California’s ‘Redemption Vintage,’ Premier League Alsace Wines and Top Bottles from Argentina: Weekly Tasting Report (Jan 31-Feb 6)

James and Senior Editor Zekun Shuai have been crisscrossing the desolate roads of Argentina’s Mendoza wine region, visiting winemakers and vineyards. At the moment, they are in the Uco Valley to understand better the diverse ecosystems in key sub-appellations such as Gualtallary, Los Chacayes and San Pablo. The latter seems to be a very popular area, measuring about 500 hectares of vineyards on the slopes of the mighty Andes, and one of the coldest places to grow vines in Mendoza.

This weekly report includes wines from these areas, as well as many others in Mendoza, plus bottles from the terrific wine estate of Chacra in Patagonia. This property, which is owned by one of the shareholders of Tuscany’s San Guido (Sassicaia), produced a small number of bottles in 2023, because of a spring frost that reduced the grape crop by almost 70 percent in some areas. Yet the wines, which come from biodynamically grown grapes, remain dynamic and bright with subtle and diverse aromas and flavors.

Check out the video with Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, in which he explains what happened in 2023. His Chacra Chardonnay Patagonia 2023 was one of the best wines of their tasting last week and James was really impressed with the purity of fruit and transparency of the wine, as well as its crunchy and flawless nature.

Chardonnay and other whites are firing on all cylinders, with so much drive and vivacity in the top wines. Check out the whites from Matias Riccitelli, with whom James spent half a day in his vineyards and winery. The passionate winemaker produces pristine wines that have an obvious handmade quality, with his use of cement vats and various terracotta and ceramic amphora. Some of his wines have an honest and almost “naked” quality to them, showing their origins, as well as viticultural excellence.

Another producer to take note of is Altos Las Hormigas, which has a young team of winemakers and viticulturalists who are pushing the envelope on organic vine-growing in various parts of Mendoza, in the hope of highlighting the unique qualities of their ecosystems through increasing local biodiversity in their properties. Their top new releases showed James a heightened tension and character, in a subtle and polished way.

“It’s maximum intervention in the vineyard for us,” said winemaker Federico Gambetta of Altos Las Hormigas. “We are always in the vineyard, selecting the shoots and working on them. Such details are an obsession and that’s how we achieve excellence. It is a way, our habit. It is like Star Wars. This is the way!”

One of the great established winemakers of the region, Alejandro Vigil of El Enemigo as well as Catena, agreed with Gambetta when he was visiting with James a few days ago. “Viticulture is intervention,” he said. “And it makes great wines.”

He delivered some superb cabernet francs in 2021, which are now coming onto the market. Please check out the top single-vineyard bottlings.

CALIFORNIA REDEEMS ITSELF WITH 2021s

The unfolding of what winemaker Aaron Pott calls “the redemption vintage” for Napa and Sonoma wines, 2021, continued this week as James Suckling and executive editor Jim Gordon reviewed 117 California wines dominated by stellar-quality cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and red blends.

“Redemption” is the word because a large but untallied number of winemakers did not release their 2020 wines at all due to smoke effects from multiple raging wildfires that year. In portfolio tastings with Pott, Jean Hoefliger and the teams from Amici and Hess Persson Estates, the winemakers redeemed themselves with concentrated, balanced, elegant and age-worthy 2021s.

Jim found Pott’s Seven Stones Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2021 to be nearly perfect, “perfumed in violets and roses and packed with raspberries, red cherries and ginger.” Seven Stones is perhaps the smallest estate winery in Napa Valley, perched on a high ridgetop east of St. Helena. A plethora of other 2021s that the veteran consultant made with brands and estates like Fe, Greer and Perliss were nearly as impressive.

Near the top in scores was the Stalworth Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Rutherford 2021, from the Hess Persson team. This is only the third vintage of Stalworth made by winemaker Dave Guffy and consultant Celia Welch, and Jim says, “It represents a fantastic new addition to the winery formerly known as The Hess Collection on Mt. Veeder. Velvety, almost thick, the chocolaty, blueberry-rich wine was aged in all-new French oak.”

The name To Kalon looms large in this week’s report, as Jim explored both sides of the property line separating the famously sparring neighboring vineyard parcels in Oakville, Napa Valley, owned by Robert Mondavi Winery and Andy Beckstoffer.

Mondavi winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara and emerita winemaker Genevieve Janssens poured a beautifully maturing Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Oakville To Kalon Vineyard The Reserve 2014 and the current release Robert Mondavi Winery Fumé Blanc Napa Valley Oakville To Kalon Vineyard I Block 2021. Harvested from vines dating to 1945, the I Block sauvignon blanc grapes are barrel-fermented, framing the thyme, dill and vivid lemongrass flavors with a light oak expression.

