best match for the turkey, itself), most people in the real world simply can't deal with that insanity. So what is the perfect holiday wine?

For my family, we have the classical division of labor. A dozen or more siblings, parents and cousins. Several cooks with different assignments and two to three televisions with different shows on. The house runs amok with all kinds of happenings. While a part of me just wants to savor the meal with a bottle of Domaine Roumier Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses, the sane side of me knows that there is only one varietal that brings it all together and puts the house back into order. We typically have two dinners, Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Sticky rice, broccoli, candied yams, pumpkin and apple pies (this year we bought from Destination Baking Company in the Glen Park District of San Francisco, the family's favorite) and of course for the main bill of fare, a free-range turkey and a juicy prime rib of beef. So what is the perfect holiday wine?

With apologies to my wine geek friends...the perfect wine is the 2010 Challis Lane Cabernet Sauvignon. Even though I had a hand in putting together this blend (hey, I am not too bias, if my subsequent tastings and our customers didn't agree, I would not have put this wine in the spotlight). This wine drinks so well that even Pinot Noir lovers, would nod their approval of this wine and the best news of all is this wine's price! At $7.99 on our ClubBev price, this is not just the a great wine for this occasion,  it is the perfect holiday wine! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!

By the time I get to December 31, 2011, I will have tasted very close to 8,000 wines, if not more. That number may seem like a lot, but the numbers add up quickly, just ask the staff at our office and how many bottles, we recycle weekly. My journey each year begins in January, when I judge in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and quickly moves abroad to Argentina, Chile, France, etc. Then more judgings and trade shows, not to mention media gigs. In the coming year, I have already confirmed (with intricate details in place) two trips to South America and three trips to France. This is the life of a BevMo! Cellarmaster and one who is crazy in love with wine and all of its accoutrements. So each year as the calendar winds down, what is the burning question I must answer. "Wilfred, What is the best wine you have had this year?" Always hating this question, I often mutter something like, "I have no idea?" How can one rate a wine #1? Are there any rules?

What makes this wine so important? Not the price, not the rating, not the varietal, but my genuine love for the wine, including how great it is and how much it affects me. Some could say that this is just a beauty contest. If that is the way it is, so be it! This is simply how I feel and what burns inside of my soul! Before today began, I just knew that something exciting was going to happen today. Winning the lottery? Writing the best article of my life? Taking the perfect photograph? I did not have a clue of what it would be or if it would even involve wine. But this afternoon, as I went through my regiment of tasting sets, I came upon the most recent arrived parcel. In this innocent 3-pak of wine, were three new vintages from Duckhorn Vineyards. I will add, here, that I tasted my first Duckhorn wine in the early 1980's. (I actually have my original tasting notes somewhere in my journals) The 1978 Three Palms Merlot, one of America's greatest wines ever, was poured into my glass and I was never the same. Since that epiphany over 30 years ago, I have been dutifully following the Duckhorn story. Duckhorn Vineyards became family to me. While the story has always been good, others such as Ch Lafite-Rothschild, Ch Latour, DRC, Opus One, Caymus Special Selection and Beaulieu Georges de Latour had kept centerstage. I suppose that we don't always treat family with the love they deserve. Duckhorn Vineyards, dependable, with its ultra-fine wines, was always there like a solid piece of real estate. But here we are, Thursday, November 3, 2011 and I felt so strange after tasting the incredible 2008 Duckhorn Cabernet Sauvignon. What happen here??? This goes way beyond the "normal" work of evaluating wines for a living. The wine had its own life force and was working it!

As I took the glass up to my nose, I immediately knew that this wine could be the best the winery has ever made. Powerful, yet elegant and seductive, this wine not only surpassed my expectations, but it flew past any wine that I had already highly rated for the year. The wine talked to me in terms that only an incredible Napa Valley Cabernet could. Pushing me the brink, the wine forced my hand to write about its story, which is still unfolding as we speak. I urge you all to get this wine and let it work its magic on you. You will not know what happen but it will happen! So powerful and demanding, this is unquestionably my #1 wine of 2011!

You "gotta" love Riesling! As one of the world's top, internationally acclaimed wine varietals, this wine is so versatile in its applications. Not just as a sipping wine, as many people perceived the wine to be, but as a superior food matching wine for the freshest foods of the season. Speaking of the season, Dungeness crab will soon be back on the menu as this is the time that they come into the marketplace. I can think of no better match than fresh crab meat, a little bit of lemon and a fresh, easy, medum sweet Riesling. At BevMo! one of our very best is the 2010 Snoqualmie Winemaker's Select from the Columbia Valley. Low in alcohol at 10.2%, low in pH at 2.95, this medium sweet white wine will enhance the first catch of the season. Additionally, one can simply sip this wine over conversation with family and friends.

Let's celebrate Dungeness crab, when it arrives with a glass of this wine. Winemaker Joy Andersen comments, "(this wine is) reminiscent of apricot and pear fruit characteristics on the nose (that) give we to a refreshingly crisp and luscious fruit filled palate. The impressions linger on the palate with mingle spice characters" Now doesn't that sound delicious?"