Napa’s Premiere Moment, Sassicaia’s Aromatic Symphony and Rising Stars in the Pfalz: Weekly Tasting Report

We rated 465 wines over the past week, led by James's tastings in Napa Valley, where he visited a few top wineries and attended the 2025 version of Premiere Napa Valley – the annual wine auction organized by the Napa Valley Vintners association (NVV). It was four days of tastings across the valley, highlighting various appellations and wineries. The wines were mostly from the highly regarded 2023 vintage.

James and his team, including editors Jim Gordon and Ryan Montgomery, tasted literally dozens of barrel samples of red wines from the vintage, and they were impressed with the finesse and structure of the wines. Most were cabernet sauvignons, and their purity of fruit and polished tannins were different than any other recent vintage in memory. James thought a good comparison was a combination of 2018 and 2019, with 2023 showing the pure fruit of 2018 and the firm yet polished tannins of 2019.

The NVV auction of wines last Saturday at the Culinary Institute of America included 194 lots (167 from 2023) and raised $3.3 million – a 10 percent increase over last year. Money from the auction, according to the NVV,  “goes to  their mission to promote, protect and enhance the Napa Valley appellation.” James personally bought a lot of 60 bottles of 2024 chardonnay from Vineyard 7 & 8, which is made from some of the highest and oldest chardonnay vines in Napa, at 2,000 feet (609 meters) altitude on Spring Mountain.

Some of the highlights of James’ visits in Napa last week included Dana Estate, Eisele Vineyard, Pym-Rae and Hyde de Villaine. The 2021 single-vineyard cabernet sauvignons from Dana Estate are reminders of the structure and intensity of the vintage, which was small due to the drought of that year. They are cabernets that are built for aging, but they are also extremely attractive to taste now.

Pym-Rae, a mountain vineyard located at about 1,500 feet in the Mount Veeder appellation and owned by the Tesseron family of Bordeaux (Chateau Pontet-Canet), also showed James a cabernet sauvignon-based red from the 2021, and it exhibited similar structure but with more typical forest and mountain character.

From the terrifically hot 2022 vintage, Eisele's reds, like the Eisele Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2022, showed surprising freshness and drinkability, which the team at the estate said was due to extremely well-timed and perfectly executed viticulture and picking.

The morning tasting at Hyde de Villaine included recent releases as well as a small vertical tasting of chardonnay from the estate’s vineyards in the Carneros AVA. The oldest chardonnay was from 2016, and it was still fresh and complex, suggesting that Carneros chardonnays from top vintages can age extremely well. The recent releases from the hot 2022 vintage were of excellent quality thanks to a precise harvest before the well-documented heat dome, when temperatures reached almost 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius) over the first part of September.

AROMATIC SYMPHONY

Meanwhile, both James and Senior Editor Aldo Fiordelli tasted the Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri Sassicaia 2022, and were in agreement on its rating despite being on different continents during their respective tastings.

Aldo was at the Tenuta San Guido estate in 2022, and he said that driving along the Via Bolgherese that year he could easily recognize the estate’s vineyards by the pale gray leaves on the vines, dusted with caolin – a natural clay that reduces photosynthesis. In essence, Aldo said, it was as if the grapes had been coated in sunscreen.

It was just one of the careful measures the winery took to mitigate the effects of the scorching, dry weather that year. Their late-ripening cabernets, both sauvignon and franc, ultimately benefited from two well-timed rains in September, which helped balance the vintage.

The 2022 Sassicaia, Aldo said, is a remarkable wine – fresh, vibrant, and infused with Mediterranean energy. Structured and almost chewy in texture, it offers an aromatic symphony of red and black currants, cedar, iron and terracotta. On the palate, flavors of lead pencil, sandalwood, red currant, and fresh Mediterranean herbs — thyme, rosemary, and dried eucalyptus — unfold elegantly. The tannins are firm yet polished, hinting at a wine that will benefit from three to four years of bottle age to fully integrate and soften.

This was a highly anticipated tasting, as Sassicaia remains a model of consistency year after year. But beyond its own pedigree, it is also a true Bolgheri – forthright and expressive, offering valuable insight into the vintage itself. And that, in turn, gives reason for optimism.

RISING STARS FROM THE PFALZ

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott traveled to the Pfalz to visit a couple of the most important rising stars of recent years. Stuart has followed the progress of young winemaker Vincent Eymann for some years, but nothing prepared him for the two extraordinary single-vineyard pinot noirs (spatburgunders) Eymann made in the 2022 vintage.

Stuart rubbed his eyes in disbelief as he tasted them again and again. Both are extremely youthful, but at the moment the Eymann Spätburgunder Pfalz Sonnenberg 2022 is the more sensual, with incredible black and sour cherry fruit.

However, even here there’s such a concentration and rooty complexity that Stuart has no doubt the wine is as good as many of the most extraordinary German pinot noirs of the great 2022 vintage.

For anyone with more patience, the extremely spicy, herbal and rooty Eymann Spätburgunder Pfalz Mandelgarten 2022 has  dangerous energy and superfine tannins that give it mind-blowing vitality. The enormously long finish is incredibly mineral and seals the deal for this masterpiece of structure and subtlety.

