As we turn to the New Year at JamesSuckling.com, we’re going to hoist a few great bottles with family and friends for all the memories the past 365 days have given us. We tasted nearly 40,000 wines over the past year from all across the globe, and we’ve saved a few of our favorites to open on New Year’s Eve or Day. Each of the JamesSuckling.com staff members has his or her own preferred bottle for the occasion, and each has his or her own story to tell about how they made their particular wine choice, or choices…
JAMES SUCKLING, EDITOR/CHAIRMAN
I have a bottle of Taittinger Champagne Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2008 to start New Year’s Eve festivities in my vineyard in Martinborough, New Zealand. It’s an incredible chardonnay-based Champagne from all grand cru vineyards in the Cote de Blancs. It’s a 100-point wine.
That’s probably not that surprising because it comes from arguably the best vintage in the last 25 years. And the 2008 Comtes is their best Champagne ever, with incredible richness and flavor yet a searing acidity and phenolic backbone. It seems a slight shame to drink it now but that’s the way it goes!
The real star will be a bottle of Bell Hill Pinot Noir North Canterbury 2018, one of the best pinots in New Zealand. I was lucky enough to buy a few bottles from a friend when I landed in Wellington last week. I already tried a bottle yesterday and it was divine. It shows such as subtle complexity with plenty of decadent earth, cedar and foie gras undertones to the ripe yet fresh pinot character. Real pinot flavors that say strawberries and not blue fruits.
The Bell Hill pinot noir comes from a blend of different parcels in limestone vineyards of the estate. The wine was almost fully destemmed with some whole bunches thrown in. There was some cold soak before the alcoholic fermentation with a post-maceration on the skins as well. In total it had about 26 to 30 days on the skins. It was aged in 100 percent new French oak barrels for about a year and spent eight months in tank before bottling. Almost 5,000 bottles were made.
STUART PIGOTT, SENIOR EDITOR
Like everyone else in the JamesSuckling.com team, I love to taste the famous names and to discover exciting new wines, but sometimes you just want the company of an old friend.
For me, New Year’s is one of those moments. And, when the world looks dark – here in Northern Europe the days are currently very short, and wherever you live there’s the latest news! – you need light, even if it is a nostalgic glow.
Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Rosé NV and I go back a long way. I can’t remember my first taste of this Champagne, but it was love at first sip sometime in the early 1990s. By the time I visited Billecart-Salmon for the first time 25 years ago I was a big fan, because everything they produced was delicious. It still is! This rosé was important for another reason: it reminded the Champagne industry that rosé could be delicate, vivacious and charming. Back in the 1990s, lots of rosés were clunky and unsubtle.
When my wife, Alexandra, and I married in July 2018, we did so at a quiet ceremony with only our mothers as guests. However, we decided to have some fun with them and ordered a white stretch limo for the journey back home. Their eyes almost popped out of their heads! Of course, we had to drink Champagne during the ride and it was Billecart-Salmon Rosé Brut.
I am well aware that it’s counter-intuitive to select a charming dry rosé in the middle of winter, but you can regard this as a reflection of the James Suckling ethos that you decide what to drink when, with whom and with what food (or none). I raise my glass of pink bubbles to all of you and wish you a Happy New Year, wherever you are and whatever is in your glass!
ZEKUN SHUAI, SENIOR EDITOR
Choosing a single wine for the New Year is a daunting task. We all know that once the party kicks off and glasses are clinked, the bottles vanish in the blink of an eye. But one bottle I will be including in the celebrations is the Domaine de La Taille aux Loups Montlouis-sur-Loire Clos Michet 2021. We tasted it recently for JamesSuckling.com and the flavors still linger. Now my quest is to secure a bottle of it in Hong Kong.
This year, the wine world mourned the loss of Jacky Blot, the visionary winemaker behind Domaine de La Taille aux Loups and Domaine de la Butte in the Loire Valley. I can still recall my sole encounter with him around eight years ago at his humble abode in Montlouis. Back then, I was a student studying in Dijon, and like many of my peers, I seized the opportunity during summer breaks to seek out local winemakers. On that occasion, I found myself driven by sheer spontaneity, lacking any well-laid plans or appointments. Armed only with an address and a rented bicycle, I pedaled my way to his doorstep and rang the bell.