The Beckstoffer To Kalon grapes fueled pairs of outstanding 2021 cabernet sauvignons and cabernet francs from both Amici Cellars and The Debate by Hoefliger.

Also look for excellent Sonoma County wines rated this week from producers Littorai, Medlock Ames, RAEN and Patria.

PREMIER LEAGUE WINES FROM ALSACE

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott has been following the wines from Domaine Amélie & Charles Sparr for several years and last year he visited them in Wettolsheim in Alsace. It was an excellent tasting, mainly of 2021 vintage wines, but the dry whites, orange wines and pinot noir reds of the 2022 vintage that he tasted a few days ago were the best they have made to date.

The quartet of pinot noirs puts the domaine in the rapidly developing first league of pinot noir red-wine producers in Alsace. The most astonishing of these wines was the Domaine Amélie & Charles Sparr Pinot Noir Alsace Montagne des Roses 2022, which was incredibly concentrated, but also fragrant and mysterious. The mineral acidity gives it phenomenal energy at the super-long finish. Like this producer’s other pinot noirs, this wine will benefit from at least another year in the bottle and has excellent aging potential. The Domaine Amélie & Charles Sparr Pinot Noir Alsace Amour Interdit 2022, is also amazing, packed with tremendous structure. It reminded Stuart of a top Volnay 1er Cru from Burgundy.

There seems to be a good reason for this leap in quality because 2022 was the first vintage that the Sparrs did no hedging, instead winding the shoots around the top wires of the rows. They also did major green harvesting, 100 percent whole cluster and short maceration that was more “infusion, to get fruit-driven pinots.“ And this strategy paid off big time!

All the dry whites from the Sparrs also really impressed Stuart with their combination of richness, balance and finesse. The most exciting was the Domaine Amélie & Charles Sparr Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Schoenenbourg Révelation 2022. This has been made for the long-term and is a sleeping giant. It is enormously powerful and structured with candied-orange, honey and thick cream character. And the two orange wines are amongst the best in the region. Everything is biodynamic with Demeter certification.

One other 2022 vintage dry riesling Stuart tasted this week also stood out tremendously, the Frankland Estate Riesling Frankland River Isolation Ridge 2022 from the Great Southern region of Western Australia. This is probably the best white Frankland Estate has ever made. Anyone expecting a lean, tart and limey Australian dry riesling is in for a big shock, because this has an enormous depth of white-peach, pink-grapefruit, honeysuckle and citrus-blossom character. On the super-concentrated palate it has a compelling interplay of creaminess, juiciness and mineral acidity. Use the search function on our website to find the note for the remarkable 2023 vintage of this wine by senior editor Ned Goodwin MW.

And one mature wine blew Stuart’s mind, although he has been following it for more than 20 years. The Prager Riesling Wachau Wachstum Bodenstein Smaragd 1999 is one of the most extraordinary Austrian white wines of modern times. It marries the pristine coolness of this very high-altitude vineyard with the ripe stone fruit of this great vintage. The precision, racy intensity and youthful vitality of this wine must be tasted to be believed!

THE BEST OF BEST'S

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW spent the best part of last week instructing at the Master of Wine seminar in Adelaide while tasting around the fringes. He was particularly struck by a duo of wines from Best’s, among Australia’s oldest family-owned vineyards situated in Great Western, abutting the Grampians ranges and the national park that bears the same name, in Western Victoria. This is a land of stark beauty, with craggy mountains pitched in relief against a typically Australian vista of dense bushland and weathered igneous rocks, manifest as granitic hills and plains containing ferrous buckshot, quartz rock, silt, mudstone and other metamorphic material.

Of course, Best’s Pinot Meunier Great Western Old Vine is an Australian icon, partly sourced from vines that date back 160 years from the property’s original Nursery Block, adjacent to the original homestead on the property and the original cellar, replete with an ochre dirt floor and large-format oak. While this exalted Block contains 39 different varieties, it was a riesling and a pinot noir, sourced from later plantings in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, that struck a chord with Ned.

Ned opines that Australian riesling can be challenging for those accustomed to the juicier, more balletic Germanic way, yet he suggests that the Best's Riesling Great Western Foudre Ferment 2023 is a noble exception. Fermented under the aegis of ambient yeast in a large Austrian foudre, Best’s considers this succulent, prodigiously textural style to be a hark back to the way things were once done. What is old is new again! What’s more, the wine offers stunning value. Best’s Pinot Noir Great Western 2023 offers equally stellar value, boasting pretty aromas of damson, red cherry, aniseed, crushed musk and lilac…with nothing facile, overtly whole-bunch or medicinal’, as is often the case. Both of these wines deserve a place in the discerning cellar.

– James Suckling, Jim Gordon, Stuart Pigott and Ned Goodwin MW contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other 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.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.