The most memorable wines of 2024
I’VE had the privilege of drinking some wonderful wines this year, including a few rare, breathtakingly gorgeous old bottles.
Those are often the ones that stick in the memory, the experiences that you carry around as benchmarks of beauty.
But I drank a lot of memorable wines that were not so rare, old or hard to find. This year, as I considered which bottles to include in my year-end list, I decided to focus on 12 younger, more accessible bottles along with a couple of middle-aged examples.
Perhaps for that reason, every bottle is from the 21st century, the first time for me since I’ve been writing year-end lists. Time passes quickly.
Here they are, in order of their age.
Kelley Fox, Dundee Hills Dux Vineyard Chardonnay 2022
Each year, Oregon chardonnays seem to get better, more precise and more interesting. One that I’ve enjoyed several times this year was the 2022 Dux Vineyard chardonnay from Kelley Fox in the Willamette Valley.
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Fox tends to float under the radar compared with the more well-known Willamette producers. She offers quirky, sometimes pointed opinions. Referring to her own wines, she said, “These are living things and quite inscrutable.”
I’ve found them lovely, precise and detailed, each well worth scrutinising. This bottle riveted my attention in August with its beautiful texture and feeling of being alive in the glass.
Bow & Arrow, Willamette Valley Chenin Blanc 2021
Here’s another Willamette Valley white wine. It comes from a terrific producer, Bow & Arrow, which often departs from the usual Willamette narrative of pinot noir and chardonnay to make easy drinking, delicious wines from an assortment of grapes.
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This bottle was deeply expressive, earthy and floral with that honeysuckle quality I often find in chenins. It suggests sweetness, but the wine was bone dry with a pleasing, weighty texture.
I rarely see chenin blanc from the Willamette Valley, except for Bow & Arrow’s. But as the grape has gained new life in the United States over the last decade, perhaps this wine will be a harbinger.
Domaine de Cassiopee, Hautes-Cotes de Beaune Les Cotes 2020
Such is the thirst for good, relatively affordable Burgundy that no sooner do talented young producers come along, working in fringe areas of the region (because that’s what they can afford), than the demand skyrockets for their wines, as do the prices.
Case in point: Domaine de Cassiopee, started by Hugo Mathurin and Talloulah Dubourg in 2020, based in Maranges, in the south-west corner of the Cote-de-Beaune. This was their first vintage, from the Hautes-Cotes region on the slopes nearby.
I had enjoyed their wines in a bistro in Beaune and so had bought a few bottles back in New York before prices started rising. Like all good Burgundy, it was joyous and a little mysterious. How can wine so expressive and pleasurable be simultaneously so light and fresh? Questions like that are why people keep drinking Burgundy.
Martin Texier, Brezeme 2020
With his stunning, finely etched, long-lived syrah wines, Martin Texier’s father, Eric Texier, put the long-forgotten region of Brezeme, in the southernmost part of the Northern Rhone Valley, back on the map. Now, Martin Texier is doing the work as well, making terrific wines of his own even as Eric Texier continues his work.
Martin Texier’s wines do not require as much ageing as his father’s before you can enjoy them. He farms organically and works without the addition of sulfur dioxide, an almost universally used antioxidant and stabiliser. This Brezeme, like most of his wines, is pure and energetic, as much fun to drink as it is delicious.
L’Acino Calabria, Giramondo 2020
I’ve always been fascinated with Calabria, even though I’ve yet to visit. This beautiful, mountainous area, which forms the toe of the Italian boot, is not much known for its wines, and I’ve rarely had an exciting one.
This bottle was different. The wine was made entirely out of organically grown malvasia, fermented and aged without the addition of sulfur dioxide.
It was bone dry yet wildly fragrant, as if it carried the perfume of a field of flowers. On the palate it was lively with a slight, refreshingly bitter aftertaste. It was the kind of wine that would go perfectly with a plate of pasta and anchovies.
Enric Soler, Catalonia Istiu 2020
I have been writing about Enric Soler’s wines for several years now, and I see no reason to stop. Each time I try a bottle, it seems like a revelation.
