November 2022 Tasting Report: Mind-Blowing Chardonnays, Spicy Syrahs and China’s Grand Vins

November at JamesSuckling.com meant the start of our Top 100 country reports, with Spain, New Zealand and Australia kicking off proceedings that will take us through the end of the year. The latter two countries gave us even more great offerings over the course of our tastings during the month, including the latest release of our Wine of the Year last year, the Kumeu River Chardonnay Kumeu Maté’s Vineyard 2021. Coming from a 2.6-hectare single vineyard, this wine is fantastically mineral, compact and phenolic, with a mind-blowing intensity that lasts for minutes. It’s also the third in a trio of great vintages in New Zealand and leads the charge for the impressive chardonnay offerings of the country.

But pinot noirs from New Zealand also sparkled during our monthly tastings, with a couple of the best being the Bell Hill Pinot Noir Wakari 2018, which has fantastic complexity, depth, power and texture, and the Prophet’s Rock 2017, which is more compact and muscular, with savory, firm and focused layers. Ata Rangi’s Martinborough pinot noirs – the 2020 Masters and 2020 McCrone Vineyard – are also truly exciting wines, with enticing aromas ranging from green strawberry and hibiscus tea (Masters) to rose and negroni (McCrone Vineyard), with silky, velvety tannins.

And if syrah is your thing, check out the Bilancia Syrah Hawkes Bay La Collina 2020, which is beautifully perfumed with an incredible amount of spicy complexity, and the Trinity Hill Syrah Hawkes Bay Homage 2019, which has delicious savoriness and meaty quality.

READ MORE TOP 100 WINES OF NEW ZEALAND 2022

Our top bottles from Australia included the latest releases of the Peter Lehmann winery’s premium range, including the Riesling Eden Valley Wigan 2016 and Semillon Barossa Margaret Limited Release 2016, both of which came from a straightforward, excellent vintage for Barossa. The same region produced a shiraz made from very old, dry-farmed pre-phylloxera vines planted in 1853, the Hewitson Shiraz Barossa Valley Monopole Mother Vine 2020 – an opulent yet delicate wine with an attractive spicy blue fruit character.

Two Australian pinot noirs of note were the Giant Steps Pinot Noir Tasmania Fatal Shore 2021 and William Downie Pinot Noir Gippsland Camp Hill 2021, with the former showing vibrant blood orange and cocoa-dusted strawberries and the Camp Hill displaying a more savory, wild rosemary and mushroom character.

Staying in the Southern Hemisphere, the Swartland region of South Africa continued to impress, especially with chenin blancs. David & Nadia’s Skaliekap 2021 showed seamless balance, complexity, freshness and concentration all rolled into a medium body and silky texture, while their Platbos 2021 and Hoe-Steen 2021 are also worth seeking out and have excellent cellaring potential.

The Sadie Family Columella 2020, meanwhile, is a fantastic syrah-based red with a sprinkle of other Rhone varietals, while Mullineux’s 2020 Iron and Schist syrahs – the former an herbal expression showing beautiful transparency; the latter more brooding, dense and deep – are also worth seeking out.

From Europe, Germany and Italy gave us a glut of noteworthy bottles during our November tastings. Senior Editor Stuart Pigott was most impressed with a trio of powerful, tannic reds from Germany’s 2018 vintage, all produced by Weingut Albrecht Schwegler in the Wurttemberg wine region, that he said, “blew me away.”

The best of them was the stunning Albrecht Schwegler Württemberg Granat 2018, a cuvee of 51 percent Zweigelt, 26 percent merlot, 17 percent cabernet sauvignon and 6 percent cabertin. Stuart said the silky and floral Albrecht Schwegler Württemberg Saphir 2018 cuvee “reminded me of Pomerol,” while the more robust Albrecht Schwegler Würtemberg Beryll 2018 is almost 80 percent Zweigelt, with some cabertin and lemberger. All of them are “totally untypical German reds,” Stuart said, but all representative of the pursuit of tannic, structured reds in the country.

