Napa Valley’s 2023 vintage featured prominently in our November tastings of 2,313 wines, with seven bottles we gave 99- or 100-point scores to coming from that excellent year in California’s most renowned wine region.

The New Zealand wines we tasted in October showed great promise, especially from the 2024 vintage, with both reds and whites displaying “striking intensity and precision – the gift of a dry yet fresh season.” Top bottles also came from Napa, Spain, Portugal, Germany and China.

The tasters at JamesSuckling.com rated 2,373 wines in September, with perfection pouring in from all directions. We had nine 100-point bottles – four Napa Valley cabernet sauvignons, a pinot noir and chardonnay from Sonoma County and another chard and two rieslings from Germany.

August proved bountiful for the JamesSuckling.com tasting team, who uncovered a whopping 15 wines that scored 100 or 99 points, ranging from German rieslings and pinot noirs to Napa Valley chardonnays and Australian shiraz.

Our July tastings extended from the rolling hills of Sonoma County in California to the lush riverine valley of the Rheingau in Germany to the cloyingly picturesque region of Chianti Classico in Italy, and they all had one thing in common: they delivered a handful of perfect-scoring wines and some eminently fresh and drinkable offerings.