I knew back in 2016 what would be the JamesSuckling.com Wine of the Year in 2018. Or at least, I had a pretty fair idea. I tasted 800 barrel samples in Bordeaux in March 2016, and I was blown away by the superb quality of the 2015 vintage. It was a superlative year producing classically structured reds with incredible beauty, structure, freshness, and finesse. They were neo-classical wines reminiscent of great young Bordeaux of my career such as 1982 and 1989. I gave potential perfect 100-point ratings to eight wines. About two years later (January this year), I tasted the 2015 Bordeaux again, and I rated 14 wines 100 points. It was the largest number of perfect wines in a single vintage of Bordeaux in my nearly four decades as a wine critic.
My favorite perfect wine of the 2015 vintage has always been St.-Emilion’s Chateau Canon, and that’s why it’s our 2018 Wine of the Year. This blend of cabernet franc and merlot is an exquisite wine showing depth and intensity and superb concentration with balance. It is a wine of a lifetime.
The 2015 Chateau Canon is our wine of the year showing incredible depth, structure and finesse and rated 100 points!
The Canon 2015 was just one of dozens of perfect wines rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team this year including myself, my son Jack, Nick Stock and Stuart Pigott. We tasted more than 22,000 wines in 2018 and travelled to dozens of tasting locations around the world from Napa Valley to Barossa Valley to France, Spain, Italy, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and the United States – and back again. We visited dozens of wineries and spoke to hundreds of winemakers. We did the due diligence in tasting and reporting on the best wines of this year. And we are proud of all the hard work!
This year’s top 100 is based on the best wines we tasted with a minimum production of about 300 cases. We had some other top scoring wines such as rarified trockenbeerenauslese and tiny single-vineyard production wines, but we decided not to include them in the list since very few people in the world will ever drink them! The score was the most important factor in our ranking for the Top 100 list, but we also arranged the wines in their respective ratings level according to price whereby a wine with the same score with a lower price would be positioned higher in the list. We also only allowed one wine per winery in the list.
Bordeaux dominated the list with almost two dozen wines and rightly so considering the greatness of the 2015. I have written numerous times that “Bordeaux is Back!” with this wonderful vintage. And it is back in strength. Don’t miss buying these wines, particularly from the Right Bank (Pomerol and St. Emilion), which are already delicious to drink but will improve with age for decades ahead.
Besides Bordeaux’s Canon (No. 1), Belair-Monange (No. 2) and Beausejour Duffau-Lagarosse (No. 6) being in the Top 10 of 2018, we chose a fascinating array of different wines including a dry riesling from one of Germany’s greatest winemakers, the Dönnhoff family – Dönnhoff Riesling Nahe Dellchen GG 2017 (No. 3). This glorious white highlights Germany‘s continued success with dry white winemaking and the dedication and precision of its top winemakers. At No. 4 is Taylor’s Vintage Port 2016. Vintage Port is a lifelong favorite (I wrote my only book about it back in 1989) and the Taylor’s is the jewel of this fantastic new vintage for Portugal’s famous fortified wine.
Jack Suckling, Stuart Pigott and myself tasting in Mendoza, Argentina, this year. We found a general movement to finesse and balance from just simply power.
Clos Apalta Valle de Apalta 2015 (No. 5) is the second vintage in a row from this great name of Chile to receive 100 points and it continues to amaze us with its balance, beauty and integrity. It underlines the ever growing movement to produce world class wines in Chile and the uniqueness of the various terroirs of the country. The Ridge Vineyards Santa Cruz Mountains Monte Bello 2015 is equally unique but for its long history of quality winemaking and its adherence to maintaining its character and style in California red winemaking while so many others in the state went to high octane bottlings.
Le Macchiole Bolgheri Scrio 2015 (No. 6) and Marchesi Antinori Toscana Solaia 2015 (No. 7) are equally harmonious and unique as the great California cabernet. They show how amazing the 2015 vintage was in Italy, particularly Tuscany. The pure syrah Scrio was one of dozens of superb wines from the coast of Tuscany while Solaia 2015 is the greatest Solaia in its almost four decades history.
The Tyrrell’s Shiraz Hunter Valley Old Patch 2017 (No. 10) is the second time this Australian icon has been in our Top 100 and we revel in the wine’s uniqueness and history as it is produced from vineyards planted in 1867. This is the greatest old-vine wine in existence.
Yet this year’s list of JamesSuckling.com’s Top 100 Wines of 2018 has so many exceptional wines. They are wines that all of us – me, Jack, Nick and Stuart – dream about drinking again and enjoying a moment with family and friends to taste and savor their greatness. We hope you enjoy this year’s Top 100 too! — James Suckling, Editor & CEO JamesSuckling.com
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