A Sonoma Chard Whopper, Plus China’s ‘Blessed Year’: Weekly Tasting Report

The JamesSuckling.com tasting team rated 569 wines from 10 countries over the past week, starting with the whopper of a wine we reeled in from Sonoma Coast, California. James described the Sounds Chardonnay Sonoma Coast Fort Ross-Seaview The Goldener 2023 as if it were something just plucked fresh out of the Pacific surf, bursting in umami, seaweed and oyster shell flavors.

This striking, stony, intense chardonnay from Jason Exposto and Lauren Strojny is full-bodied and powerful, with a richness of fruit and an underlying stone and terra cotta finish. The grapes were grown at 1,100 feet elevation about three miles from the Pacific Ocean. Dried apple, cooked apple, grape skin and caramel hints are generous, while the texture is reserved and focused, meaning the wine is fine to hold onto for a few years.

Exposto is also the winemaker at Futo Estate in Napa Valley, and Strojny gained experience at Calera Winery. And almost as memorable this week was another of their wines we tasted, the racy and driven Sounds Chardonnay Napa Valley Atlas Peak Waters 2023.

Since taking over the Central Coast beat this spring, Staff writer and Taster Brian Freedman has spent a lot of time exploring Monterey, Santa Cruz, Paso Robles and Santa Barbara County. Two things have become clear: The Central Coast is impressively diverse, with dozens of grape varieties that thrive in the many tucked-away pockets of its individual AVAs. And pinot noir, as expected, has been a highlight.

Calera proved this with two standouts this week from the challenging 2022 vintage. Their Pinot Noir Mt. Harlan De Villiers Vineyard 2022 rises with blue flowers, violet pastilles and incense alongside plums, blackberries and amarena cherries. It’s focused, sappy and long, and promises a lovely evolution ahead. Their Pinot Noir Mt. Harlan Jensen Vineyard 2022, on the other hand, is flecked with minerals, mountain scrub and spice, and tannins frame flavors of plums and wild mountain berries, lending it real poise and balance.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Jamie Kutch produced two expressive, elegant and detailed pinot noirs from the same vineyard. The Kutch Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountains Mindego Ridge Vineyard Ridge Top 2023 is particularly impressive, with mysterious forest floor and licorice root bass notes humming beneath brambleberries. It brings together power and acidity harmoniously, and black raspberries, dark cherries, violet pastilles and woodsy spice unfurl on the long finish.

As more 2023s show up on wine lists and retail shelves, and as the so-far impressive 2024s continue to roll out, wine lovers will increasingly have an abundance of riches to choose from with the best of the Central Coast.

Associate Editor Ryan Montgomery tasted the latest releases from Keplinger, the label founded by Napa winemaker Helen Keplinger, who has built a reputation as one of California’s most talented and thoughtful modern winemakers. A graduate of the University of California, Davis, Helen refined her craft working alongside icons such as Heidi Barrett and David Abreu before launching her own label in 2006.

Her wines are known for precision, purity and textural balance, drawing on her deep experience with both California terroirs and classical Rhone varieties. This was on full display as Ryan tasted from Helen’s downtown Napa, mid-century inspired tasting room. Helens’ signature style of intensity balanced with freshness from the 2022 harvest was evident in fruit sourced from Amador County’s hillsides to the cool reaches of Carneros. Despite the warmer and more challenging growing conditions in California that year, the new releases show poise, energy and depth.

The highlight of the lineup and highest-scoring wine was the Keplinger Amador Lithic 2022, a blend of grenache, syrah and mourvedre from Ann Kraemer’s Shake Ridge Vineyard. It is rich and complex, showing aromas of blackberry, black olive and licorice, with a palate that combined power and finesse.

The Keplinger Syrah Carneros Truchard Vineyard Solitaire 2022 shows a classical northern Rhone edge, with black fruits, cured meat and herb notes balanced by focus and lift, while the Keplinger Amador County Sumo 2022 stands as the boldest of the lineup –dense, polished and deeply flavored. Together, they reaffirm Keplinger’s ability to craft wines of structure and elegance that speak clearly of their sites.

China's 'Blessed Year'

Senior Editor Zekun Shuai has been traveling across China over the past two weeks, finding promising wines from emerging regions such as Huailai, Ningxia and Yunnan.

Canaan Winery, about 100 kilometers northwest of Beijing in Huailai County, caught Zekun’s eye in particular with its Chapter and Verse Syrah Huailai Mastery 诗百篇特选西拉 2022. Chief winemaker Zhao Desheng described 2022 as a “blessed year,” benefiting from ideal weather conditions, with only a minor hail in June and autumn frost. The warm summer months of August and September were marked by minimal rainfall, enabling optimal ripening conditions for the grapes. Harvesting of the syrah grapes started on Sept. 24 and concluded by Oct. 9, and most were picked before a severe frost the region saw on Oct. 3.

Zekun noted that the 2022 syrah is the finest he has tasted from Canaan’s “Mastery” level of wines – one positioned between their “select” and “reserve” categories. It’s a tier that often exemplifies good value, and 2022 has delivered the best so far, and we hope they don’t increase their prices.