How did Eymann do it? The story begins at the beginning of the 1990s when Stuart met Eymann's parents, Inge and Rainer, who had already converted their vineyards to organic cultivation (the switch to biodynamics would follow in 2006). Stuart and James well remember how bad some of the organic wines of this period were, and the Eymanns stood out because everything they made tasted good and distinctive. That was a major achievement for the period and Stuart visited the winery as a result, but then he lost touch with the family.

The younger Eymann studied at the Geisenheim Wine University and then took over the winery in 2015, the vintage with which he adopted the current wine style, focused on textural and aromatic complexity (also for dry riesling and sparkling wines). And it was his 2015 pinot noirs that first alerted Stuart to the fact that something important was happening in the otherwise sleepy village of Gonnheim in the Pfalz. In spite of Vincent Eymann’s achievements since then, the winery remains utterly unspectacular – in fact you need the street address to even find it!

You can’t say that about the stunning modernistic new winery that the Rings brothers opened in 2018. Steffen Rings, who started making wine in 2001, actually designed the building himself with a modest amount of help from an engineer. The architecture is as striking as the wines that he makes with his brother Andi Rings, who joined in 2007.

Stuart had already tasted the dry riesling GGs of the 2023 vintage and the pinot noir GGs of the 2022 vintage, and their quality was the reason that he had to visit. So for these two grape varieties that are the focus of Rings production, there were no high-end wines to taste. However, scroll down for the Erste Lage and entry-level wines from Rings. They all impressed Stuart.

The standout wine that Stuart tasted here was a sparkler, the Rings Sekt Pfalz Calcaire Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature 2020, which you could easily mistake for a prestige cuvee Champagne thanks to the concentration of candied citrus peel character and the creamy complexity of this mouth-filling, pinot noir-based wine.

POWERFULLY SHANGRI-LA 

Senior Editor Zekun Shuai joined Ao Yun estate director and winemaker Maxence Dulou for a Zoom tasting of Ao Yun’s 2021 release and its village “cru” wines. This ambitious project, run by the global beverage conglomerate Moet Hennessy Diageo, is nestled in the lofty mountains of Yunnan province, a few hours’ drive from the city of Shangri-La and the borders of Tibet. Ao Yun today works on a mosaic of more than 770 sub-plots across its 31 hectares of vines from four distinct villages: Adong, at 2,600 meters in altitude, Shuori (2,500 meters), Sinong (2,300 meters), and Xidang (2,200 meters).

Dulou noted that the warm 2021 vintage was the driest vintage for them since their inaugural release of the 2013 vintage. 2021 was marked by a parched winter and spring, with rainfall of just 28 millimeters from January to June, and then 222 millimeters during the entire summer.

“This means canopy management and irrigation were crucial for 2022,” said Dulou, who explained that 2021 was consequently their earliest harvest ever, starting on Sept. 6 in Xidang and finishing on Nov. 2 in Adong.

It was also a year that Ao Yun slightly turned up the yield, with around one kilogram of grapes per vine, which was slightly higher than the previous years, according to Dulou. The resulting Ao Yun 2021 is a dense, concentrated and full-bodied red, but it’s aso fresh and refined, with an abundance of polished tannins in its classic cabernet context. Demureness comes from its profile of dark cassis, dark olive, paprika, tobacco, graphite and cigar box.

The final blend consists of 57 percent cabernet sauvignon, 19 percent cabernet franc, 12 percent merlot, 6 percent syrah and 6 percent petit verdot coming from the Adong, Shuori, Xidang and Sinong vineyards.

While the separate village cru wines made from these vineyards exhibited less uniformity in quality compared with what Zekun remembered from the 2020 vintage, Sinong’s incisive minerality and Adong’s spicier, Mediterranean profile this year – with rounder tannins and more fluidity – emerged more clearly, highlighting the sense of place and the unique characteristics of the terroirs from each village.

SEPPELTSFIELD'S TIME CAPSULE

Seppeltsfield has a long and storied history of making fortified wines in Australia’s Barossa Valley, particularly its tawny-style offerings from both shiraz and grenache, since 1878.  Associate editor Ryan Montgomery recently checked in to see how the ‘25 vintage is coming along – the 1925 release, that is!

In 1878, Oscar "Benno" Seppelt embarked on a mission to select his favorite puncheon of fortified wine, intending for it to remain in the cellars for 100 years before bottling. He aimed to create something special that would live on in history. He indeed accomplished this, building what he called the centennial cellar, which currently spans 148 consecutive years of production. The release of the 1925 vintage marks the 48th consecutive release of this truly unique and rare wine.

Ryan, who grew up in Australia amid the country’s bustling wine industry, was not at all surprised by the exotic and unique nature of this wine, which offers great complexity, texture and concentration. However, what might surprise some newcomers to the Australian fortified scene is the balance that the acidity brings to the wine. With over 100 years of evaporation, the proportion of acidity has actually increased as the alcohol and water have dissipated, allowing the wine to remain balanced while gaining complex density and structure.

Tasting the 1925 Seppeltsfield Rare Tawny South Australia Para transports these qualities to all the senses, revealing an almost motor-oil black color and an intensely complex nose of baking spice, dried fruits, chocolate, citrus peel and oil. The palate is rich and thick, but with vibrant acidity supporting flavors of toasted nuts, Christmas pudding, espresso, cocoa and brown butter. This wine is a time capsule, envisioned by someone who was thinking 100 years ahead, as a true visionary should.

– James Suckling, Aldo Fiordelli, Stuart Pigott, Zekun Shuai and Ryan Montgomery contributed reporting.

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.

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