„Today's classics are not built for eternity. They won't last. The new classics are instead creatures of the moment, umbilically attached to a vital, invested audience. Once that audience moves away, for whatever reason, these new classics will wither.
Such was not the case a century ago when the now-traditional classics served a smaller, largely local audience whose fidelity was assured. It was an age of fixed horizons that ensured continuity. That's now gone. So where are the new classics today?
I would suggest that you look closely at the best wines emerging from Hungary's Tokaj district, which is now issuing Tokaji wines of a quality unseen for more than a century.
I would suggest that you look closely at the best white wines from Spain, which are achieving heights of quality and characterfulness very likely never seen before in Spain's centuries-old, but rather dusty, wine history.
I would suggest that you look closely at the finest Rhône wines being made today. Here again, an ancient wine zone has been re-energized by an avid, informed and demanding outside audience that has helped drive quality to levels unmatched in generations.
I would suggest that you look closely at certain zones in California, especially the Santa Cruz Mountains, the westernmost part of Sonoma County and the west side of Paso Robles, to name but three areas.
I would look closely at southern Italy, which may well be the newest, richest source of new classics in a nation brimming with such wines.
But what I would not do is presume that any of these new classics, no matter how thrilling or inarguably great, will persist unto the lives of your children or your children's children. Despite the permanence of terroir itself, wine greatness today is now transient in a way that it never was before. Get it while you can.”