Talk only to industry insiders and you might think that wine – including the French classics – is on the way out, but when I talk to regular wine consumers I find their interest undimmed. This year’s Top 100 Wines of France is addressed to them and presents them with the best we tasted over the past year.

It’s still a common misconception that France’s greatest wines are always powerful reds that are so tannic there’s no way you can drink them young – and that they cost a fortune. Our French Wine of the Year, the Jean-Marc Burgaud Morgon Côte du Py 2023, demolishes that myth at a stroke ­– and it’s a stroke of genius. Plus, it sells for about $30 a bottle.

Morgon has long been our favorite of the 10 Beaujolais cru, and Jean-Marc Burgaud is one of the most dynamic producers in this appellation, making reds from the gamay grape that marry great concentration with no less finesse. How can you resist the dazzling mineral freshness of our No. 1 French wine? 

There are six hectares of vineyards behind this bottle, all of which lie on or close to the summit of the volcanic hill of Py in Morgon. About 29,000 bottles were made in 2023. So, your chance of finding one or more bottles is really good. By the way, the wine was made entirely in concrete tanks, so there are no vanilla, toast or coffee aromas from new oak. Instead this wine envelops you with violets, forest floor and wild herb aromas.

In fact, the first nine wines of this year’s top 100 have global average retail prices under $100, and the first 59 wines are all under $200. Sure, there are some more expensive wines further down the list, for example the Château d’Yquem Sauternes 2022 is No. 69 primarily because of the $370 price tag. That reflects how it marries perfection to one of the wine world’s greatest legends.

Quality and price, of course, are the main criteria for our Top 100 lists, followed by the "wow factor" – the emotional response we get from a truly great wine. Each wine's production volume and availability are also factors, and we only pick wines with a minimum production of 3,000 bottles, with few exceptions.

Altogether, one of the most striking features of this year’s Top 100 Wines of France list is the phalanx of Bordeaux wines of the 2022 vintage, and like d’Yquem some of them are white and sweet. You probably already know that Bordeaux made some incredible wines in this hot and dry vintage that have the intensity and power for long-term aging but are also beautiful young.

The Château d'Issan Margaux 2022 from the appellation of Margaux comes in as our No. 2 wine, and its complexity and luxuriousness highlight the beauty of the modern Bordeaux. It’s gorgeous to try now but will be even better in three or four years and beyond. Owner Emanuel Cruze and his team are crafting some of their best wines ever at the estate and 2022 is a new benchmark, especially since it costs about $80 a bottle. And it's relatively easy to buy, with 105,000 bottles made.

The Château Suduiraut Sauternes 2022 follows at No. 3, another luscious masterpiece of this underrated appellation. James raved about the aromas of dried apricot, turmeric, pine nuts and Botrytis. And there’s also plenty of this one to go around!

Since they reached the market, the 2022 red Bordeaux have faced some blowback, partly because of the perceived high prices. But there are many excellent values considering the incredible quality in sweet wines as well a slightly less famous reds.

Look at our  No 5 French wine, the firmly structured Château Giscours Margaux 2022. It’s the only wine in our Top 10 that definitely needs some further years of bottle aging to show its best, but the price is around just $70.

Alsace is another region with some of the greatest vineyard sites in France and great values, and its efforts to reinvent itself bore abundant fruits this year. Not least among them are our No. 4 and No. 6 wines.

The perfect-scoring Domaine Barmes-Buecher Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Hengst 2023 at No. 4 is a giant wine for a dry riesling, reflecting this great site, but it also has breathtaking finesse and refinement. I remember how a generation ago the Hengst was widely regarded as an unsuitable for riesling but ideal for gewurztraminner. However, climate change and winemaking genius have proved this notion wrong. In this case, the genius lies in the brother-sister team of Maxime and Sophie Barmes. But this wine will be difficult to find, with only 3,000 bottles made.

At No. 6 is the Muré Pinot Noir Alsace Vorbourg Clos St. Landelin 2022, clearly the best pinot noir red wine that another brother and sister team, Thomas and Véronique Muré, have produced. And this wine has already been approved to carry the Grand Cru designation in future vintages. Rightly so!

Chateauneuf-du-Pape in the Southern Rhone struggles to gain the recognition it deserves in part because of the high levels of alcohol and huge tannins found in its wines, and climate change has exacerbated these factors, particulary from the 2015 vintage. The most important strategy to mitigate this is the counoise grape.

The Domaine de la Solitude Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vin de la Solitude 2022 (No. 7) is 20 percent counoise and that really helps create the endless flavors in the wine’s super-refined finish. However, winemaker Florent Lancon’s motivation for producing it was actually to re-create the wines his family exported more than 200 years ago under the name Vin de la Solitude. Either way it is a spectacular innovation.

Burgundy has a massive problem with the prices for wines bearing the terms “Grand Cru” and, in many instances, “Premier Cru” on their labels. The edifice of four-figure and high three-figure bottle prices will take a while to crumble, but there are already some wonderful Burgundies from supposedly “lesser” appellations.

No wine embodies this  more radically than the No. 9 Domaine Boris Champy Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Beaune Bignon 421 2023, which has incredible floral complexity and super-fine tannins that help give it breathtaking precision. It comes from what historically was regarded as one of the least desirable appellations in the entire region, and it’s also a prototypical example of a high-altitude Burgundy wine. Here is another steal at around $34!

The Burgundian commune of Marsannay has been struggling to get more than a dozen of its best sites recognized as Premier Crus, but while the INAO dithers we recognize the greatness of their best wines. The Domaine Charles Audoin Marsannay Les Favières 2023, our No. 8 French wine, has a mind-blowing aroma of sour cherries and the chalky minerality builds to an extraordinary climax at the finish. And $58 is a friendly price for this astonishing quality.

The prices of a lot of top Champagnes moved up the last years, but as James pointed out, the Lanson Champagne Noble Cuvée Brut Vintage 2012 (No. 10) is really something for $147. Many Champagnes with this kind of complexity – think dried apples, nutmeg, cloves and white pepper – cost around $100 more.

Here it is only possible to pick out a few highlights, such as the fact six of the Top 20 come from Beaujolais. We invite you to scroll down and explore the treasure trove of French beauty below!

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

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