Monthly Tasting Report: February 2021

Welcome to the second edition of a new series on JamesSuckling.com - the Monthly Tasting Report. We are tasting between 400 and 500 wines every week at the moment, which we publish every Monday or Tuesday as a ‘Weekly Tasting Report’. We don’t think any other wine media organization is publishing so many new tasting notes in such quick time. 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 all Premium Subscribers to 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.

Now we are 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 nearly 1,600 wine ratings in February 2021, and covered a large range of regions, from Barolo to Bordeaux, Argentina to Australia, South Africa to Napa Valley. There were some fascinating highlights, including the first release of Penfolds’ California wines and global blends. Talking to James in a Tasting Interview, Penfolds’ Chief Winemaker Peter Gago said: “We love the fruit [of California]. We love the microclimates. We love the vineyards and we want to dabble with that. And we have.”

Their global wines, blending grapes from California and Australia, were especially innovative.

The month also saw us finish our Bordeaux 2018 tastings (James’ report, just published, is here), and start on our Argentina tastings. So far the run of hot and exceptional vintages for Argentina, including 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, has meant winemakers have been on a steep learning curve to fine-tune their vineyards and make some of their best wines ever. “I have done 34 harvests,” said Daniel Pi, head winemaker of Trapiche during a tasting last February. “And the 2018 and 2019 are the best ever for me. 2020 should be excellent as well but we will have less quantity.”

Toward the end of the month James also tasted some Napa Valley wines, and the standout name was Colgin Cellars. If any estate underlines the recent moves in Napa toward refinement and balance, it is Colgin. One of their wines was given a 100-point rating, one of just a few American wines to have been given a perfect score by James.

Check out all the wines tasted last month below, and make sure you subscribe (or log in) to see the scores and tasting notes.

We are already looking forward to tasting more wines in March, and with Stuart Pigott now onboard once again as Senior Editor, we will be getting through many more wines!

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.

- James Durston, managing editor