December at JamesSuckling.com meant shepherding out the last of our country Top 100 reports (and Top 100 Value report) before ringing in the New Year. Still, we managed to taste nearly 2,000 wines from 18 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand and the United States. And it wrapped up an awesome tasting year for us, when we managed to get through a record 33,000-plus wines and bring you the best of what the world has to offer.
We kicked the month off with a rating of Spain’s cult red, the Dominio de Pingus Ribera del Duero Pingus, which has been delivering a benchmark for the country for years, with wine collectors and lovers usually clamoring to get their hands on a bottle. And James thinks the 2020 vintage may even be a step up from the already outstanding 2019. It’s a terrific young red with subtle yet powerful fruit and polished tannins that give it verve and intensity.
James also saw similarities between Spain’s 2020 vintage and Bordeaux 2020 – warm vintages in both places, but with enough rain that freshness and balance were also locked in. One Bordeaux 2020 that typified the character of the year was the Château Canon St.-Emilion 2020, which James said was similar to the 2015 Canon – our Wine of the Year in 2018 – because of its finesse, depth and balance.
It’s also illustrative of the great wines James expects to come out of the top wineries from the hillsides of St. Emilion. Chateau Croix de Labrie is one of them, and James sat down with Croix de Labrie owner Pierre Courdurie to discuss how recent vintages stacked up. “Our 2020 Croix de Labrie is the best of the trilogy,” Courdurie, said of 2020, 2019 and 2018. “In 2020, we gained energy in the wine” compared with the previous two years, he said.
But Pauillac properties were equally impressive, with Lynch-Bages and Pichon Lalande crushing it in our tastings, with 99 points and 98 points, respectively.
We also tasted various vintages from Burgundy’s Chassagne-Montrachet, with many of the whites showing class, structure and an earthy profile, and another Burgundy that stood out in our tastings during the month was Bouchard Père & Fils Montrachet Grand Cru 2016, with James calling it “a beautiful bottle.”
Champagne’s 2020 vintage also came into focus in our monthly tastings, and at the very top were three stunning offerings from Philipponnat, all from the exceptional Clos des Goisses, a 5.5-hectare walled vineyard on a very steep, south-facing chalk slope in Mareuil-sur-Ay. Their latest 2013 release, a fresher vintage in the region, is sophisticated, framed and well-structured, with very fine, tight bubbles, and is definitely one to put in the cellar.
Just as impressive were the Philipponnat Champagne Clos des Goisses Juste Extra Brut Rosé 2012 and Philipponnat Champagne Clos des Goisses Extra Brut L.V. 1997. The latter was released 25 years after “long vieillissement,” and it’s impressively fresh and vibrant, with fantastic complexity and length.
Senior Editor Stuart Pigott, meanwhile, tasted a range of whites from the Loire, with the dry wines from Domaine Huet in Vouvray especially standing out, none more so than the super-focused and racy Domaine Huet Vouvray Le Mont Sec. “It was clearly made for long aging but is already an intensely mineral beauty,” Stuart said of it.
Even more amazing, he said, was the lusciously sweet yet beautifully balanced Domaine Huet Vouvray Le Mont Première Trie Moelleux 2020, with its expansive spectrum of stone fruit, citrus and melon aromas.
Stuart also spent a week in Serbia as a guest speaker for a wine show and tasted a few dozen wines from that country as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina. He found a few 90-plus wines, from a mix of international varieties like chardonnay, riesling and cabernet sauvignon alongside indigenous varieties such as prokopac and vranac growing in wine regions scattered across the two countries.
“The best wines have a surprising elegance that I put down to the combination of warm days and cool nights in summer, as much as to winemaking,” Stuart said, citing one cabernet sauvignon offering from the Radovanovic winery in particular.
And from neighboring Hungary, Stuart found a few surprises, the most remarkable of which was the newly released Malatinszky Merlot Villany Kúria 2015. “I really didn’t see this one coming, because the Villany region has a much better reputation for cabernet franc than merlot,” Stuart said. “However, this a spectacularly fragrant and elegant merlot with all the richness we associate with the grape.”
The tasting team also rated a range of Canadian chardonnays from Checkmate Winery in the Okanagan Valley. All of their single-vineyard chardonnays undergo wild fermentation, and the latest 2019s that we tasted show fantastic concentration, with the best being the Dekleva Vineyard Queen Taken, the Jagged Rock Vineyard Little Pawn and the Sunset Vineyard Knight’s Challenge.
READ MORE TOP 100 VALUES WINES OF 2022
DEEP DIVE INTO CHINA
On the other side of the world, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai was heavy into this tastings of Chinese wines as he prepares his Top 100 Wines of China 2022 report, which will be out at the end of this week. There were many exciting reds, with Grace Vineyard leading the way with its Grace Vineyard Syrah Cabernet Sauvignon Ningxia Interval 怡园酒庄留白干红葡萄酒 2020, which overdelivered in a rather difficult vintage, with frost and some rains in Ningxia that year. The wine is spicy and almost full-bodied but not hefty, showing precise, fine-grained tannins, drinkability and length.
A great budget option from Grace Vineyard, at less than $30 a bottle, is the Grace Vineyard Cabernet Franc Ningxia Tasya’s Reserve 怡园酒庄德熙珍藏品丽珠干红葡萄酒 2020, which shows typical sweet tobacco leaf and red currant character from a fully ripened cabernet franc, but it remains refined, linear and well-structured.
From Shandong province, the grand vin Long Dai Qiushan 瓏岱丘山 2020 is a step up in balance and freshness from 2019 because of quality springs rains and generally cooler temperature, while the Long Dai Qiushan Hu Yue 瓏岱琥岳丘山 2020 shows a similar vein of freshness, purity and vibrancy although on a less profound level, but it still delivers excellent drinkability and crunch.
And although we usually have a love-hate affair with Chinese pinot noirs, with many often failing to deliver pinot’s delicate flavors and intensity, one pinot we tried from Tianshui, in Gansu province south of Ningxia, hit just the right notes – the Xigu Pinot Noir Tianshui Single Vineyard 曦谷天水黑比诺干红葡萄酒 2020, which shows freshness, purity and delicacy.
Finally, if you’re looking for harmony and freshness from a Chinese marselan, Domaine Franco-Chinois winemaker Zhao Desheng’s soon-to-be-released 2016 and 2017 vintages are both staggering examples of marselan that give panoramic views of the variety. The Domaine Franco Chinois Marselan Huailai Reserve 中法庄园珍藏马瑟兰 2017 shows the youth and more varietal typicity from a warmer vintage full of blue fruit, purple flowers and dried lychee character, while the Domaine Franco Chinois Marselan Huailai Reserve 中法庄园珍藏马瑟兰 2016 has a spicier overlay with lots of juicy, cool, blue fruit and graceful, silky tannins. For a genuine vinous taste of the Far East, these two bottles are it.
– Vince Morkri, Managing Editor
Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
