Top 100 French Wines of 2017

We have some great wines on our list of Top 100 French Wines of 2017. Out of the total of more than 17,000 different bottles tasted and rated last year, close to 4,000 of them were French wines. In other words, we’ve spent literally months in various regions of France – particularly Bordeaux, Alsace, Champagne and Rhone Valley – tasting and visiting wine producers.  We also did numerous tastings in Burgundy, where we focused on wines from leading negociants and Beaujolais.

This is a list based on our highest ratings of French wines, and the rankings do not take pricing into consideration. France’s best wines are expensive as we all know, so be prepared to shell out a lot of money for these wines. 

The majority of our wines on the list are 2014 Bordeaux, which I still believe most people underestimate. The quality of most of these top wines is excellent, as they show balance and refinement with early drinkability. I like to compare the vintage to 2001, which was completely overshadowed by 2000; however, many of the wines, particularly from the Right Bank, are of outstanding quality. I rated two Right Bank wines a perfect 100 points in the 2014 vintage.

The above is why our No. 1 wine of France is the legendary Château Lafleur Pomerol 2014. The cabernet franc and merlot blend is one of the most coveted in France, and this 2014 shows incredible length and intensity, reminding me of the great 1998. This 2014’s exuberance on the nose – aromas of complex fruit, earth and flower – really strikes you when you taste it, and it follows through on the palate to a tight and focused, hyper-structured mouthfeel. This is classic Bordeaux at its best. It’s modern and precise, and yet it highlights the hallowed terroir of Lafleur.

The No. 2 wine, Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal 2008, is one that is only coming on to the market in few months, and I am definitely saving up to buy some. With staggering density and impressive balance, this is one of the greatest Roederer Cristals ever made. It’s a wine for the long term, and it’s best to leave it for six or seven years in the cellar before drinking. However, the vibrant youth of this great Champagne is hard to be patient with. Simply put, it’s great to drink anytime.

St.-Emilion’s revered Château Ausone is our No. 3 with the 2014 vintage, which scored a perfect rating like the stunning Lafleur. Ausone is one of those wines that is bought by collectors around the world and put away in their cellars until drinking. There’s almost no secondary market, and less than 2,000 cases of this particular wine were made. Therefore, the Ausone with the 2014 vintage will be difficult to find — even at more than $1,000 a bottle.

The Joseph Drouhin Montrachet Grand Cru Marquis De Laguiche 2014 (No. 3) is also a tough bottle to buy; this is not only because of its high price but also its rarity. As a wine lover, I have been an admirer of Laguiche Montrachet for my entire life. Its intensity and power, as well as freshness and energy, make it so extremely special and attractive to drink young and old. This 2014 vintage was a challenging one for Burgundy but the whites are clearly better than the reds, and this particular white must be the cream of the crop.

The next five wines in the top 10 of our Top 100 are all Bordeaux, from the appellations of Pauillac, St-Julien and Pessac-Léognan. The big surprise, among the first growths and La Mission, is Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. It might be one of the best value, great wines released last year anywhere in the world. The second growth shows tremendous quality, and Ducru owner Bruno Borie admits that the 2014 is so exceptional that he might actually like it better than his 2015, which is a better overall and more classic vintage than 2014.

We had to place the Louis Latour Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 2015 at No. 9 to underline how much we love 2015 as a vintage for red Burgundy. Just about every red – and white – we tasted, from simple Bourgogne to Grand Cru, revealed sensational quality. For instance, the Charmes-Chambertin from Latour is an absolute stunner. And it shows that Latour, which many people think can only make great whites, can slay it with a great red in a superlative year like 2015.

Finally, our contributing editor Nick Stock spends a week or two every year in the Rhone Valley tasting. And his best wine last year was the Thierry Allemand Cornas Reynard 2014. There’s so much talk about Hermitage, Côte Rotie and Châteauneuf by Rhone lovers but Cornas sometimes goes overlooked. Only a few hundred cases were made, so if you can find it, don’t miss this powerful and elegant syrah.

Many of the wines on this list are going to be hard to buy because of the limited production and high prices. Yet, our list of the Top 100 French Wines of 2017 underlines that France is still the pre-eminent wine country of classic, terroir-driven bottles, offering incredible drinkability and experiences.