Argentina’s Stones and Bones Duo, Focused Napa Whites and New Zealand’s Precise Pinots

Two stunning chardonnays from the Catena Zapata winery led the top scorers out of the 822 wines from 14 countries we tasted over the past week, showing that Argentina's high-elevation chards can hold their own against their Burgundian and Californian counterparts.

The White Stones and White Bones from Catena Zapata’s Adrianna Vineyard are some of the best and most distinctive chardonnays from South America, and the 2024 vintage sets the two cool-climate chardonnays apart even more. Senior Editor Zekun Shuai tasted them side by side in Hong Kong, and once again, the standout was the austere and restrained White Stones (99 points), which comes from a 2.5-hectare site at 1,450 meters comprised of 27 rows of vines sitting in alluvial soil comprised of limestone gravelly stones and calcium carbonate.

The White Stones doubles down on purity and depth of minerality, with a sharpened brightness from its acidity and limey sapidity. It is a purer, more radical and stonier chardonnay that resembles great Chablis, but with a firmer backbone of acidity and no toastiness.

The White Bones (97), meanwhile, which comes from a chalkier limestone plot, glows with its unique, idiosyncratic spicy, minty and herbal touches, and the 2024 gets somewhat tropical, with a bit of bergamot and green gooseberries. It is slightly rounder than a few past vintages but nevertheless so unique, with notes of rosemary, green ginger, arugula and jarilla – exotic herbs that are widespread in the Adrianna Vineyard.

Zekun says he has always has a soft spot for the arresting perfumed and flamboyant White Bones thanks to its uniqueness, but this year he preferred the precise, radical White Stones.

Catena Zapata technical director Alejandro Vigil described the 2024 vintage as a dream year with no heat peaks. Harvest was almost two weeks later than usual. Both the White Stones and White Bones both were fermented half in oak barrels and half in concrete tanks, using indigenous yeast cultivated from the vineyard. Get both bottles and compare them if you can. Just blocks away from each other in the elevated Adrianna Vineyard in Gualtallary, these two impressive chardonnays are so mind-blowingly different!

Napa's Focused Whites

This week's report also highlights the focused white wines from Haynes Vineyard in Napa’s Coombsville AVA, the oldest chardonnay vineyard in Napa Valley, which was planted in 1968 to old Wente clone on St. George rootstock. Ryan met winemaker Matt Taylor in the vineyard during his research for his upcoming report on Napa white wines, which will highlight the diversity and breadth Napa has to offer outside its revered reds.

Despite its proximity to expanding suburbia, the Haynes vineyard retains an old-vine presence and benefits from cooling winds off San Pablo Bay, producing wines with clarity, structure and depth. When tasting the 2023 releases with Taylor and managing partner Carlton McCoy, the Haynes wines showed a restrained style, moving away from a more flamboyant expression of chardonnay and drawing comparisons to the Francois Mikulski style in Meursault, which is a  more understated, refined approach that lacks an overt winemaking influence.

The near-perfect-scoring Haynes Vineyard Chardonnay Napa Valley Coombsville Corazon 2023 (99) demonstrates this clearly, with a taut, mineral profile and tightly wound aromatics. It undergoes 100 percent malolactic conversion and receives a portion of new oak, which is not the defining feature of this cool, old-vine site. The 2023 versions of Haynes’ Forgeron (97) and Vigneron (96) bottlings are also definitely worth seeking out, according to Ryan.

Sam Kaplan from Napa Valley was highlighted in last week’s tasting report for the two perfect-scoring red wines he made for Vida Valiente and Memento Mori, as well as for a few other high-scoring wines he made for Arkenstone. This week, it’s his Arkenstone Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley Howell Mountain Estate 2023 (98) that scored highly.

This white Bordeaux-style wine, with a touch of semillon, blends old-world tradition with vivid vineyard character, showcasing acidity, tension, and varietal identity. From a small parcel of sauvignon blanc and semillon vines that were planted far back as 1997, it’s becoming one of the most consistently standout whites in Napa.

The 2023 release delivers a mineral edge, with a taut, precise palate shaped by extended lees aging in barrel and concrete, supported by firm acidity and a mouthwatering finish that cuts through lingering power and complexity. Production is just over 200 cases, but for those focused on high-quality white Bordeaux and Napa wines, it’s still relatively accessible.

Pinot Precision from New Zealand

If you’re looking for remarkably precise pinot noirs, our recent visit to Martinborough, New Zealand uncovered a few in Ata Rangi’s 2024 releases. Right at the top is their Ata Rangi Pinot Noir Martinborough McCrone 2024 (98), a striking wine defined by its purity and impressive mineral tension. It is full of verve yet remains elegantly structured and velvety in texture. Equally impressive, though stylistically distinct, is the Kotinga 2024 (97). It’s crisp and aromatic, with seductive notes of bitter orange peel and a crunchy, flinty tension.

Behind these site-specific wines lies careful attention to both the personality of each vineyard and the character of the vintage. The grapes are rigorously sorted on arrival, and the proportion of whole clusters varies each year, depending on Helen Masters’s assessment. Extraction is handled with the same flexibility, adapted to the conditions of the vintage and the quality of the fruit. They are then aged for two winters in mostly used oak, with only a small proportion of newer barrels. These are thoughtful wines that are a joy to drink, and the vineyards they come from are all certified organic.  

But behind that abstract concept of terroir, there are a lot of decisions being made. This approach is ultimately about expressing the site as clearly as possible, while making something that is both compelling and drinkable. They achieve that rare balance of being both revealing and mysterious, slowly opening in the glass. 

The trio of Martinborough, Abel, and Masters 2024 pinot noirs (all 96 points) displayed the same high quality while each expressing its own unique personality: the Martinborough was lively and vibrant; the Abel offered a more fruity and crisp profile; and the Masters stood out for its precision, discreet fruit, and impressive vertical structure.

We also highly recommend the white counterpart: the Ata Rangi Chardonnay Martinborough Masters 2024 (94). It is bright, beautifully balanced and precise.

There are lots of other wines we rated in the 95- to 96-point range, comprising a sweeping varietal array of Argentine malbecs, Washington State cabernet sauvignons, rosés from France, dessert wines from Hungary, Australian shiraz and more. Check them all out in the tasting notes below.

– Zekun Shuai, Ryan Montgomery and Kevin Davy 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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