America’s Best-Selling Premium Wines

Miraval is owned by a couple of glamorous movie stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (though they’re divorced, they are still business partners). The winery is run by the Perrin family, famous for their Rhône wines, and the 2018 rosé is well made and flavorful.

This is a solid cabernet from Tuscany’s Maremma region, produced by a winery launched by one of the best winemakers in the Veneto, in northeastern Italy.

This cabernet/merlot/syrah blend is the second wine (that is, a less expensive “junior” entry) from famed Tuscan producer Marchesi Antinori’s Tenuta Guado al Tasso. Like Tommasi’s Poggio al Tufo, it’s from the Maremma region.

The cavas from the Penedès in Spain’s Catalonia region are the great bargains of the sparkling wine world. This example, made from the traditional cava blend of macabeo, parellada, and xarel-lo grapes, is dry and crisp — a good apéritif wine.

Founded in 1895, Seghesio is a leading producer of zinfandel as well as wines from Italian grape varieties. This tannic offering is sourced from vineyards in the Dry Creek and Alexander valleys, some of Sonoma’s best wine-growing territory.

This fruity, slightly sweet chardonnay from the esteemed Carneros region has been called “a California icon.” According to Wine & Spirits, it’s the most popular single chardonnay in American restaurants.

Made from the classic cava blend of macabeo, parellada, and xarel-lo grapes, this sparkler from a producer owned by Spain’s massive Freixenet Group is simple and juicy, with green apple flavors.

By far New Zealand’s prime wine-producing region, Marlborough is famous above all for its tart, aromatic sauvignon blancs. Matua Valley Wines has the distinction of having started it all, as the first New Zealand winery to use the grape, back in 1974. Today, it’s one of the country’s biggest producers.

This full-bodied cabernet, with berry, black cherry, and vanilla flavors, was given a score of 90/100 by WineEnthusiast. It is considered particularly good wine for its price.

This well-balanced, buttery chardonnay and the 2017 vintage of the same wine (No. 5) are wine.com’s best-selling chardonnays. Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates is one of the largest wine producers in California, and also owns wineries in Australia, France, and Chile.

One of the most respected names in Tuscan wine — in Italian wine in general — Marchese Antinori created the first-evern “super-Tuscan,” a wine with a Chianti heritage but employing grapes from other regions, like cabernet sauvignon and merlot, that could not be used legally for Chianti. This well-balanced, middle-of-the-road wine, itself no longer labeled “Chianti,” is made with those two grapes, along with syrah and Tuscany’s principal red grape, sangiovese.

Prisoner, now owned by the massive international wine company Constellation Brands, produces only two wines currently — The Prisoner (a blend of five red-wine grapes) and this meaty, smoky zinfandel-based offering.

This estimable Napa Valley winery’s Artemis cabernet is known for being rich and spicy, with intense fruit. It’s also a bargain, compared with the Stag’s Leap Estate Collection cabernets, which sell for $150 and up per bottle.

Another good example of Marlborough sauvignon blanc (see No. 18), the Giesen is bright and crisp, with an attractive mineral character — good shellfish wine, among other things.

A dry, fresh blend of grenache, rolle, cinsault, syrah, and mourvèdre, this popular rosé overcame even the star power of the Pitt-Jolie Miraval Rosé (No. 25) in popularity among wine.com customers with its fruity aroma and elegant, bone-dry character on the palate.

An offshoot of Napa Valley’s merlot-centered Duckhorn Vineyards, focused on Sonoma County, Decoy entered the market in the 1990s with just one wine. a Bordeaux-style blend. It has subsequently become known for other varietals, and especially its hearty cabernet. The 2016 vintage was considered stellar in Sonoma.

This luscious, violet-hued Central Coast cabernet sauvignon, with small percentages of cabernet franc, merlot, and petit verdot blended in, “drinks like a more expensive cab,” according to one reviewer.

Onetime rock band manager Charles Smith (he still looks the part) has a small empire of Washington state wineries. Though he produces merlot and sauvignon blanc under his Substance label, he has written that he established the brand “with a single minded vision to produce the best value-priced Cabernet Sauvignon in America.” This rich, full-bodied wine is a good example of his success.

While the 2016 harvest in Washington state was record-breakingly large and also of good quality, the somewhat smaller 2017 vintage left winemakers “thrilled,” according to the trade publication Wine Industry Advisor. Wine Spectator called it “smooth, long, compelling…”

Tenuta Folonari’s landmark Nozzole property in the heart of the Chianti Classico zone has plenty of fruit and good body. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate suggested that “This is the kind of wine that immediately puts you in a good mood…”

A year younger and slightly fresher in flavor than Kendall-Jackson’s 2016 version of the wine, this bottling is equally buttery, with an abundance of tropical fruit on the palate.

Prosecco, a bubbly wine made from the glera (or prosecco) grape in Italy’s Veneto, surpassed Champagne in 2018 to become the world’s largest-selling sparkler. This flowery, fruity example is the top-selling brand in America — selling almost as much as all champagne brands combined in 2017.

Now owned by gigantic Constellation Brands, Meiomi specializes in pinot noir and chardonnay sourced from Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara counties. Smooth and well balanced, this fruit-forward pinot noir matches well with a wide array of foods.

This classic, well-structured Champagne is mostly pinot noir, with smaller quantities of chardonnay and pinot meunier. Both rich and elegant, it’s a luxurious wine at a reasonable price (for Champagne).

The third Marlborough sauvignon blanc on this list (see Nos. 12 and 18), and the most expensive of the three — though still reasonably priced — this grassy, flinty, well-balanced wine obviously appeals to a wide range of white wine lovers.