Top 100 Value Wines of 2024 ($40 or Less!)

100 TASTING NOTES
Friday, Jan 17, 2025

The Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py 2022 takes top honors on our Top 100 Value list for its stunning focus and inspiring energy, not to mention its friendly price.

It’s been a busy year for JamesSuckling.com. Our team of 11 tasters rated more than 42,000 wines in 2024, traveling to dozens of wine regions in our quest to discover the best that the wine world has to offer. We are always hunting for great quality regardless of price, but we also keep an eye out for great values since we, too, are wine lovers with budgets!

The wines below widely retail for $40 and below, according to Wine-Searcher. Our Top 100 Value rankings are based on a price-score metric, as well as global availability and production volume. We excluded wines with limited offerings on Wine-Searcher, and we ranked wines that are only available in a few regions (or only one, such as Europe) further down the list. We also limited each producer to one wine only.

Of the 12 countries that made this year’s Top Value list, France (15 wines), Germany (14) and Italy (13) topped the charts, followed by Argentina (11), Australia (10), New Zealand (9), Spain (9), Chile (7), the United States (5), Portugal (3), Austria (3) and South Africa (1). The wines are mostly rated 95 points and above, along with a select few extremely affordable 94-point wines. France, Germany and Italy in particular gave us plenty to choose from in terms of quality – their 2024 Top 100 lists exclusively featured wines scoring 96 points or higher.

However, the global trend of rising prices has made it increasingly difficult to find great yet affordable wines. Many have become too expensive to qualify for this list due to climbing production costs and the protection of profit margins. As an extreme example, the average price of the wines on our Top 100 Wines of the USA 2024 list reached a staggering $170, with only a couple priced below our $40 value threshold.

Even in regions like Chile and Argentina, where great value wines were once abundant, many have become costly. We were especially surprised by the paucity from Chile, where the output of such wines had once been prodigious, but perhaps this is a sign of success for that country’s maturing wine industry. Meanwhile, lots of great value wines can be found within Australia, New Zealand and Germany, but they are difficult to find outside their borders.

For Jean-Marc Burgaud (left), 2022 is probably his best ever vintage. He is now assisted by his son-in-law, Quentin Uzureau.
Anita Neveu, the owner of Domaine Anita, samples her latest wines with Senior Editor Stuart Pigott in her kitchen. She made the No. 4 Domaine Anita Moulin-à-Vent Reine de Nuit 2022.

In France, Beaujolais continues to be an underappreciated region  by many markets despite its amazing quality for value proposition. Beaujolais wines consistently deliver exceptional value – especially considering the soaring prices of neighboring Burgundy. In fact, 12 of the 15 French wines on this year's list hail from prestigious “cru” villages like Morgon and Moulin-a-Vent. These wines are structured and serious, easily rivaling many highly rated Burgundies. And Beaujolais has one of the largest concentrations of old vines in France.

Our No. 1 wine, the Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py 2022, is a stunningly focused red that shows inspiring energy and minerality. It comes from what has long been considered the top site of Morgon – the isolated hill of Cote du Py, home to blue-stone granite and schist soils that give rise to more concentrated and tannic expressions of the usually thin-skinned gamay grape. This wine retails all over the world for about $25 and it comes from a large, six-hectare parcel, so it’s readily available.

The other Beaujolais wine in our Top 10 is the Domaine Anita Moulin-à-Vent Reine de Nuit 2022 (No. 4). It’s a mouth-filling, structured yet graceful offering made with 100 percent whole bunches. It’s produced by Anita Neveu, who is part of a new generation of winemakers bent on making serious, ageworthy wines from the humble gamay grape.

None of the French wines on this list came from Champagne, Burgundy or Bordeaux, where premium prices are the rule. There were notably fewer great wines from Bordeaux under $40 this year, influenced by the good but not great quality of the 2021 vintage.

Our No. 2 pick, the K Vintners Syrah Yakima Valley Motor City Kitty 2021, has long been on our radar for being one of the best value wines from the United States, and it’s one of only five American offerings that made this year’s value list. It also finished at No. 7 in our Top 100 World Wines of 2024. The Motor City Kitty is a seriously delicious red, full of savory, earthy and peppery aromas, with astounding freshness, energy and minerality. Retailing globally for $40 – the cutoff price point for our Top Value list – it’s proof that you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for a serious syrah. What’s more, it’s widely available with a production of around 3,000 cases.

