23.6.16 World's Best Wine List 2016

The World of Fine Wine magazine has published the winner of the World’s Best Wine Lists 2016, and the winner is the Robuchon du Dôme Restaurant at the Hotel Lisboa in Macau. Here, one can find four Michelin starred restaurants (out of the fourteen!) under one roof and a wine list to match. There are over 16,000 wines and the list runs to 585 pages. One could say it is completely over the top – you could drink a whole bottle just reading through the list - but they do have outstanding wines; from XVIII century Madeira to 35 versions of Dom Pérignon, and much more.

Naturally I went straight to the Sherry page – well pages – and was impressed. There are a couple of common mistakes: Montilla-Moriles wines included under “Sherry” (They more than deserve their own heading), and solera and vintage dates muddled giving some very odd pricing. For example González Byass Solera 1847 (RRP 6.95€) is more than three times the price of the GB Añada 1966 and the Emilio Hidalgo Santa Ana PX Solera 1861 (RRP 250€) is priced at 788€. But never mind, there are 40 Sherries listed and here we find all the Barbadillo Reliquias, Marqués del Mérito’s long disappeared Fino Primo Pepe, Equipo Navazos, the top wines of Valdespino, Tradición, Maestro Sierra, Emilio Hidalgo and Sandeman.

What really caught my eye was the list of seven Williams & Humbert Añada Olorosos from 1937, 1940, 1945, 1960, 1965, 1967 and 1980, and two Palos Cortados from 1955 and 1962 (this priced very cheaply at only 177€). You don’t find a range like that in many restaurants.