2020 was an equally good vintage for German vintners, producing the near perfect Immich-Batterieberg Riesling Mosel Batterieberg Réserve 2020, with its “enormous concentration and amazing mouthfeel” one normally associated with Burgundian chardonnay, as well as the Immich-Batterieberg Riesling Mosel Zollturm 2020.

Stuart also made a superb pinot noir discovery in Germany, where Verena Schottle of Chat Sauvage, in the Rheingau wine region, made the astonishing-quality Chat Sauvage Pinot Noir Rheingau Lorch Schlossberg 2020, which has stunning concentration and is incredibly expressive with a wonderful freshness – something akin to premier and grand cru Burgundy from a vintage with healthy acidity, like 2016, according to Stuart.

We also wrapped up our tastings of 2018 Brunellos and wrote up our findings in our annual report on the region. Overall, 2018 gave more balanced and drinkable wines compared with the chewy and tannic 2017s. The northern hill of Montosoli gave us the Altesino’s Montosoli 2018, which is on par with Brunello’s great 2015 and 2016 vintages, while on the opposite, southeastern slope of Montalcino, fruit from the Pianrosso vineyard produced the intense Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona’s Pianrosso 2018, which is full of depth and intensity.

And recent releases from Aubert and Raen highlighted our tastings of Sonomo Coast and Napa wines. The 2021 vintage in both places is shaping up to be a great one, with Carlo Mondavi of Raen opining that “it has some the richness of 2019 and 2017 and the elegance of 2018 and 2016.”

They both had some fantastic chardonnays and pinot noirs we rated, with the Aubert wines made in a straightforward way that emphasize the unadulterated beauty and ripeness of their grapes from Napa and Sonoma, while Raen uses whole clusters of grapes in their winemaking to give the wines some lift and zest. Two very different styles of wines, yet both are equally compelling. Grace Family Vineyards, meanwhile, gave us a pure and focused cabernet sauvignon from the 2019 vintage – it’s one of James’ favorite wines from the region and well worth seeking out even though they made only about 150 cases of it. Another cabernet you should try to get your hands on is the Reliquus Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley St. Helena 2018, and there are also terrific new releases from the mountain wineries of Outpost and True, with pure and structured 2019 reds on Howell Mountain.

READ MORE CAN BRUNELLO’S COOL AND CLASSIC 2018 VINTAGE BE CONSIDERED GREAT? 2022 ANNUAL REPORT

Finally, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai is back in Beijing and tasting the latest releases of Chinese wines. Among the standouts were the youthful and floral Chateau Rong Yuan Mei Syrah Ningxia Hong Fan Yin 容园美酒庄西拉 2020, which came from a challenging vintage yet flourished, delivering excellent concentration with proper structure and fine tannins, and the Chateau H.Y.R.H Malbec Ningxia Mountain Wave 海悦仁和酒庄一山一水珍藏马尔贝克 2020 a malbec that shows a fruity, herbal freshness with a fine, mineral edge.

The most impressive offerings from China, though, came from the northwestern corner of Yunnan province near the Tibetan border, where the Xiao Ling winery produces perfumed, acid-driven cabernet sauvignon and merlots from elevated vineyards between 2,000 to 2,400 meters in altitude, sourcing grapes from more than eight villages. The best of these grapes made Xiao Ling’s cabernet-merlot Grand Vin blend – the Xiao Ling Cizhong霄岭 2019 and Xiao Ling Cizhong 霄岭 2020, which are both remarkably consistent in quality, with the 2019 fresh and juicy and the 2020 crunchier and more succulent.

In all, we rated 2,321 wines during November, from Argentina, Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and the United States. That brings us to well over 30,000 wines tasted during 2022, and we still have December to go! We’ll keep rolling out the rest of our Top 100 reports in the meantime, and bring you our final tasting tally once we get to the end of this long but rewarding and always delicious year.

– Vince Morkri, Managing Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during November by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many of the latest releases and some not yet available on the market but which will be available soon. 

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