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.
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We published just over 1,800 wine ratings in March 2021, covering various regions and styles. Among the highlights this month were exceptional wines from California, from cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot grapes. Lokoya from Napa Valley was the star of the month, with a 100-point, muscular cabernet from 2018 that reminded James of Latour – but from the mountains! “The 2018 vintage is a great year for mountain fruit,” said winemaker Chris Carpenter of Lokoya, who also makes wines at Mt. Brave, Caladan, La Jota Vineyard Co., and Cardinale, to James over a Tasting Interview. “It’s been fun for me to see that people are into [mountain wines] now. They are into that chewiness … and it’s good to be into tannic wines because they age fabulously.”
South America also featured highly, with Argentina and Chile continuing to show the winemaking prowess taking place in the top wineries recently. We tasted Susana Balbo, Zuccardi, Clos Apalta, Lapostolle, Trapiche, Bemberg Estate, Bodega Rolland, Vina Cobos and Catena Zapata among others, and all received ratings of 95 points and up. The work these wineries have been doing in their vineyards is now really paying off. Laura Catena, head of the Catena wine family, said, “You have to study your vineyards for 20 or even 30 years. It could be 100 years. Most people just don’t do that … we did so much research in the 1990s.” Our tasting report on Argentina with more than 1,800 wines will be out at the end of this week.
Also this month Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted various European wines, and found some superb wines that were new to us and no doubt many of you too. The Gunther Steinmetz estate in Brauneberg/Mosel came through with a surprise 100-point riesling from the 2019 vintage, which we already know is probably the best vintage in recent memory for the region, as well as other great bottles from Austria and Beaujolais. Stuart’s tasting report on Beaujolais is almost ready.
Also included this month were excellent 2017 wines from Barolo, 2018 wines from Bordeaux and a handful of others from England, Hungary, Portugal and Spain. Check them all out 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.
