Finesse and Freshness in Chile, More Great Kiwi Chards and the Best of Beaujolais: Weekly Tasting Report (Feb 1-7)

The JamesSuckling.com tasting team was hard at it in vineyards and winery tasting rooms around the world this past week, with Senior Editor Zekun Shuai on a field trip in South America to taste the new vintages of Chile and Argentina, James back in Napa after breezing through New Zealand and Senior Editor Stuart Pigott in Germany tapping into more bottles from Beaujolais.

Zekun said Chile was back on the track of finesse and freshness with its “exciting” 2021 vintage, after a dry and hot 2020. “Freshness and silky, polished tannins are the keywords for this vintage,” he said. “The general impression now is that the reds can show more fruit, and the fine tannin quality is noticeable, even for simpler wines that don’t strive to deliver greater depth. We are also finding good juiciness and a delicate twist of austerity in many reds in this vintage.”

Many Chilean winemakers Zekun talked to said that 2021 was comparable to 2018 – another beautiful vintage with a long, cool growing season that produced juicy and elegant wines. Sebastian Ruiz, the winemaker for Isla de Maipo winery Viña Tarapacá,  said he actually preferred 2021 to 2018 because of the better tannin quality in 2021. “2021, for me, was one of the best vintages because we didn’t have such high temperatures, especially in January and February,” he told Zekun. “It was fantastic, especially for the reds.”

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF CHILE 2022

Marcelo Papa, the technical director of Santiago-based Concha y Toro and one of the most experienced winemakers in Chile, said 2020 was “a little more Napa-like,” while 2021 was “Bordeaux-driven” and 2022 was more Chilean – somewhere between Bordeaux and Napa. His colleague Marcio Ramirez, who looks after all the carmeneres in Concha y Toro’s portfolio, among other wines, said 2021 was cool but more humid and Atlantic than 2018. “At the end of January and the start of February, we had important rains and so maintained the humidity that the vines needed for the rest of the ripening season, which gave more juiciness and tension to the fruit in the wine,” he said.

Their Concha y Toro Carmenere Peumo Carmin de Peumo 2021 is a fresh, pure and spicy expression loaded with juicy fruit and fine tannins.

This week’s top-rated wines will give you an idea of how excited we are about Chile’s 2021 vintage. Some of the most highly rated wines come from the leading producers in Puente Alto, the Aconcagua Valley and Traiguén, where winemaker Francisco Baettig is making some world-class chardonnays like the Baettig Chardonnay Traiguén Selección de Parcelas Los Primos 2021. These rival the top chards from the north of the country, like the mineral and tense Errazuriz Chardonnay Aconcagua Costa Las Pizarras 2021, which is one of Viña Errazuriz’s best chardonnays in years.

In Puente Alto, the highlight this week was the Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto 2021, which is 93 percent cabernet sauvignon, 4 percent cabernet franc and 3 percent merlot, and is full of Don Melchor’s DNA, with an ashy graphite character and violets to the blackberries and cassis. For Puente Alto, 2021 was the coolest vintage since 2014. The remarkable intensity of fresh flavors and the structured but polished tannins extend to a lengthy finish. “There is density and freshness, so you have energy and finesse from this vintage,” said Enrique Tirado, Viña Don Melchor’s chief winemaker.

MORE GREAT KIWI CHARDS

James was in Martinborough, New Zealand, at the end of January with his wife, Marie, checking out their small vineyard of pinot noir, but they also managed to taste a few new releases from top wineries including bottles from Escarpment, Te Mata and Kumeu River. The latter made our Wine of the Year 2021, the superb 100-point Kumeu River Kumeu Chardonnay Mate’s Vineyard 2020.

The tasting of a range of wines from Kumeu River was at the winery, which is about a 35-minute drive from central Auckland. James and Marie met up with the entire Brajkovich family, and they tasted the 2022 chardonnays from barrel. It looks to be an excellent vintage despite some heavy rains in the late summer in some regions, particularly parts of the North Island.

James was really impressed with the structure of the chards with the top site, Mate’s Vineyard, showing superb phenolic texture and depth of fruit in 2022. The Coddington is equally formidable and may be its best ever. He rated both a preliminary 97-98 points, which are barrel sample ratings. Winemaker Michael Brajkovich said his 2022 chardonnays “have even more concentration than 2020.”

Also check out the ratings for his sparkling wines, including a new small blanc de blancs that will certainly catch your eye.

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF NEW ZEALAND 2022

James also did some barrel tastings at Escarpment Winery, in Martinborough, and rated a full range of bottles listed below in the tasting notes. 2021 looks to be a terrific year following the outstanding 2020. Some people said that 2020 was the “best ever for most of New Zealand,” but James thinks that the 2021s are more tannic and structured and could turn out to be better in the long run.

“I am pretty hot on the 2021s,” Escarpment winemaker Tim Bourne said while he was tasting in the cellar with James. “They say 2020 is the vintage of the century. The 2021s will outlive the 2020s. The 2020s have the fruit plushness. The 2021 have the length and the fruit but not in the plush sense.”

A quick tasting in James’ hotel room in Auckland also yielded a terrific wine of great plushness and polish. And it also highlighted how New Zealand is releasing what is clearly another great vintage. The Te Mata Hawkes Bay Coleraine 2021 is a terrific young wine with superb depth and complexity as well as just the right amount of muscular tannins to give length and structure for the long term. Yet the polished texture makes it so attractive now. Is it one of the best Coleraines ever? Check out the full tasting notes below for all of Te Mata’s new releases.

FINDING THE PEAKS OF BEAUJOLAIS

In Europe, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott spent his first full week tasting through the small mountain of Beaujolais samples that recently arrived on his doorstep, trying every appellation to get an overview before focusing on Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent, which have often been the sources of our highest-rated Beaujolais wines in previous years.

When we taste regions like Bordeaux or Tuscany, almost all the wines on the tasting bench come from a single vintage. That makes vintage assessments easier. However, the winemaking in Beaujolais is very diverse, so the vintages Stuart tasted the last week ranged from 2015 through to 2022.

“2021 is the latest vintage from which a large number of wines have been bottled, and it’s clearly more variable than the three predecessors due to the challenging weather pattern,” Stuart said. “A few peaks in the 2021 Morgons are really high, though, and there are many very good wines."

“The most amazing of the peaks was the Michel Guignier Morgon Canon 2021, which is so concentrated and structured it tastes like it came from a different vintage,” he added. “The 2017 of this wine was our highest-rated wine of that vintage, so this situation is not without precedent."

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF FRANCE 2022

The other 2021 Morgons that really impressed Stuart were from producers like Bonne Tonne, Château des Jacques and M. & C. Lapierre. And there was also a row of excellent Morgons ranging from 2021 back to 2018 from Chateau Bellevue.

"That all confirmed Morgon’s strength in 2021,” Stuart said. What I can’t tell you yet is if that’s due to the human factor or is the result of weather factors like how much rain fell where. However, I'll find that out when I visit Beaujolais at the end of the month."

The highest-rated Moulin-a-Vents were from Domaine Paul Janin, and both wines hailed from the very warm and dry 2020 vintage. “Their mouthfilling richness and balance of super-ripe fruit with fine tannins and bright acidity was stunning. That’s particularly true of the amazing Domaine Paul Janin Moulin-à-Vent Les Greneriers 2020,” Stuart said.

At the other end of the quality scale, Stuart found the weakest 2021s submitted for tasting a bit lean and edgy, sometimes with quite intense herbal notes. “However, almost all of them were well-made wines. Flaws were very rare,“ he said.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor; James Suckling, Editor/Chairman; Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

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.