Our No. 2 K Vintners Syrah Yakima Valley Motor City Kitty 2021 is consistently one of the best values from the U.S.
Frankland Estate in Western Australia made the amazing Frankland Estate Riesling Frankland River Isolation Ridge 2022 (front).
The Juffer-Sonnenuhr GG sites in the Mosel, which gave us the No. 5 Max Ferd. Richter Riesling Mosel Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Spätlese 2023.

Although we excluded many Australian wines from our list because they are not widely available outside the country, 10 still managed to make it, from a range of varieties, including shiraz, riesling, savagnin and sangiovese, and appellations. From Western Australia, the Frankland Estate Riesling Frankland River Isolation Ridge 2022 (No. 3) has enormous depth, nuance and concentration, plus creaminess from long lees contact. It was also the No. 3 wine on our Top 100 Wines of Australia 2024 list.

The 2023 vintage in Germany was marked by complicated weather patterns that resulted in lower vineyard yields. But despite excluding several German wines because of their meager worldwide distribution, the country is still well represented on this list.

At No. 5 is the first of 14 German whites on our list. The Max Ferd. Richter Riesling Mosel Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Spätlese 2023 is a classic example of the Spatlese category, showing the elegance and aromatic finesse that can come from a young riesling. It has moderate residual sugar that is well integrated with a wealth of mineral, herbal and spicy nuances, and Senior Editor Stuart Pigott said it reminded him of the great 1990 vintage of this wine. It’s widely available in international markets like the United States for under $30.

Mueller-Catoir winemaker Martin Franzen saw stunning results in 2023.

Meanwhile, the Müller-Catoir Weissburgunder Pfalz Herzog EL 2023 at No. 7 is an incredible white wine with extravagant aromas of mandarin oranges and white flowers, as well as an endless, mineral finish. It’s a decadent example of weissburgunder (pinot blanc or pinot bianco), and the only non-riesling of the German wines on this list.

The 13 Italian wines on the list showcase the value to be found across the country, from diverse areas in the north like Alto Adige, Veneto and Piedmont, to the central region of Tuscany and down to Sicily, in the south. The Manincor Sauvignon Blanc Alto Adige Tannenberg 2022 (No.8) is an agile yet dense expression of this international variety, full of tension and focus, and produced from biodynamically farmed grapes. It’s from a unique wine region in the north of Italy where Alpine coolness mitigates some of the hot and dry weather in recent vintages, such as 2022.

For a refined and beautiful red, check out the Schiopetto Venezia-Giulia Podere dei Blumeri 2020 (No.10). Schiopetto is perhaps better known for its white wines, but this blend of merlot and refosco is superbly focused with ultra-fine tannins and will gain more complexity with further aging. It highlights how Collio in Friuli makes some great reds as well as whites.

Two outstanding Spanish wines also made out Top 10. The Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce Bobal Manchuela Pino 2023 (No. 6) turns this usually fruity grape into a meaty, structured and stony wine. It also has spicy and floral notes, and Senior Editor Zekun Shuai said it reminded him of a “beautifully refined, linear Rhone-style syrah” when he tasted it.

James (foreground) tasting in his Tuscany office with the father and son team of Emilio (right) and Alessandro Rotolo of Friuli's Schiopetto this summer. They made the delicious Schiopetto Venezia-Giulia Podere dei Blumeri 2020 (No. 10).
The structured and stony Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce Bobal Manchuela Pino 2023 is our No. 6 value wine.

And last but certainly not least is the Guímaro Mencía Ribeira Sacra Finca Meixeman 2022 (No. 9), which was also our Spanish Wine of the Year for 2024. It’s a wildly aromatic, juicy and expansive red from a stunningly scenic, terraced vineyard area. It’s 70 percent mencia with a field blend of other local varieties using a large proportion of whole-cluster fermentation. It certainly captured our attention this year and retails widely for under $30 in Europe and for under $40 in the United States.

The Guímaro Mencía Ribeira Sacra Finca Meixeman 2022 (No. 9) highlights the exceptional quality that can be found in Spain's 2022 vintage.

There’s much more to discover in the notes below, from Argentine malbecs and New Zealand pinot noirs to the best sparkling wine of Tuscany. This list turns a spotlight on the very best values available in the wine world, but you can find more wines that offer excellent value by checking out our national and regional reports and focusing on the 92- to 94-point wines. Or use our Advanced Search on our new website that can pinpoint wines by price range, country and region. Regardless, our tasting team’s commitment to finding exceptional quality wine without breaking the bank remains unwavering in 2025.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor

Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2024 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.

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