I believe a wine's chief purpose is to celebrate the moment with family and close friends. As the year draws to a close, I am thankful to have wine in my life and more importantly grateful to have such wonderful friends and family with whom to share it. Reminiscing from start to finish, the following are my annual top-10 wine moments of the year, in no particular order.

Chateau Haut Brion 1989: At a friend's Santa Fe table on a cold January night, one of the guests, a Michelin-starred chef visiting from England, said if he were to earn two stars in the guide's upcoming ratings, the wine he would drink would be his favorite of all time. The host left the table and surprisingly returned with the chef's once-in-a-lifetime bottle and generously shared it with us all. A first-growth Bordeaux wine from one of the best vintages of the modern age, the Haut Brion 1989 delivered profound and haunting notes of tobacco and smoke intermixed with juicy red fruits supported by a superb tannic structure.

Pio Cesare Barolo 1982: The first week of April, pouring wine as a guest sommelier at the Third Annual Pebble Beach Masters of Food and Wine, there was ample opportunity to taste many fabulous wines. One of my favorite wines was presented by Pio Boffo (the great grandson of Pio Cesare) in a vertical tasting of his family's famous Barolo. The Pio Cesare Barolo 1982 was a thrill to taste. A floral aroma of dying roses with hints of cinnamon spice, the wine delivered an lip-smacking and altogether palate-enticing juiciness that provoked the room of lucky tasters to simultaneously start salivating about what we would eat with this wine. Pio Boffo said slices of prosciutto de Parma drizzled with olive oil.

Chateau Lynch Bages 1990: Celebrating 17 years in our Galisteo home on May 1 of this year, my two teenage daughters and I shared grilled ribeye steaks on our south patio and watched the sunset fall into the Galisteo basin. To mark the occasion, I opened the last bottle of a case that was purchased the spring I moved into the house in 1993. Ever the overachiever, the fifth-growth Lynch Bages 1990 was full of masculine notes of cigar box and lead pencil shavings with vibrant aromas of blackcurrant and dark chocolate. Still a youthful wine, the 1990 had shed its teenage awkwardness and reached its plateau of drinking, where I am sure it will stay for a long time. Sorry to see it go, I reminded myself that I have an unopened case of the 2005 Lynch Bages in the cellar to share with my daughters over the next two decades, and was left contemplating what memories might lie ahead.

Louis Jadot Pommard Grands Epenots 1er Cru 2006: I was born the fifth child of 10, and my siblings and I have spawned 20 kids between us. So, when we all got together mid-June at Coon's Franklin Lodge on a lake in northern Wisconsin to celebrate my nephew's wedding, there was much familial joy, raucous merriment and quite a bit of wine. The red wine at the wedding party was the beautiful Loius Jadot Pommard Grands Epenots 1er Cru 2006. High-toned with red currant and cherry flavors, the wine was silky and fine indeed.

Bruno Giacosa Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto di Serralunga 1999 After celebrating my birthday hiking a mountaintop in Telluride with my dog, I thought my daughters and I should host a small gathering to continue the celebration. Since the company consisted of my closest and most generous wine-drinking friends, I thought it best to pull out the best I could. That meant breaking open a wood box and pulling out the first bottle of Bruno Giacosa Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto di Serralunga 1999 from the six pack that I purchased directly from the sage of Barolo himself in April of 2003. The compelling perfume on this Barolo left us all in awe — knockout aromas of violets, smoke and camphor. The palate was profoundly full and vibrant at the same time, concentrated with sappy red fruits and wrapped in a nervous tannic structure that guaranteed a long life ahead.

Brick House les Dijonnais Pinot Noir 2007: After arriving to Oregon's Willamette Valley from Portland by bicycle at the start of a road trip at the end of July, I seized the opportunity to work with the staff of Portland's Restaurant Castagna as they hosted one of the International Pinot Noir Celebration's guest chef luncheons. Better yet, the venue was Melissa and Doug Tunnel's Brick House winery, home to one of my favorite Pinot noir producers. In the kitchen, between serving food and butlering magnums of older Brick House Pinot Noirs, I could not get enough of a large pot of sautéed Oregon morel mushrooms with Brick House Les Dijonnais Pinot Noir 2007. Almost transparent in color, juicy with brilliant red raspberries, the wine was supple, elegant and divine.

Jean Vaselle "Oil de Perdrix" Brut Rosé: At the end of a nine-day, 800-mile bike ride along the Oregon and Northern California coast, my old college roommate and I sped across the windy Golden Gate Bridge and triumphantly arrived to the Plaza Ferry wine merchant, where we immediately quaffed a bottle of Jean Vaselle Brut Rosé. With a plate of salumi and a baguette of Acme bread, the bright orange color, wild strawberry nose and seductively lush flavors on the Champagne were eminently satisfying.

Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Spatlese 2002: For my first-ever time fly-fishing, I was treated by friends to a private boat and lesson on Colorado's famous San Juan River on a sunny August day. I returned the favor to my friends by bringing what we all now know as fly-fishing's best wine. There is nothing quite like a crisp and cold, low-alcohol German Riesling outdoors on a summer's day. The Reinhold Haart Piesporter Spatlese 2002 was sublime with mineral salts and citrus and was delightfully quenching in paper cups while floating the river between canyon walls with the brightest of blue skies overhead.

Cayuse Armada Syrah 2007: Getting domestic on a Saturday night in November with my favorite drinking partner, she made a micro-green salad from her greenhouse and I pan-seared a hanger steak. From the Walla Walla region in Oregon, French vigneron Christophe Baron's Armada Vineyard Syrah 2007 is full of white pepper aromatics with smoke, flint and crushed Provençal herbs lurking beneath black fruits. The wine is dry and penetrating with a seamless texture and grace. More nuanced and revealing for its judicious use of oak, I appreciate that Baron elevates this wine in large oak puncheons (500 liters) rather than smaller barriques (225 liters).

L. Aubry Brut Rosé: Affectionately known as "farmer-fizz," small-producer, grower-shipper Champagne has become a relatively inexpensive luxury the past decade thanks to the eccentric and passionate importer of German and Austrian wines, Terry Theise (his new book, Reading Between the Vines, would make an excellent stocking stuffer). The Aubrey Rosé is graceful and clean, a sharply focused expression of Champagne with strawberry and orange zest flavors. I can think of no better wine over the holidays to sip on over a leisurely Sunday afternoon while the kids make butter cookies and I slowly braise a pot of coq au vin.

Please share your top wine moments of the year with me at vinevents@aol.com. And happy Holidays! To many memorable wines for you and yours!

Greg O'Byrne is executive director of the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta. Contact O'Byrne at vinevents@aol.com.