It is a more eclectic syrah expression from Huailai, merging the depth and opulence typical of warmer vintages like 2014 and 2019 with a freshness reminiscent of cooler years, and featuring vibrant red and blue fruit notes alongside an engaging twist of peppercorn.

The wine also shows a bit more crunch and tension, if not precision, reflecting the perfect ripening conditions and judicious timing of the harvest that year. Notably, a small percentage of whole clusters were included during fermentation, adding complexity and freshness to the final wine.

In contrast, Zekun found many of the late and cooler 2020 vintage wines from Canaan and Domaine Franco-Chinois to be less impressive, especially cabernet sauvignons. This serves as a reminder of the vintage variability in China that can significantly influence wine quality, even among the most consistent producers.

It underscores the notion that fine wines often emerge from regions where vines are subject to mild stress, and that embracing the inherent risks of vintage variation – good or bad – seems essential for achieving exceptional wines.

Traveling to Ningxia, a region characterized by a warmer yet shorter growing season with semi-arid continental climate, Zekun observed that achieving freshness and finesse has become paramount. The region's top wines, including many cabernet sauvignons, often reach higher alcohol levels than their counterparts from Huailai, Penglai or Yunnan.

A standout example is the Ren Yi Yuan Cabernet Sauvignon Ningxia Dao 仁益源·道赤霞珠 2020, which boasts a robust 15 percent alcohol. But don’t freak out. This wine exemplifies complexity with a full body, masses of dusty tannins and solid balance, demonstrating the richness and hedonistic characters of Ningxia’s best offerings. The producer, having gained momentum in recent years, is positioning itself as a significant player in the region, as evidenced by its last few vintages.

In stark contrast, the Xiao Ling Shangri-La 霄岭 2022 from Yunnan presents a more delicate interpretation of cabernet sauvignon, resonating with a pinot or Beaujolais sensibility. This aligns with Xiao Ling’s established style, always offering elegance, finesse and heightened drinkability. The high-altitude terroir contributes to pure, racy fruit that is consistently fresh, juicy and delicious, with a unique character and sense of place.

Focused on Greatness

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott returned over the past week to the ruggedly beautiful Nahe wine region because it’s the source of many of the most exciting wines that Germany produces – especially dry whites from the riesling grape. Jakob and Laura Schneider of the Jakob Schneider winery in Niederhausen are perfect examples of the Nahe winemaker’s tendency to focus unswervingly upon on the production of great wine, rather than public-relations activities.

2024 was a very low-yield vintage in the central section of the Nahe due to the terrible frost on April 23 that destroyed almost all the young vine shoots in some sites. The famous Dellchen of Norheim and the HermannshOhle of Niederhausen sites were luckier than many others, but the Schneiders’ wines from them have terrific intensity as a result.

The Jakob Schneider Riesling Nahe Norheimer Dellchen Trocken 2024 is s multidimensional dry riesling masterpiece, combining a caressing richness with terrific finesse and lemon zest freshness.

In contrast, the Jakob Schneider Riesling Nahe Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Magnus Trocken 2024 is on the herbal side of peachy with enormous concentration, then a massively mineral but impeccably balanced finish.

There were a string of other exciting wines here, and the frost forced the Schneiders to seek out alternative sources for their non-riesling, entry-level wines that actually lifted them in quality. Scroll down to find all these.

Further downstream close to the Nahe’s confluence with the Rhine, the situation of Georg and Julia Rumpf of the Kruger-Rumpf winery in Munster-Sarmsheim is fundamentally similar, but the frost damage in 2024 was much less here. Georg Rumpf is a champion of the long forgotten Abtei site of Bingerbruck, part of which was planted in 1937, but for complex reasons relating to the rules of the elite VDP producers association, of which he is a member, this now has to be made as a village wine.

The Kruger-Rumpf Riesling Nahe Bingerbrücker Trocken 1937 2024 is clearly the best village wine that Stuart has tasted in Germany this year. It has great ripeness and stony minerality alongside intense wild herb, bergamot and licorice flavors and an incredibly long, wet-stone finish.

Another wine here fails to fit into the conventional structures of Germany. The Kruger-Rumpf Landwein Rhein Grosser Strom 2023 is a cuvee of wines from the Scharlachberg GG site in Rheinhessen region and the Im Pitterberg GG site in the Nahe. It effortlessly marries intense wet-stone minerality with great white peach and white currant fruit, and there’s a major tannin structure on the very concentrated, medium-bodied palate.

With the 2024 vintage, Julia Rumpf also launched her Haus Rothenberg winery, which was created when she and her husband purchased the old Sitzius winery in nearby Langenlonsheim. For a first vintage, the Haus Rothenberg Julia Rumpf Riesling Nahe Rothenberg Trocken 2024 is a remarkable achievement, and the most expressive wine Stuart has tasted from the Rothenberg, another forgotten great site.

– Jim Gordon, Brian Freedman, Ryan Montgomery, Zekun Shuai and Stuart Pigott contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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