For each San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, longtime wine writer Mike Dunne tastes and jots notes on best-of-class wines. For the competition in 2023, Mike first tasted best-of-class wines and then trimmed this wide field to the 50 wines he found most exemplary. He searched for wines that not only represent exceptional character, quality and value, but reflect trends within the wine scene. He focused on such popular varietal wines and styles as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but he also sought wines that show the increase in the growing of grapes and the making of wine beyond California, including wines made from hybrid and native grapes in states not identified so much with vitis-vinifera strains.
Given the breadth of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition – drawing 7,000 entries from throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico – the whittling of even the best-of-class field to 50 prime selections is a daunting task, but Mike is familiar with such challenges. He is the author of the recently published “The Signature Wines of Superior California: 50 Wines that Define the Sierra Foothills, the Delta, Yolo and Lodi,” his deep and personal dive into the evolution of the wine trade in appellations about Sacramento over the past 50 years, a stretch during which he chronicled the area’s viticultural and enological development for several publications and platforms, especially The Sacramento Bee.