William Kelley’s top 10 American fine wines of 2015

The best North American Pinot Noir I’ve ever tasted, husband-and-wife team Terry and Frances Leighton produced only two barrels of this magical wine to commemorate the death of tonnelier Gaston Billon, one of Burgundy’s great artisanal barrel makers. The wine soars from the glass in a blaze of cocoa powder, rich earth, cinnamon, violets and lovely red-black fruit tones—a nose of kaleidoscopic complexity. On the palate the wine is seamless, vibrant and effortlessly balanced, evoking a top Côte de Nuits grand cru—the only standard against which it can be measured.

To my mind this is often the most savoury and potentially complex of all Schrader’s different cuvées. In 2013 the wine is deep, brooding and reserved, opening with notes of black cherry and plum, wood smoke, rich earth, tar and subtle oak spice. On the palate the wine is massive and full-bodied, with uncommon volume and depth, underpinned by a chassis of refined tannins and acidity.

Englishman Philip Togni has been quietly producing some of Napa Valley’s most consistently excellent and classically proportioned wines from his estate high on Spring Mountain for decades. This deep, authoritative and complex wine will need decades to truly unfold, but it is a monument to this great vintage: its aromatics of cassis, black cherry, rich tobacco and clove are already striking, but the 2013 Togni really impresses for its spherical, three-dimensional core.

The late David Lett, who established Eyrie Vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, was one of North America wine’s visionary pioneers, and this Pinot Noir alone constitutes quite a legacy. A fragrant and expressive bouquet of red berries, pomegranate, potpourri and coniferous forest floor is the prelude to a wine of stunning weightlessness, vibrancy and transparency. This has aged splendidly thanks to its unusual balance and energy: Willamette meets Volnay!

The volcanic soils of Chappellet’s spectacular property on Pritchard Hill produce one of the most brooding and long-lived wines in Napa Valley that sometimes remind me of Bordeaux’s now defunct Château La Tour Haut Brion. At forty years of age, this wine is still a strikingly saturated ruby-black, bursting with expressive and youthful aromas of ripe black cherries, hot bricks, cigar ash and iron. On the palate the wine is incredibly youthful, with a masculine personality, a deep core of fruit, and considerable tannic amplitude. It’s easy to imagine it aging for another forty years. 1975 is beginning to look like the vintage of the decade in Napa, and this is one of its best renditions.

This is the example of a lovely wine in a lovely place. A few years ago, the 1995 seemed a bit dry and tannic, and winemaker Eric Baugher expressed apprehension that he might have pushed extraction too far on this, his debut vintage. But those formidable tannins have melted, and the wine is now drinking very well. The nose offers up notes of red and black fruits, rich earthy tones and nuances of cedar and leather. Deep and concentrated with a classical balance between acidity, tannin and fruit, this has transformed into one of my favourite vintages of this American classic to drink now.

Christian Moueix's 1991 Dominus Estate is cruising along in the cellar and has reached a beautiful plateau of maturity. Aromas of black cherries, cassis, graphite, rich loamy soil and summer truffle are the prelude to a wine of impressive depth and spherical balance. Just a hint of torrefaction in the aromatics alludes to the challenges posed by the California sun; challenges that more recent vintages of Dominus indicate Moueix's talented team have entirely mastered.