Spanish Heavyweights Come Out Swinging, Plus Making Waves in the Danube: Weekly Tasting Report (Oct 2-8)

We rated 546 wines from seven countries over the past week, with Senior Editor Zekun Shuai leading the way by exploring the recent releases of the Spanish heavyweight producers Alvaro Palacios, from Priorat, and Comando G, from Gredos. While all the wines Zekun reviewed hail from the rather Mediterranean 2022 vintage, which was marked by drought and heat in both regions, they still offer freshness and, more important, nuance and delicacy – qualities essential to these terroir-driven selections that subtly reflect the vintage’s character.

The 2022 wines from Palacios are closer in style to the cooler and fantastic 2021 vintage than 2020, as the latter was a low-yielding year with higher concentration and color. The 2022s surprise with their freshness and elegance, with their finesse taking a lead over color and density. This characteristic runs through the entire range of Palacios' wines, from his entry-level bottlings to his most coveted (and expensive) offering, the agile and elegant L’Ermita.

You can expect similar finesse and agility from Comando G’s 2022 offerings. “2022 is a vintage that needs a bit more time,” Daniel Landi, one of the co-owners of Comando G along with Fernando Garcia, told Zekun in an interview. He added that although they have not yet bottled their Iruelas, Rey Moro, Umbrias and Rumbo Al Norte, “we are definitely seeing refinement of these wines in the cellar.”

Landi and Garcia also managed to maintain the freshness and finesse they strive for in their expressive  garnachas. They adapted to the challenges of 2022’s warm, dry year, with slightly higher alcohol levels than the cooler, more ideal 2021, which Landi considers one of his favorite vintages. Nevertheless, there’s no need to worry that the 2022s are “fruity” wines. Instead, the style is ethereal, refined and stony.

Zekun’s favorite Comando G offerings from 2022 that are already in bottle are El Reventon, which is citrusty, supple and expressive, 1er Peña La Mora and El Tamboril Tinto, which usually shows the deepest color of the trio with a distinctively saucy, iodine and warm-stone-like note.

It’s worth mentioning that Landi sold El Reventon to Argentine winemaker Alejandro Vigil in 2023, so it will be vinified by Vigil in the future. At the same time, Comando G has added three new bottlings of village wines: Rozas, Villanueva and Navatalgordo. You can check out the tasting notes for these offerings below.

MAKING WAVES IN THE DANUBE

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott continued his tastings in the Kamptal, Kremstal, Traisental and Wagram appelations that all lie within Austria’s wider Danube Valley region. Like the more famous, neighboring Wachau, they focus on dry whites from the gruner veltliner (the most widely planted variety) and riesling grapes.

Not surprisingly, it was these varieties that shared the top honors in the excellent 2023 vintage. For Stuart, a truly extraordinary pair of wines from Markus Huber’s holdings in the little-known Traisental region stood right at the front.

Huber is a cool-headed quality fanatic and a free-thinker who has been relentlessly pushing the envelope over the last five years. With the perfect Markus Huber Riesling Traisental Berg EL 2023, he finally hit the target right in the center. This is a giant of elegance and finesse, with a whole meadow of wildflower and herb aromas. It is super concentrated and pristine with incredible minerality and a caressing, almost endless finish.

Hot on its heels is the Markus Huber Grüner Veltliner Traisental Berg EL 2023, which has a terrific cool-climate brilliance for a grape variety that tends toward opulence and roundness in warm vintages. The fabulous pink and yellow grapefruit aromas plus a finish that introduces you to infinity left Stuart completely speechless.

Due to construction work at the winery, Huber’s tasting room was doubling as the office when Stuart visited, so the situation was definitely sub-optimal, and yet the wines shone. Scroll down for the other excellent gruner veltliners and rieslings from this producer.

The other wine right at the top was the Hirsch Riesling Kamptal Heiligenstein-Rotfels EL 2023, which is incredibly graceful for a dry riesling, with extraordinary concentration. This wine comes from a sub-site of the legendary Heiligenstein and is expensive in the Austrian context. However, the other single-vineyard rieslings and gruner veltliners from winemaker Johannes Hirsch are not far behind, and they're more friendly in price.

Another winemaker who stood out was Patrick Proidl of Senfentenberg in the Kremstal region. Here, the steeply terraced  vineyards with gneis (a granite-like rock with a layered structure) and so-called mica-slate soils are similar to the Wachau. That combination helped the Proidl Riesling Kremstal Ried Hochäcker EL 2023 achieve its aromatic complexity, making it incredibly refined and filigreed, the power and concentration totally underplayed until they emerge at the focused finish.

More wines that demand a mention are the sparkling wines from Willi Brundlmayer, who started experimenting with sparkling wines when he married Edwige, a Frenchwoman. Their kids are now grown, but Brundlmayer keeps on working at this project together with his right-hand man, Andreas Wickhoff MW. The powerful, multifaceted Bründlmayer Sekt Niederösterreich Blanc de Noirs Extra Brut Reserve 2016 is their best yet.

There will be a lot more about the special features of the 2023 vintage in these regions in Stuart’s forthcoming Austria Report. Here, one point needs to be noted: gruner veltliners from vineyards with fertile and water-retentive loess soils have a particular tendency to fleshiness and roundness that makes them taste very similar to one another. We feel that single-vineyard wines with the Erste Lage (EL) designation – equivalent to premier crus in Burgundy – should each have their own personality. Even in the excellent 2023 vintage, this was sometimes missing.

A TASTE OF BURGUNDY 2022

The highlight from our tastings in Hong Kong over the past week was a lineup of Jean-Marie Fourrier’s latest wines from Burgundy. Domaine Fourrier is based in Gevrey-Chambertin and is known for his top pinots from grand cru vineyards in the Cote de Nuits like Chambertin. He is also the winemaker and co-owner of Australian winery Bass Philip.

However, Fourrier ventured into the Cote de Beaune in 2022, acquiring eight hectares of old chardonnay and pinot noir vines, and built a new winery in Beaune in time to make the wine from that excellent vintage.

READ MORE BURGUNDY 2024 TASTING REPORT: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

The most impressive wine that Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tasted was the Jean-Marie Fourrier Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru Vigne Comte de Chapelle Vieille Vigne 2022, a powerful chardonnay from the plots of Le Corton and Les Renardes. It has complex notes of white fruit and white truffles, with a tight, long and spicy finish, and it will need a few years in bottle.

There’s a 2022 premier cru Chassagne-Montrachet from vines planted in 1929 that has fantastic tension and freshness, as well as a deliciously buttery and broad Meursault, but even the Bourgogne wines (both white and red) are delicious with excellent density and structure. As for the reds, check out the range of elegant and ethereal 2022 pinots from Pommard and Volnay, alongside a supple and rich Beaune premier cru. The range is labeled Vigne Comte de Chapelle, and the inaugural 2022 releases are under his negociant brand.

– Zekun Shuai, Stuart Pigott and Claire Nesbitt 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.

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.