June 2021 Tasting Report: 2,295 Wines Rated!

We are tasting between 400 and 700 wines every week at the moment, which we publish every Tuesday as a Weekly Tasting Report. We don’t think any other wine media organization is publishing so many new tasting notes so quickly. Many of the ratings we publish are for wines tasted just the previous day! And because so many of the wines we taste are latest releases often not yet in the market, this ensures that all Premium Subscribers of JamesSuckling.com (who get access to the latest wine scores and tastings notes) are among the first to learn about the newest wines coming to market.

We are now also collating all the ratings published in a month in one large single report for your convenience, too. You can read about the wines below, and then subscribers can access the scores and tasting notes in the ratings list at the bottom of this article.

We published 2,295 wine ratings in June 2021, from 16 different countries. Here’s how the tastings broke down (you can click “sort by” in the notes search engine below to search by each individual country):

Argentina – 23
Australia – 301
Austria – 81
Chile – 11
China – 32
France – 233 (Alsace: 61; Bordeaux: 40; Champagne: 15; and others)
Germany – 185
Greece – 6
Israel – 81
Italy – 603 (Northeast: 35; Piedmont: 167; Tuscany: 131; Veneto: 118; and others)
Portugal – 5
New Zealand – 13
Spain – 19
Switzerland – 1
United States – 630 (California: 125; Washington: 376; Oregon: 129)
Uruguay – 71

West Coast wines featured prominently this month, but it was the 2018 vintage from Napa Valley that produced two standouts: the Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley and the Continuum Napa Valley Sage Mountain Vineyard. Both underscored how the region is moving away from big, blousy offerings toward full-bodied, layered wines, and each tipped the scales of perfection, earning scores of 100 points.

James interviewed Continuum owners Tim Mondavi and his daughter Carissa to find out what made the ’18 vintage so special. They explained how intimate knowledge of their vineyards and ability to micromanage and vinify them properly “gives us the opportunity to have more nuance and elegance.”

“You couple that with a cool vintage and ‘Voila!’ – there you go, and I think it is one of our best vintages,” Tim Mondavi said about the ’18 with Carissa adding: “It was singing from the beginning.”

James praised the Grace Family offering for its “beautiful aromas of blackcurrants, sage and flowers,” calling it “full-bodied with a superb, very fine and dusty tannin texture. He also interviewed winemaker Helen Keplinger on the challenges the winery faced in 2018, and why they limited the number of cases they made.

“[In] 2018 we had a very small amount and the same is true for 2019,” Keplinger said, pointing out that the lower block of the small Grace Family vineyard is out of production because of replanting. The upper block is the historical part of the Tychson vineyard, and 2018 is purely from that site. “I love that west side of St. Helena,” she said. “You get [in the wines] so much freshness and texture. They are beautiful wines.”

One French wine, two Australian bottles and a few from Oregon also made impressions, although each fell slightly short of perfection. The French offering, the Domaine Weinbach Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvée Ste. Catherine 2019, topped Senior Editor Stuart Pigott’s list of top Alsace Grand Cru. He found it had an “enveloping, sensual bouquet” and was “as light on its feet as a prima ballerina.”

The Cristom Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Eola-Amity Hills Jessie Vineyard 2018 and the 00 Wines Chardonnay Willamette Valley Eola-Amity Hills Freya Hermann Cuvée 2018 highlighted how Oregon is making equally compelling chardonnay and pinot noir, and Stuart also uncovered what might be the greatest Silvaner ever made: the Horst Sauer Silvaner Franken Escherndorfer Lump Trockenbeerenauslese 2020 – another great wine out of the Silvaner wine mecca of Franken.

Chianti Classicos also came into play the past month, including two single-vineyard bottlings of clear and vivid reds from Volpaia, in the center of the appellation near the town of Radda in Chianti: Volpaia Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Il Puro Casanova 2017 and Volpaia Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Coltassala 2018.

Two chardonnays figured prominently in our tastings, with both showing uncanny freshness and intensity. The William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2019 is sensational quality, as it should be, and the William Hill Chardonnay Napa Valley Benchmark 2019 was the second successive year James has been impressed with chardonnays from this producer.

James also dipped into Barolos in June, with the Azelia Barolo Cerretta 2017 coming out on top. It showed purity and finesse with great structure, and in James’ opinion is one of the best wines ever from the Azelia family.

James interviewed Lorenzo Scavino of Azelia and Luca Currado of Vietti on how they finessed their vines to deliver great quality amid challenging conditions, including hot and dry weather. In the end, all’s well that ends well, with Currado saying of 2017: “It was a very complete vintage: very luxurious and opulent [with] incredible freshness.”

James said Currado’s great grand cru, Rocche di Castiglione, showed equally sterling quality, along with other Barolos such as Conterno-Fantino Mosconi Vigna Ped, Elio Grasso Ginestra Casa Mate and many others.

You can read the full tasting notes for all these wines and many more in the list below.

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