Yet it wasn't until Schramsberg, in the northern Napa Valley, released its first sparkling wines in the mid-1960s that the wine world began to take notice. Schramsberg is now making some of its best wines ever. The J. Schram Napa-Monterey-Mendocino Counties 1998 (91, $80) offers a complex array of flavors and layers of concentration, with spice, ginger and fresh pear. The Schramsberg Reserve Napa-Mendocino-Sonoma Counties 1997 (91, $60) is tightly focused, with spicy pear and creamy vanilla, gaining complexity on a long, elegant finish. Both wines - J. Schram is a blanc de blancs, the Reserve is a blanc de...
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Wine Spectator, 12/31/2004