To my surprise, Joelle, Jacky’s wife, opened the door. Despite my unexpected arrival, they welcomed me into their home, where I was treated to a tasting of a full flight of their wines.
For an hour and a half, we immersed ourselves in a blend of conversation and wine, a linguistic dance between my broken French and their limited English. Before bidding farewell to Jacky, I had to express my heartfelt gratitude for his warm hospitality. Of course, I couldn’t leave empty-handed. I bought two chenins, and one of them was Clos Michet.
Jacky was not only a masterful winemaker but also a genuinely exceptional human being. Even to a stranger like me, he extended his kindness and generosity. His chenins and cabernet francs were nothing short of extraordinary, and they continue to captivate palates to this day.
As I tasted the 2021 Clos Michet while I rated it for JamesSuckling.com, my thoughts inevitably drifted to Jacky, and Joni Mitchell’s haunting melody, “The Circle Game,” resonated in my mind. Life, it seems, unfolds like a perpetual carousel, spinning in circles. “We can’t go back; we can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round, in the circle game.”
As we bid farewell to 2023 and toast to 2024, all the answers are in the glass.
NED GOODWIN, SENIOR EDITOR
I find New Year an anticlimactic moment, a bookmark to the end of a year that has ideally held far greater reasons to celebrate than the officious notion that 365 days is up and it’s time to get pissed and start again! I much prefer Christmas, the time when my family and I get together to open great bottles and eat loads of seafood over the course of 48 hours. Nevertheless, my New Year celebration manifests as an early evening swim in the ocean, glimpsing the Sydney Harbor fireworks from my balcony and opening something suitably contemplative. It is generally very warm at this time of year in Australia, so I drink something fresh, be it la lighter-weight red or savory, textural white. I am usually tired of fizz after the family get-together so I opt for something with a bit more weight and toothsomeness. Last year, I enjoyed some aged white Rhone and fiano.
This year? Perhaps something ephemeral and joyous, like cru Beaujolais. Then again, thinking aloud, my better Beaujolais is stored elsewhere. My home storage unit has some Austrian riesling that sounds good, but chenin blanc from the Loire sounds even better. The Loire and chenin is an assemblage responsible for what I believe are the most exciting white wines in the world! I relish the wines from Domaine Ogereau in Anjou, an estate undergoing a renaissance of quality.
While 2021 is a year of tensile wines marked by febrile acidity, I enjoy breaching a freshly purchased stash in its youth, before determining the ideal aging window of the wines. As it turns out, I bought a mixed 12-bottle case of this producer’s 2021s, so why not open a bottle of Bonnes Blanches Sec.
Bonnes Blanches is a lauded, schistous terroir. It is historically known as a lieu-dit of Coteaux du Layon and is responsible, thus, for luscious sweet wines. In this case, however, the wine is steely and dry, exhibiting baked orchard fruit accents, spice and a plume of juicy acidity, sweeping the finish long. The breadth of larger format oak is evident, helping to compress the wine’s nerves and sinew into a ball of chewy tension, ready to be unleashed with a decade or more of age. An aggressive decant will serve as my time machine!
JO COOKE, TASTINGS EDITOR
When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, I’ll be sitting in my kitchen, alone with my dog Ginger, who gets into a bit of a state when the fireworks start.
That might seem a bit of a miserable way to end the year, but don’t worry, I’ll have let loose with some high jinks earlier in the day and evening and I’ve promised myself a glass or two of one of my favorite Bordeaux reds, Chateau Potensac, as a dog-sitting nightcap.
I’ve always thought that Potensac, bearing the “modest” Médoc appellation, hits above its weight. And it must be one of the best Bordeaux values around. I recently picked up a few bottles of Potensac 2020 (James gave it 94 points) at 30 euros apiece.
