The JamesSuckling.com tasting team had plenty of stellar wines to choose from for our Top 100 Wines of the USA 2024 list. In fact, we had 800-plus tasting notes that carried 95- to 100-point ratings to sort through and consider.
Value has always been a key factor in our Top 100 lists, and we applied that with even more focus this year. So even though dozens of U.S. wines were rated 99 to 100 points, most of them were hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per bottle. Most didn’t make this list.
This Top 100 starts with a Top 10 that doesn’t go over $200 a bottle, and every bottle on the entire list sells for less than $500. Score, price and the “wow” factor determine a wine’s placement, with the latter stemming largely from the elements of discovery and surprise in any particular bottle by way of variety, the region it comes from or how it’s made.
We wanted to show you things you don’t know about already, starting with our U.S. Wine of the Year. What’s unusual about it isn’t that it’s from Napa, but that it’s not a cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay. Instead, it’s a beautiful, 98-point merlot that costs about $120 a bottle.
The Pahlmeyer Merlot Napa Valley 2021 takes top honors for its mountain-grown concentration and elegance at a reasonable price. Merlot is still with us in California and is doing just fine, though it’s now considered an uncommon option for many.
Pahlmeyer’s winemaker, Katie Vogt, crafted this wine from grapes grown in the high-elevation Stagecoach Vineyard and nearby Waters vineyard in Napa’s Atlas Peak district. The year was perfect to put a little more tannin and concentration into it.
“Everything is on level 11 for 2021,” Vogt told me this past summer. “Everything is volume up: intensity, tannin and acidity.” This especially applies to our No. 1 pick – a wine that could convert any merlot skeptic into a fan.
The wine is intense and saturated with flavor but wrapped in luscious tannins that tempt you to drink it now. We loved the blueberries, creme de cassis, cherries and mint nuances.
Two syrahs, two pinot noirs, three chardonnays and yes, two cabernet sauvignons complete the Top 10. They come from Oregon and Washington as well as California.
The No. 2 Hyde de Villaine Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros Hyde Vineyard 2021 comes from a property known for its rich chardonnays, but this one emphasizes the exciting saline and chalky mineral components that we love today.
Both the No. 3 Arterberry Maresh Chardonnay Dundee Hills Maresh Vineyard 2022 from the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the No. 10 Sandhi Chardonnay Santa Rita Hills Romance 2022 from Southern California are all about tension, linearity and distinct mineral characters.
The syrahs were grown even farther apart. The No. 8 Stolpman Syrah Ballard Canyon The Great Places August James Stolpman 2022 comes from Santa Barbara County, while the No. 9 K Vintners Syrah Yakima Valley Motor City Kitty 2021 is a Washington State creation.
Syrah, like merlot in many ways, is not a big star in the wine sales universe but that’s why some of the greatest examples in the U.S., like these, don’t top $100 in price. Both are in a distinctive orbit where the Stolpman’s gamey, beef crudo flavors and the Motor City Kitty’s tapenade, volcanic ash and tea leaves jarred our tasters out of their usual trajectories.
The RAEN Pinot Noir Sonoma County Sonoma Coast Freestone Occidental Bodega Vineyard 2022, our No. 5 U.S. wine, is not only a super long name but a “mind-blowing “bottle of wine, as James described it. Imagine purple fruit with lavender and seaweed alongside hints of volcanic salt and peaches. This is a full-bodied yet tensioned and very focused offering out of Sonoma.
The Vivier Pinot Noir Sonoma County Sonoma Mountain Van der Kamp Vineyard 2021 (No. 7) came from farther inland in the Sonoma region, where this particular property ranks among the oldest pinot noir sites in the state. The current vines were planted in 1952, and under Stephane Vivier’s care they produced a wine steeped in floral, rosemary, mushroom and star anise flavors.
Cabernet sauvignons from Washington and Napa Valley took the No. 4 and 6 spots. The 99-point Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Horse Heaven Hills Tchelistcheff 2021 is the most expensive pick in the Top 10 at $200, but it earned it through its fantastic quality and a style honed over several decades. Sourced from the estate-owned Mach One Vineyard perched on a cliff overlooking the Columbia River, this sleek but powerful bottling is the product of what owner Paul Golitzin calls a “fast and furious” vintage.
It’s getting more and more difficult to find any real bargains in big Napa Valley reds, but we found one that’s a great relative value in our No. 6 wine, the DuMOL Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Coombsville Meteor Vineyard 2021. The price of $135 isn’t small change, but it is a fraction of what many similarly scored Napa wines cost, and it’s a pure cabernet sauvignon with such finesse and length.
Altogether, the tasting notes below include 79 reds, 20 whites and just one distinctive sparkling wine, the Domaine Carneros Carneros Blanc de Blancs Le Rêve 2016. Its lively acidity and tight phenolics give amazing form and structure.
As you study the list you’ll see many great California cabernets, too. Most are from the 2021 vintage, which we rate highly for the intense concentration and tannic textures that resulted from a very small crop in a drought year.
Several collectible cabs and a syrah push into the $400 range here, including perfect-scoring classics like the Colgin Syrah IX Estate 2021 from Napa and Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 from the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Enjoy browsing the whole Top 100 Wines of the USA 2024, of course, but you can also do more. We recommend you buy as many as possible and taste them for yourself. Discover in your own glass some of the best things happening in U.S. wine country.
– Jim Gordon, Executive Editor
Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2024 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
