Hundred Acre’s Hundred-Point Bounty, Plus Germany’s First Perfect Chardonnay

The JamesSuckling.com tasting team rated 565 wines over the past week, with James himself meeting up with one of Napa Valley’s most colorful yet private owners and winemakers, Jayson Woodbridge of Hundred Acre Wines, and scoring no fewer than four wines 100 points. James said he had “nowhere else to go with ratings,” calling the wines “eccentrically precise with their full-throttle nature.” Check out the ratings below if you are a subscriber.

Woodbridge says he makes wines to stand up to their long aging in his cellars, which are located under Ark Vineyard at the foot of Howell Mountain. They usually spend three to four years in new oak barrels. The self-taught winemaker says the combination of focused and precise tannins and high alcohol gives the wines the balance and harmony they need for the long run. Yet James found all the wines, particularly from the hot 2022 vintage, phenomenally seamless and not overpowering, with everything in the right place.

James also spent some time kicking the dirt at two of Woodbridge’s vineyards, including Ark and Morgan’s Way off Silverado Trail. The viticulture was meticulous, with every shoot and cluster in a sort of “cosmic” position, as well as leaves providing just the right amount of coverage considering the relatively cool growing season this year until a heat spike in August.

Woodbridge emphasized many times during the visit that both in the vineyard and winery everything is detailed to the last vine and barrel. “This is not a race,” he told James while at Ark Vineyard. “It is taking your time to look at every vine. It is a marathon. It is constant.”

You’ll also notice a number of wines from Woodbridge’s other winery, Fortunate Son, which uses grapes from Hundred Acre’s vineyards as well as other sources. Woodbridge staunchly keeps the details a secret, even after a number of glasses of wine. The wines are made with the same rigorous hands, and James rated them extremely highly, contemplating a perfect score.

Tasting the wines with Woodbridge, the vinous philosopher offered a kaleidoscope of descriptions and metaphors: “The hundreds of threads in the texture of the reds are the fabric of the vineyard and the year, the sun, the clouds and everything else given.”

The day after spending time with Woodbridge, James stopped over for a short catch-up at Dana Estates with Korean owners Hi Sang Lee and Jae Chun and tasted the last five vintages of their rarefied sauvignon blanc, of which only about 1,000 cases are made each year. The grapes come from their Hershey Vineyard on Howell Mountain. Some find it more collectible than their single-vineyard reds.

“Collectors send me photos of our red and say they already have 15 vintages of our wines and they can’t buy more,” Chun said. “But they buy our white. We have hard-core fans of our white, but we can’t make any more than we do!”

The takeaway from tasting five vintages of their sauvignon blanc is how structured the whites are and how they maintain their intensity and focus from the very beginning. They have the structure to age but deliver deliciousness in their youth. They are whites that are more like reds with their phenolics. The 2024, however, may be a slight departure, showing superb complexity and finesse. It was tasted from barrel, so stay tuned.

Germany's First Perfect Chardonnay

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott has been following the development of chardonnay in Germany since the first experimental planting in the mid-1980s. In 1995, shortly after it’s recognition as an approved grape variety, there were just 271 hectares planted with chardonnay in the whole country, but the figure for 2023 (the latest available) is 2,912 hectares, or more than 10 times higher. Chardonnay is now the sixth-most widely planted white grape in Germany.

Of course, quantity and quality are two radically different things. However, over the last few years it has become clear that chardonnay is exceedingly well suited to the new hotter, and frequently drier, climatic situation. And now, Stuart has found Germany’s first perfect chardonnay.

The Bernhard Huber Chardonnay Baden Schlossberg GG 2023 smashes the established framework for the grape in Germany in the nicest possible way! It has incredible aromas of candied citrus, toasted nuts and flint with great chalky minerality and moves over your palate with incredible dexterity.

Julian Huber has been making the wines since the death of his father Bernhard in 2014 and really hit his stride starting in 2018. Best known for spatburgunders (pinot noirs), chardonnay is actually the second string to his bow.

Stuart was also knocked out by the Fürst Chardonnay Franken R Trocken 2023, from the Karthauser GG site, which has limestone soil like Huber's Schlossberg. It is brimming with chalk, candied lemons and hazelnuts with the kind of concentration we associate with Grand Cru wines from Burgundy, but with less fat.

The Franz Keller Chardonnay Baden Kirchberg 2023 is also this producer’s finest chardonnay to date, with terrific tension between lemon zest freshness and caramel richness. It has an extremely long and stony finish.

Riesling remains Germany’s number one grape variety, being planted in almost a quarter of the nation’s vineyards. Stuart was stunned by a pair of dry rieslings that he thinks are the best wines he has ever tasted from the small, low-profile Acham-Marin winery in the famous village of Forst in the Pfalz region.

The super-concentrated Acham-Magin Riesling Pfalz Jesuitengarten GG 2024 is a masterpiece of elegance and finesse with an almost endless finish, while the Acham-Magin Riesling Pfalz Pechstein GG 2024 has amazing tension between deep yellow peach and pink grapefruit flavors and wet-stone minerality. They should both age for decades.

Also based in Forst, the Georg Mosbacher winery showed a dazzling quartet of riesling GGs. Stuart marginally prefers the super-cool and elegant Georg Mosbacher Riesling Pfalz Ungeheuer GG 2024, which is a masterpiece of underplayed power and structure. This is more proof that 2024 is a great vintage for the Mittelhardt (central) section of the Pfalz

The contrast between the silkiness of these wines and the racy vibrancy of the Schäfer-Fröhlich Riesling Nahe Felseneck GG 2024, with its enormously energetic and precise finish, says everything about the power of terroir to give super-expressive wines in Germany.

Classically Priorat

This week’s tasting report also highlights several standout wines from Catalonia, notably the highly regarded Priorat region. The top-scoring bottles comprise an assembly of great 2021s and top names from the lesser, more challenging 2022 and 2023 vintages.

One of the best is the Ferrer Bobet Priorat Selecció Especial Vinyes Velles 2021, which opens with enticing aromas of cured meats, elderberries, rosemary and tile. It concludes on the palate with vibrant fruit, chiseled acidity and concentration, exemplifying the excitement of the 2021 vintage, particularly from its old, head-trained carignan vines on slate terraces. The cooler and milder 2021 vintage, which saw more clouds and rain than usual in the spring and summer, led to a later harvest that gave more definition to the Mediterranean-style wines, resulting in excellent freshness, elegance and complexity.

Another fine example is the Torres Priorat Salmos 2021, which Senior Editor Zekun Shuai deemed probably the best iteration of the wine yet. It presents great value for quality, featuring expressive citrus and berry fruit, hints of cocoa powder and Mediterranean spices, with concentrated flavors that remain light and persistent – almost ethereal.

While 2021 has proven to be successful for the top Spanish regions like Priorat, Rioja and Ribera del Duero, the subsequent years – 2022 and 2023 – presented significant challenges, marked by extreme heat and drought conditions.

The Terroir al Limit Priorat Les Manyes 2022, always a unique, pristine expression from garnacha peluda, remains racy and energetic despite its slightly more generous and fruitier center palate with stonier tannins. The Alvaro Palacios Priorat L'Ermita 2023 and Alvaro Palacios Priorat Les Aubaguetes 2023 are elegant wines from a difficult year impacted by heat, severe drought and one of the earliest harvests on record.

The iconic L'Ermita 2023, from one of Spain’s most distinguished producers, impresses with depth and finesse despite the challenging vintage, though it should be allowed to age for several years in order to soften its slightly chewier tannins.

– James Suckling, 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 tasting team 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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