It’s a wine that also ages well. I remember drinking a bottle of Potensac 1970-something at Chateau Leoville Las Cases with owner Jean-Hubert Delon, who also owns Potensac. I’m going to try to leave a bottle or two in the cellar for a few years, but I honestly don’t hold out much hope for that!
Happy New Year to you all. Drink something good and look after your doggie friends!
CLAIRE NESBITT, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
I usually welcome in the new year with a Champagne, but there’s a fun and special bottle that I’ve decided to open this year. New Year’s Eve will be spent in Hong Kong at a close friend’s apartment, with a view of the fireworks display at midnight. I anticipate a warm evening full of laughter and music.
I will be sharing a bottle of Mayer Syrah Yarra Valley Volcanic 2022 that I bought from their (very small) winery in Yarra Valley, just outside Melbourne, where I went with my partner on holiday in August. I was introduced to Timo Mayer’s wines a couple of years ago here in Hong Kong and was captivated by the vibrant, crunchy nature of his wines, which are made with low intervention, minimal oak influence and substantial whole-bunch or stem inclusion.
It was an enjoyable experience to meet his son, Rivar Mayer Ferguson, and taste through the 2023 wines that were then aging in barrel, including varieties like pinot noir, nebbiolo, sangiovese and syrah. Within their Mayer portfolio, (alongside Dr Mayer and Bloody Hill), they produce a limited amount of both pinot noir and syrah from a vineyard in Upper Yarra Valley that has volcanic, red basalt soils. The syrah is aptly labelled – a more savory, mineral and tight expression, worlds away from “shiraz” hailing from South Australia.
I brought back a bottle of the Volcanic Syrah 2022 and have resisted opening it until now. I’m looking forward to finally enjoying it with my loved ones to bring back and share memories from this year. Although we haven’t yet tasted this wine, you can find the review of Mayer’s regular Syrah Yarra Valley 2022, which we rated this year, and I’ll be sure to take a note of Volcanic 2022 before the evening gets too fuzzy…
ANDRII STETSIUK, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
2023 was a bustling and fruitful year for me, with numerous visits to various wine regions, including some I explored for the first time. The one that stands out is the trip I recently made to Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, where I visited the Envínate winery, whose estate is nestled at an altitude of nearly 1,000 meters in Santiago de Teide, in the northwest part of Tenerife.
Here, they make a cuvee – the Envínate Vinos Atlánticos Migan – that originates from two exceptionally old parcels of listan negro that form one of the most breathtaking vineyards I’ve ever come across. Sixty percent is sourced from the volcanic sand La Habanera plot while the remaining 40 percent comes from the older San Antonio plot below, which comprises more clay. The grapes from the two plots are meticulously hand-harvested, foot-trodden, fermented separately and aged almost a year in used French oak barrels. Bottling is without fining or filtration with almost no addition of sulfur.
The result is a racy and complex wine with vibrant and delicious berry fruit alongside notes of dried herbs and white pepper, as well as some ashy, volcanic undertones. It is structured but very polished and refined wine with soft, almost silky tannins and impressive length. It is also a very gastronomic wine so I’m very much looking forward to opening my 2022 Migan on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 2024.
KEVIN DAVY, TASTING MANAGER
My New Year’s wine pick is slightly different from the usual go-to Champagnes. I generally like to drink a special bottle that represents the year that passed or to prepare for the next one, and the Comando G Sierra de Gredos El Tamboril Tinto 2020 is just the right fit.
Grenache from Comando G and elsewhere in Spain shined in many of our tastings from the country, and a grenache was also our Wine of the Year in Australia The variety represents a style that is perfect for celebratory occasions, at its best giving us ethereal, transparent and pristine wines that caress the palate but don’t lack structure or character.
With grenache, winemakers can offer pinot-like, terroir-driven wines that keep their crunch and freshness while delivering highly mineral and precise expressions.
El Tamboril is a glossy, highly mineral and spicy grenache from 70-year-old vines from high altitude. It has a bolder structure that some of Comando G’s range yet it seduces with tangy red fruit and a long finish. Cheers to a bright 2024 for grenache and more.
