A Sunny Champagne, Oregon’s Stellar Pinot Noirs and Germany’s Undiscovered Jewel: Weekly Tasting Report

We tasted 440 wines over the past week, with a 2009 Champagne, some sterling pinot noirs from Oregon and a classic Napa cabernet sauvignon at the top of our ratings and other offerings from Germany and Chile showing terrific potential.

Le Clos St.-Hilaire is a small, single-hectare plot of old pinot noir vines in Mareuil-sur-Ay, France, where Billecart-Salmon produces only about 4,000 bottles of its Champagne in selective vintages. The latest release, from the sunny 2009 vintage, is wonderfully rich and generous, seducing with aromas of yellow nectarine fruit, sourdough, toast and white truffles.

“The Clos on release can be shy, but you can sense the power,” said CEO Mathieu Roland-Billecart, who told Staff Writer Claire Nesbitt over Zoom that the 2009 vintage produced wines showing generosity of fruit combined with good acidity, similar to 2006.

The Billecart-Salmon Champagne Le Clos St.-Hilaire 2009 is at the top of our ratings this week, but it is closely followed by their Champagne Cuvée Nicolas François 2012, which is a pinot noir-chardonnay blend from a challenging, cold season that ultimately produced powerful vintage wines. It’s tense, very long and structured, with a zesty backbone of acidity – “the signature of the year,” according to Roland-Billecart – while displaying enticing aromas of waffle cones, vanilla beans and pastries.

Meanwhile, Billecart-Salmon’s latest non-vintage releases represent a few changes that the Champagne house has made in the last few years, which include longer lees aging, less dosage, more reserve wines and more wines vinified in barrel. Check out Le Reserve (previously called Brut Reserve), which is currently a blend of 15 vintages based on 2020, as well as Le Sous Bois – a fully barrel-vinified non-vintage Champagne based on 2017 with reserve wines from a perpetual reserve dating back to 2006. Both are layered and complex wines at the Extra Brut level.

Stellar Pinot Noirs

Executive Editor Jim Gordon and Associate Editor Andrii Stetsiuk recently traveled to Oregon for a week of intensive tastings in stormy, rain- and hail-plagued weather, then came back to Jim’s home base in Napa for an intensive week there with a slightly warmer version of the same last-gasp-of-winter weather. They tasted about 1,000 wines total in that two-week period, many highlights of which are in the notes below.

Pinot noirs from Domaine Drouhin earned the two highest Oregon scores this week in a tasting with owner-winemaker Veronique Drouhin and her winemaker for their separate Roserock property, Isabelle Dutartre. Jim rated the Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir Dundee Hills Laurène 2023, with 3,600 cases made, the same as the smaller production Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir Dundee Hills Edition Limitée 2023. The former is gorgeous, powerful and deep, while the Limitée is more fragrant, floral, fresh and pretty.

In California, Ted Lemon, the owner and winemaker of Littorai Wines, has championed for 30 years pinot noirs and chardonnays grown in the coolest parts of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Three of his 2023 reds from the Mendocino appellation of Anderson Valley are near the top of this week’s U.S. scores.

Lemon calls the 2023s especially aromatic, and notes how late the harvest was, after abnormally cool but otherwise nearly perfect growing conditions for Burgundian varieties. “We had good canopy health, nice, warmer weather in spring and a healthy fruit set everywhere,” he said. “The ‘23 harvest began for us in the third week of September and finished on Nov. 1,” adding that it was the first time in his career the harvest had run into November.

A particularly notable property in Anderson Valley is responsible for his elegant, linear, savory and mineral-driven Littorai Pinot Noir Mendocino Anderson Valley Savoy Vineyard 2023. Equally highly rated are Littorai’s 2023s from Roman Vineyard and The Return, both also grown in Anderson Valley. Look for the rest of the Littorai lineup notes in the coming weeks.

At Cathiard Vineyard in Napa Valley, Jim tasted the 2022 estate-grown reds and got a barrel-making lesson from Cathiard’s resident cooper, Alban Trouve. He has recently begun forming, toasting and finishing the winery’s new barrels on the large, hillside Cathiard property just south of St. Helena, using staves cut from 100-year-old oak trees in the French Troncais forest.

Florence and Daniel Cathiard, who also own Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte in Bordeaux, brought the chateau estate approach to Napa when they purchased the property in 2020, and they grow all their own grapes and age the wines in an on-site cave. One of these, the 2022 vintage of their flagship Cathiard Vineyard Napa Valley, was at the top of our overall ratings this week. It’s a 100 percent cabernet sauvignon that is super concentrated and super fine in texture, made from the oldest vines on the property, planted in 1978.

The 2022 vintage in Napa and Sonoma was a challenging one due to severe heat that suffocated the region just before most cabernet sauvignon was ready to harvest. But this wine met the challenge beautifully. Cathiard winemaker Justine Labbe acknowledged the tough conditions. “We were lucky to be on the shady side of the valley, and we had plenty of rain early in the year to grow a good canopy that helps protect the grapes,” she said.

She started harvesting malbec and merlot on Sept. 6, one day before the weeklong “heat dome” and waited until afterward to pick the cabernet sauvignon, finishing Oct. 4.

