We were still deep into Champagne territory to start out the month of July as we wrote our annual report on the world’s most prestigious wine region, with James, Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt and Tasting Manager Kevin Davy wrapping up their trip there before returning to their summer festa of Italian wines.
And uncovering a few more perfect Champagnes wasn’t a problem. The first 100-pointer they found, the Laurent-Perrier Champagne Grand Siècle Les Réserves N.20 NV, was so stupendous that they said they were “blown away” as they tasted it in the cellars with Lucie Pereyre de Nonancourt, the fourth generation of the extended Laurent-Perrier family, and director Edouard Cossy. If you’re looking for a wine that’s layered and intense, this is it, and it comes with fantastic umami notes of preserved lemon, quince, sea urchin, mushroom and salted caramel.
We also retasted the Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal 2008 in magnum, which was aged two or three years longer on the lees than the normal bottling and is a benchmark Cristal: incredibly structured, vertical and precise, with sharp acidity and fine bubbles throughout. Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, Louis Roederer’s cellarmaster, is all about putting freshness into his wines these days, and it shows in this 100-pointer. Two single-parcel Louis Roederer still wines also impressed our tasters during the month: the Louis Roederer Coteaux Champenois Camille Hommage Blanc 2019 and the Louis Roederer Coteaux Champenois Camille Hommage 2019. They’re both small-production bottles and difficult to get your hands on, but they show that Champagne isn’t just about the bubbles.
James and Claire also rated hundreds of Italian wines in our Tuscan tasting office during the month. They found a number of beautiful wines from the cool-weather hills of Chianti Classico, including the Barone Ricasoli Toscana Casalferro 2019 and the Bibi Graetz Toscana Colore 2020. The latter is a pure sangiovese that shined in the 2020 vintage, while the former shows the excellent work Francesco Ricasoli and his team have done to fine-tune the merlot-based red of Casalferro, aiming for more finesse and drinkability.
And Chianti Classico’s cool character really came through in a blind tasting of some of the best merlot in the world that James participated in along with a handful of leading Italian wine merchants and winemakers. The top wine of the tasting, the Bertinga Toscana La Volta di Bertinga 2019, highlighted how Italy may now be making some of the best bottles on earth from the coveted grape.
Brunellos equally inspired during our July tastings, and we were especially revved up by Loacker Wine Estates’ Burgundy-inspired Brunellos from single-vineyard crus. Among them, the Corte Pavone Brunello di Montalcino Anemone al Sole Riserva 2016 best expressed the richness of the cru, delivering both bones and flesh with some tarry plushness that made it a standout.
James also found a “pretty sensational” sangiovese-merlot-petit verdot blend from southern Tuscany’s Podernuovo a Palazzone, the limited-release Podernuovo a Palazzone Toscana G33 2018. A few choice Amarones brought surprises, too, among them the Speri Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Vigneto Monte Sant’Urbano 2018, which Senior Editor Zekun Shuai called “a textbook example of how outstanding Amarones today seek more brightness and refinement. It’s an elegant offering with immense drinkability.”
The end of July saw James and the tasters make a road trip to Sicily, where James has seen a marked improvement in winemaking, with much of that stimulus coming from the emergence of Etna wines made from indigenous grape types like nerello mascalese and carricante. “Sicily seems to finally be at a point of departure for great winemaking and we look forward to covering the island in a more in-depth way in the future,” James said. We will be posting our full Sicily report soon, so stay tuned.
READ MORE: TOP 100 WINES OF ITALY 2021
RIESLING RUSH
Senior Editor Stuart Pigott was also in France to taste new releases from Alsace, and he found plenty of exciting dry whites from the 2020 vintage, despite the hot and dry summer that year. When rains did fall, they turbocharged the ripening process, with an excellent example of this being the Domaine Zind Humbrecht Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Brand 2020, which Stuart called “one of the stars of vintage, having a wonderful balance of great richness and mineral freshness.”
2020 was a wonderful vintage for producers like Trimbach, which made the exceptional Trimbach Riesling Alsace Clos Ste. Hune 2020, expected to be released in 2024. Another late-release wine just coming onto the market that also stood out for Stuart was the Domaine Valentin Zusslin Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Pfingstberg 2018, which he said is “not only enormously concentrated, it also has a literally breathtaking mineral freshness that really makes it shine in the context of this exceptionally warm vintage.”
And Stuart discovered a couple of pinot blancs from Barmes-Buecher in Alsace that he said were “game-changing wines for the region”: the full-bodied and rich Domaine Barmes-Buecher Pinot Blanc Alsace Rosenberg 2020 and the “mind-bendingly original” Domaine Barmes-Buecher Alsace Sand 2020.
