At the end of February, I began to travel to catch up for lost time in Hong Kong after almost two years of what was essentially being locked down because of the pandemic. I landed in San Francisco, and my wine odyssey began with tasting hundreds of 2019 cabernet sauvignons and many other wines up and down the coast of California as well as Oregon and Washington. And then it was four months in Europe, mostly Italy and France, and finally back to the West Coast, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of the JamesSuckling.com tasters accompanied me along the way, while Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted on his own in Europe and others kept the tastings going in our office in Hong Kong.
It was the biggest effort I have personally made in 41 years as a wine critic, but it was worth every minute despite all the difficulties along the way. In the last 12 months, my team and I rated over 32,000 wines. That’s 7,000 more than last year. And I doubt many other well-known competitors in the arena of wine criticism rated as many wines or racked up as many frequent-flier miles. All of my tasting team had the chance to travel to key wine regions and see vineyards, speak with winemakers and taste wines in context. It’s important for all of us to understand great wines better and improve our skills as wine critics and, more important, as wine lovers. Plus, I am an old journalist at hand – I began my career as daily journalist in a small town in Utah - and there’s nothing better than reporting from the field – or vineyards in our case. I try to instill this journalistic process and thinking in all my team of editors and tasters.