Soler, a former sommelier, makes tiny amounts of white wine, all based on the xarello grape, best known as a traditional constituent of cava, the Catalonian sparkling wine, along with macabeu and parellada. But xarello can make wonderful still wines as well, as Soler and others have demonstrated in recent years.
His other cuvees are made entirely of xarello. Istiu, though, is half xarello and half malvasia. It’s got a lightning bolt of acidity and a texture that feels great in the mouth. I drank it as I was researching a piece on Spain, perhaps the most exciting wine country today. This bottle is itself a compelling argument.
Pheasant’s Tears, Kakheti Saperavi 2019
The country of Georgia in the Caucasus is among the sites where grapevines were first domesticated thousands of years ago. Winemaking there predates recorded history, and local traditions of production, often in qvevris, amphoras that are buried in the ground, have persisted even though the Soviet Union tried to quash this important element of local culture.
The wines of Pheasant’s Tears were among the first Georgian bottles I tasted 10 or 15 years ago, and they continue to be excellent examples. The saperavi grape often produces sturdy reds that need time to unfurl. But this bottle, made with the intention of lightening the weight and tannic intensity, was spry, refreshing and, after five years of ageing, almost delicate. It reminded me of a good blaufrankisch or Chianti Classico, and indeed was great with a sausage ragu.
Val Delle Corti, Chianti Classico Riserva 2019
Speaking of Chianti Classico, I wrote a piece this fall about the vast improvements I had seen in Chianti Classico Riservas over the last few years. Riservas were intended to be a step up from basic Chianti Classicos, but too often I found them heavy and dull, smashing you over the head with the tannins and flavors from new oak barrels.
No more. Now, they are really good. Most of the producers I mentioned in the article were already familiar, but I did find a new one to me, Val Delle Corti, which makes wines of organically farmed Sangiovese grown at high altitude in Radda-in-Chianti.
Where have you been all my life? I loved this wine. It was light and elegant, bright and focused, a classic example of intensity without weight.
Matt Taylor, West Sonoma Coast Komorebi Vineyard Chardonnay 2017
I had been hearing great things about the wines of Matt Taylor, who obsessively makes tiny amounts of pinot noir and chardonnay on the Sonoma Coast. But I never was able to track down a bottle until a dinner in September at Point Seven, a seafood restaurant near New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. I had to try it.
It was unforgettable, so different in style from the lean, precise chardonnays that are in fashion around the world today. This seemed broader, more richly textured, both complex and saline. I later learned that Taylor had been influenced by Richard Leroy, the great chenin blanc producer in the Loire Valley. Different grapes, different places, yet I found a distinct note of resemblance.
Felsina, Vin Santo del Chianti Classico 2015
I’ve generally not been a fan of vin santos, sweet wines made by drying grapes to concentrate the sugars before fermenting and ageing. Maybe I’ve chosen the wrong bottles, because when I drank this one for an article on sweet wines as Valentine’s gifts, I absolutely loved it. It’s made with trebbiano, malvasia and sangiovese grapes. The wine was lightly sweet, creamy, buttery and complex, like biting into the best soft toffee.
Chateau Durfort-Vivens, Margaux 2001
I found this 23-year-old bottle from an underrated Bordeaux producer on the wine list at Noize in London. I’ve always loved the 2001 Bordeaux vintage, which was overshadowed by the much-hyped millennial vintage the year before. The wines are not as dense and concentrated as the 2000s, but they are often gorgeous. This bottle certainly was, midweight and velvety with bright, vivid flavours of violets and red fruits.
Corison, Napa Valley 2001
Cabernet sauvignon often gets a bad rap these days. To many people, it connotes an air of fusty stolidity. But I love cabernet and will always stick up for it, especially when the grapes are not harvested overripe and the winemaker allows full expression of its aromas and flavours, which often include a herbal quality that is too frequently dismissed as “green.”
Cathy Corison has always championed cabernet, so much so that, unlike many other cabernet producers, she adds none of the traditional blending grapes like merlot or cabernet franc. With sufficient ageing, her wines always have a lot to say. This 2001 was a beautiful expression of the potential of Napa cabernets, graceful and complex with a lovely balance of earthy, stony, fruit and herbal flavours.
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