From Burgundy, Stuart found the 2020 reds to be “so deep in color they look like wines from the syrah grape, and the tannins often feel the same way – the aromas and flavors frequently full-throttle.” Although it was the third hot and dry year in a row, some amazing wines were made, including the red Louis Latour Chambertin Grand Cru Cuvée Héritiers Latour 2020 and the white Bouchard Père & Fils Chevalier Montrachet Grand Cru Domaine 2020. “These breathtakingly concentrated and refined wines show how amazing a vintage can be when everything works as it should – from vineyard soil management through to bottling. There’s nothing over the top about these wines except for their excellence,” Stuart said.
Even more excellent dry rieslings came out of Germany, as well, including the perfect-scoring Schloss Johannisberg Riesling Rheingau Goldlack Trocken 2019, which Stuart said will be remembered as one of Schloss Johannisberg’s “greatest dry rieslings ever.” Stuart also started tapping into Germany’s 2021 vintage and found Naha dry rieslings right at the top, with the Schäfer Fröhlich Riesling Nahe Felseneck GG 2021 “the strongest of many remarkable 2021 dry rieslings I tasted during my days in the Nahe region.”
Meanwhile, our tasters in Hong Kong turned their attention to the artisanal and gastronomic wines of Spain, which are relatively lighter, more refined and delicate than the country standard, coming with pinot sensibility and Bojo drinkability. Two of these were the composed and cerebral Terroir al Limit Priorat Arbossar 2020 and Terroir al Limit Priorat Les Tosses 2019, both of which illustrate the agility and effortless flavor concentration of carignan.
And Rioja wines are always at the top of our list of quality Spanish offerings, and this month was no different. The Faustino Rioja Gran Faustino I Gran Reserva 2004, for one, showed the effortless ageability of a top Rioja vintage through not just concentration and tannins, but balance and freshness, too, while the eclectic Faustino Rioja Icon Edition Reserva Especial 2017 is an excellent choice If you’re seeking more restrained plushness and richness.
Among the other Spanish wines that impressed were the Portia Ribera del Duero Summa Edición Limitada 2019, whose depth and dusty tannins Senior Editor Zekun Shuai found “awe-inspiring,” and the extremely serious Terroir Sense Fronteres Priorat Coreografia 2021, a rosé that hit the mark with its bright transparency, texture and immense drinkability.
And it was the iconic winemaker Telmo Rodriguez who made two of the Spanish wines we gave perfect ratings to this month: the breathtaking Compañia de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez Rioja Las Beatas 2019, a linear field blend of nine varieties, based on tempranillo, that comes with “a weightless and soulful sensibility,” and the Yjar Rioja 2018, a new project from a massal selection of a 3.8-hectare vineyard in Remelluri based on tempranillo, garnacha and a few other grapes that exudes a little more plushness and sophistication than the Las Beatas, but remains restrained, deep and highly complex.
READ MORE URUGUAY ANNUAL REPORT: AS ZESTY ALBARIÑO RISES, TANNAT EMBRACES ITS FRESH SIDE
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE AND CHINA
Finally, we rated more than a dozen wines from Australia’s pre-eminent winery, Penfolds, including what may be one of its greatest new wines in years, the Penfolds Shiraz South Australia Bin 95 Grange 2018. It is one of Penfolds’ more polished and sophisticated Granges in decades and highlights the incredible quality of the 2018 vintage Down Under.
For another top choice from the Southern Hemisphere, try the 2019 vintage of the Vin de Constance from South Africa’s Klein Constantia. It’s a continuation of this legendary sweet wine from Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains and shows pure and complex aromatics that combine a swath of perfumes and stunning depth with natural concentration and freshness.
James also sneaked in a tasting from one of Chile’s most iconic producers, Montes winery in Apalta, saying about the Montes Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Maipo Muse 2019 that he “was very impressed with how the Muse 2019 presents itself in the glass with a finesse and focus reminiscent of a top Medoc from Bordeaux” and a “wonderfully polished and refined texture.”
Finally, we kicked off our tasting of Chinese wines in July, with the highlights being the Tiansai Skyline of Gobi Cabernet Sauvignon Xinjiang 天塞酒庄庄主珍藏 2019 – a plush, Napa-style cabernet sauvignon with ripeness, depth and some underlying savoriness, too. For marselan, the Tiansai Skyline of Gobi Marselan Yanqi T95 天塞酒庄T95马瑟兰 2019 is a sterling reference for Xinjiang marselan that finds a sweet spot between ripeness and freshness.
In all, the 3,372 bottles we rated during the month came from a whopping 18 countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bulgaria, Chile, China, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States. That’s a lot of territory and a load of wine, but there’s even more to come as we keep our eyes firmly set on hitting our goal of rating 30,000 bottles by the end of the year.
– Vince Morkri, Managing Editor
