Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery, Napa and Sonoma Counties (California) Sauvignon Blanc 2020

 This wine is always among the very best Sauvignons from the United States, but this may be my favorite vintage of all the renditions I’ve tasted.  That may not be true for everyone, as this has a sharper acidic edge than I remember from past years, but I love it for that very reason.  It still tastes like super-premium California Sauvignon rather than a thin acid bomb from Touraine, and is medium-bodied with plenty of palate weight and melon-y flavors, yet the sharper than usual citrus edge gives this lots of definition and linear energy.  Re-tasted a day later after being refrigerated under its cork, it was less tense and more generous, but definitely no worse for the wear.  Consequently, you can buy this with the complete assurance that if it proves to sharp for you initially, you can age your remaining bottles for another year or two to let the wine soften a bit.  Supremely versatile, it would be fabulous now with freshly shucked raw oysters, or terrific in another year or two with a rotisserie chicken.  That’s a pretty damned wide range, and I can’t think of more than a handful of Sauvignons made anywhere in the world that could span it.