Zinfandel from 2023 deserves a look this week, too. Winemakers like Morgan Twain Peterson of Bedrock Vineyard in Sonoma Valley and David Natali at Robert Biale Vineyards in Napa Valley both made outstanding zinfandels and field blends that year from old vines.

Germany's Undiscovered Jewel

Germany has plenty of famous wine villages, such as Wehlen and Bernkastel on the Mosel or Deidesheim and Forst in the Pfalz, but it has far more undiscovered jewels like Windesheim in the Nahe region. That’s why Senior Editor Stuart Pigott took a train, then his E-bike to explore a location many German wine fans think of as remote but which actually has its own autobahn exit!

Stuart is convinced Windesheim would be more famous if there were one or more extroverts among its leading winemakers. Although they tend to be quiet they put a huge amount of effort into precision viticulture, and this combined with the genuinely cool-climate terroir (Windesheim means “home of the winds” in German) shapes some remarkable wines.

Windesheim has been known for elegant dry wines from the pinot family of grapes (some wine scientists consider pinots blanc, gris and noir to be a single variety) for several decades. In good part, this was due to the determination of Martin Reimann of the Lindenhof winery, who Stuart first visited more than 25 years ago.

Reimann’s Lindenhof Spätburgunder Nahe Rosenberg Reserve 2020 is a stunning example of the new pinot noirs of Germany, concentrated but with restrained power, fine tannins and wonderful freshness. It easily carries the smoky oak thanks to the sensational red fruit aromas. For Stuart, this was the star of a constantly excellent row of red and white pinots.

Reimann is also making a real statement with chardonnay, thanks in part to the warming climate. His Lindenhof Chardonnay Nahe Saukopf Reserve 2021 marries excellent ripeness with freshness and firmness. The finish is very long with an elegant chalkiness. It’s a remarkable result for a grape variety that’s only been grown here for one generation, and from a challenging vintage.

Just down the road, brothers Johannes and Markus Sinss shine with a handful of grape varieties including grauburgunder, or pinot gris. This is now a workhorse for dry whites, with softer acidity than riesling. However, a lot of identikit wines that are correct but samey and bland are made from this grape in many of the wine regions of Germany.

Not so for the Sinss Grauburgunder Nahe Rosenberg R Trocken 2022, which has a fantastic interplay of richness, spring-like vitality and discreet oak. The silky texture impressed as much as the deep aromas of quince and backing spices. Stuart was also taken with the entry level Sinss Grauburgunder Nahe Trocken 2023, which has effusive melon, white flowers and quince aromas of this remarkably sleek and bright wine for the grape variety. See his Wine Crush video about this wine.

Even more exciting is the Sinss Riesling Nahe Römerberg Reserve Trocken 2023, which has amazing mineral complexity, but this forthcoming release is still very tightly wound. In spite of that, the aroma spectrum already ranges from ripe citrus to spring meadows. Intense wet-stone character powers the very focused, super-long finish.

And the entry-level 2024 vintage wines of the leading German producers are starting to be bottled and Stuart was able to taste some of them from producers like Robert Weil in the Rheingau, Weedenborn and Wittmann in Rheinhessen. Although these wines received good ratings, they’re often two to three points lower than the same wines from 2023. In 2024 ripeness was lower and acidities higher, so they are generally sleek and crisp. For Stuart, the entry-level wines of Wagner-Stempel in Rheinhessen stood out in this group.

Chilean Energy Burst

The best of the Chilean wines that Senior Editor Zekun Shuai tasted include syrahs from Matetic and Ventisquero alongside Santa Rita’s flagship cabernet sauvignon and the vibrant, small-batch offerings from Carmen, all of which showcase the freshness and energy that can be found in the wines of Maule and Itata.

Despite the heat spikes and drought of 2020, along with the Covid outbreak that contributed to an early harvest that year, the Matetic Syrah Valle de San Antonio 2020 shows that syrah can thrive in a warm, dry vintage – even in the cooler, coastal San Antonio Valley. This is a spicy and meaty yet floral syrah that is rich in fruit, with judicious toast attaching a bit of sweeter spice, giving the wine a flattering appeal. It’s without question one of the top syrahs from Chile.

While syrah and Mediterranean varieties, such as carignan and cinsault, are growing stronger than ever, as exemplified by Carmen’s wines this week, including the Cinsault Valle de Itata Loma Seca 2023, Carmen Valle de Maule Matorral Chileno Mezcla Tinta 2023 and Carmen Carignan Maule Viñedo Melozal Vigno 2023, Chile continues to be a cabernet and carmenere-focused wine country, producing a diverse array of styles and qualities.

At their finest, wines like the Santa Rita Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Maipo Casa Real Reserva Especial 2022 show restraint and complexity, paying tribute to Left Bank Bordeaux without the excessively ripe, sunny, dried tomato character often associated with richer Chilean reds, especially cabernet sauvignons and carmeneres. This offering is a testament to Chile’s ability to produce complex, nuanced cabernets that strike a balance between evoking classic Bordeaux with their tobacco and savory notes while at the same time remaining smooth and approachable at a young age.

– Claire Nesbitt, Jim Gordon, Stuart Pigott and Zekun Shuai contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. 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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