2001 Top 100 at a Glance
		2001 Top 100 Full List with Notes
		The Highest-Rated New Releases of 2001
		Great Values in the Top 100
		2000 Top 10

Wine Spectator's editors tasted more than 10,750 wines released during the year 2001. Of those, approximately 1,700-plus rated outstanding, 90 points or higher on our 100-point scale. These were the initial candidates for this year's Top 100. Our final rankings were determined by evaluating each wine on four criteria: quality (as represented by score); value (as reflected by price); availability (measured by case production, or for international wines, by the number of cases imported); and an X-factor we call excitement.

Red wines dominated the Top 100 for the second consecutive year, occupying nearly three-quarters of our list, a percentage largely reflecting late-release wines from Tuscany's glorious 1997 vintage and bottlings from the Rhône Valley's excellent 1998 harvest. The list also reflects the success of Tuscany's Bolgheri appellation in 1998, a strong 1999 harvest in the Rhône, and the triumph of Bordeaux's 1998 vintage in the Right Bank areas of Pomerol and St.-Emilion. California's weaker presence in this year's Top 100 comes as a result of the difficult 1998 vintage.

Thirteen Years of Top Tens: