With nearly 17,000 wines judged blind from 58 countries, Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) is, on one level, a roll-call of the usual greats. France, Italy and Spain dominate the medal charts every year and 2026 was no exception.

But the real thrill of the world's largest wine competition lies in its margins: the grape you can't pronounce, the region you couldn't place on a map, the style nobody expected to triumph.

Every wine is judged blind within its own flight, grouped by country, region, colour, variety, style, vintage and price point, then measured against the very best examples of its type from around the world. It is within that rigorous structure that a handful of wines from unexpected places manage, every year, to seize the moment. Here are five of the most exciting discoveries from the 2026 results.

1. Hungary's hue of red

Hungary is a country that many oenophiles file under sweet wine, and with reason: the honeyed Tokaji Aszú remains one of the world's great dessert wines and it duly delivered the country a Best in Show this year. But the more surprising story was a red.

For the first time, Hungary earned a Platinum for a red wine: Heumann's La Trinità, Villány 2019, a 100% Cabernet Franc, part of a banner haul of eight Platinums, up from three last year. It was a wine that turned heads in the judging room.

Dr Caroline Gilby, a Master of Wine who has followed Central and Eastern Europe for decades and was the Regional Chair for the Balkans, Central & Eastern Europe, and Croatia & Slovenia this year, picked out 'a superb Hungarian Cabernet Franc' among her personal highlights of the competition. A grape most drinkers associate with the Loire and Bordeaux is finding a second home on the Pannonian plain.

2. Brazil's breakthrough

Brazil had the best year in its DWWA history, with record numbers of both Gold and Silver medals. More striking than the count, though, was the spectrum.

A first-ever Gold went to a sparkling Moscato, Vinícola Salton's Ouro Moscatel NV, a gently sweet aromatic style that plays directly to Brazil's strengths, while another broke new ground for a red, Casa Geraldo's Signature Cabernet Franc, Serra da Mantiqueira 2023.

The country's reds caught the judges' attention too. Paz Levinson, the acclaimed Argentine sommelier and Regional Chair for Argentina and the Rest of South America (except Chile), was struck by the leap in quality:

One Brazilian Tannat, she added, was an outright 'wow moment'. A wine industry long overshadowed by its neighbours is finding its own voice and coming up roses.

3. Žilavka, and the rise of the Balkans

Some of the most thrilling discoveries at DWWA come from grapes you have never heard of.

Bosnia and Herzegovina turned in its best-ever Gold performance this year, led by its indigenous white Žilavka. Vino Milas's Žilavka, Mostarsko Vinogorje 2024 earned a 96-point Gold, a remarkable score for a variety almost unknown outside the western Balkans.

It is part of a wider regional surge. 'Bosnia & Herzegovina had a couple of really exciting flights, far more top medals than I recall previously,' noted Dr Caroline Gilby MW, who also pointed to neighbouring Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia as 'real hotspots of exciting wines'.

Her advice to drinkers doubles neatly as the spirit of this whole list: 'Be brave and go off the beaten track.' These are not always the cheapest bottles on the shelf, but they offer true character for the price and the chance to taste something nobody else at the table will recognise.

4. The orange wave

Skin-contact white wines, left to ferment on their skins to take on colour, texture and grip, have travelled from natural-wine curiosity to a category in their own right and the 2026 results confirm it.

Georgia, the spiritual home of the style, where wine has been made this way in buried clay qvevri for millennia, led the way with 28 orange wines awarded, including two Golds.

But the more telling story was how far the style has spread. Oregon earned a first-ever orange-wine Gold for bhn's amphora-matured Riesling 2023 and Argentina took its first for a skin-contact Torrontés.

From the Caucasus to the Pacific Northwest to the foothills of the Andes, orange wine is no longer a novelty act. It is a global movement, and one well worth exploring.

5. Pico: A wine from the volcano

For a final discovery, few places are more improbable than Pico. On this tiny volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic, part of Portugal's Azores, vines are grown in thousands of small enclosures of black basalt, hand-built over centuries to shelter the fruit from salt wind and ocean storms. The landscape is so unique that it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This year, Pico earned its first-ever DWWA Gold for Tarelo's Monumental 2018, a wine made from 100% Arinto, a salty, mineral, sea-sprayed white that could come from nowhere else on earth.

It is the perfect note to end on, a reminder that some of the world's most distinctive wines come from its most unlikely corners, and that the map of fine wine is still being redrawn, one surprise at a time.

The unexpected stars of DWWA 2026

Hungary

Heumann, La Trinità, Villány, Dél-Pannónia 2019
Platinum, 97 points
Distinctive red cherries and raspberries sit alongside attractive herbal notes, adding layers of complexity. Judicious oak gives structure and depth, with shapely tannins and juicy acidity bringing vibrance. Ageing beautifully, with more to come. Alcohol 14.5%

Kővilla, Syrah, Villány, Dél-Pannónia 2024
Top Value Gold, 95 points
Spicy blackcurrant, smoky blueberry and damson are lent extra complexity with violet florals and a minty zing. Fulsome and firm, concentrated and impressively long. Alc 15.5%

Brazil

Casa Geraldo, Signature Cabernet Franc, Serra da Mantiqueira 2023
Gold, 95 points
Black cherry, blueberry, plum and fresh herb aromas sit within a mineral structure, with gravelly tannins, plump acidity and intriguing balsamic complexity. Alc 14.3%

São Patricio, Udu De Coroa Azul Grande Reserva Cabernet Franc, Vale do São Patrício 2023
Gold, 95 points
Fresh menthol leaf and violet florality seeps into sage and thyme perfume, conjoining with the crunchy bramble fruit base, bolstered by nervy acidity and graphite tannins. Alc 14.2%

Vinícola Salton, Ouro Moscatel, Serra Gaúcha NV
Gold, 95 points
Gloriously fresh lychee, grape and jasmine florals introduce an appealing sweetness, balanced by sustaining acidity that adds dimension and calibre. Very well-defined, articulate and lengthy. Alc 7.5%

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Vino Milas, Žilavka, Mostarsko Vinogorje 2024
Gold, 96 points
Bursting with honeyed peaches, nectarines and yellow plums, layered over a waxy texture and lime pith acidity. Striking mineral energy carries through the long finish. Alc 13.5%

Vinogradi Nuić, Žilavka, Mostarsko Vinogorje 2025
Value Gold, 95 points
Impeccable aromas of apple blossom, white peach and melon with a rush of saline and citrus freshness on the palate. Vibrant and precise with a stony finish. Alc 13.5%

Orange Wines

bhn, Riesling, Oregon 2023
Gold, 95 pointsA compelling style, layered with oolong tea, saffron, ginger and floral nuance over subtle oxidative depth. The result is an evolving aromatic spectrum with savoury poise. Alc 15.5%

Susana Balbo, Blanco De Raiz Skin Contact, Paraje Altamira, Mendoza, Argentina 2024
Gold, 95 points
Sensational stone fruit, lychee and turmeric nose with hints of bitter citrus bringing complexity to the palate. Unique and focused with a textured saffron length. Alc 13.5%

Portugal

Tarelo, Monumental, Pico 2018
Gold, 95 points
A deep dive into dried mango, honeyed ginger and layers of nuts. Bold and smoky, with garrigue freshness to the acidity and a smooth finish. Alc 12%

Tarelo, Arinto-Verdelho, Pico 2019
Silver, 91 points
Orange, seaweed and white flower bring savoury complexity, followed by salty peach, grilled nuts and a long, saline finish. Alc 12%

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This summer marks 40 years since M&S launched the first canned cocktails on the British high street. In May 1986 a tinned G&T, Rum & Cola and Whisky & American Dry appeared on M&S M&S shelves – and there’s been a steady rise in our love of tinnies since then.

In the UK canned cocktails have grown by around 8% annually since 2019, according to market research firm IWSR. The total global canned RTD (Ready To Drink) cocktail market has an estimated worth of $3.3bn and is projected to reach $5.9bn by 2030 according to Grand View Research.

Today our supermarket shelves have a dazzling choice of cocktails in cans – and they’re enticing drinkers old and new. According to IWSR, 43% of Gen Z respondents had drunk an RTD in the past six months.

Why are we crazy for cans?

There are several reasons why canned cocktails are so popular. First is their convenience. RTDs are easy to enjoy at home or serve at parties without needing bartending skills or any specialist bar equipment.

Linked to this is portability. If you’re out and about, a can is light, small and easy to carry, making it the perfect serve for any alfresco events from a picnic in the park to outdoor festivals. If you’re travelling, grabbing a can of ‘journey juice’ requires no prep, no glassware, no fuss.

There’s also been a shift towards more premium drinking. Why settle for an average drink when you could choose a classic cocktail made with respected spirits brands and other high-quality ingredients?

Finally, the move towards premium drinking is linked with wellness trends. Some of us are choosing to drink less, but drink better. While others are looking for healthier options – and many RTD brands offer lower-calorie, lower-sugar and lower-alcohol choices.

Which canned cocktail to choose?

With an ever-expanding range of RTDs, finding your favourite can be tricky. But there are a few easy points to consider.

First: what would you usually order at a bar? If you have a favourite spirits brand or style of cocktail, look for that on the supermarket shelves, since you’ll have the reassurance of knowing how it tastes.

Second: think about the occasion. If you’re planning to spend a whole afternoon sipping from a can at a party or in the park, then a lighter, lower-abv drink (think 5-6% abv) will be more sessionable.

But if you want to kick-start your night out or reward yourself at the end of a hard day, a higher-strength serve like a Whitebox Martini (22-32% abv) could be a good choice.

The good news is that cans are much cheaper than buying a whole bottle of spirits, so even if you don’t like the drink you’ve chosen, you won't have made a costly mistake.

To get you started here are a few of my favourites…

Six great canned cocktails to try

El Rayo Tequila Lime & Soda

Best for: the purists

Launched in 2019 El Rayo Plata is a lighter style of tequila, that was specifically created to pair with mixers in a long drink. The brand has two RTD serves: El Rayo Tequila Tonic & Grapefruit and this new Lime & Soda expression that pairs tequila with sparkling artisanal soda and a refreshing hit of Mexican lime. The tasty agave and citrus combo will appeal to anyone looking for a lighter and more sessionable take on a Margarita. Alc 6%

Libertine Blends Cucumber Mule

Best for: long hot summers

Launched in the UK in June, the six Libertine Blends in chic colour-coded cans were created by sisters Sofía Miró-Sans Gabarró and Ines Miró-Sans, following 18 months of testing at their award-winning Barcelona hotel bar Libertine. The collection includes non-alcoholic, low-abv and full-strength drinks. If you’re taking a break from booze, the 0% Pear & Cardamom and Hibiscus Spritz are sophisticated alternatives to your usual soft drinks. Otherwise the cool Cucumber Mule is a light, crisp vodka-based pour, with a juicy kick of lime and ginger, that’s perfect refreshment for sunny days. Serve it in a highball glass packed with ice cubes and garnish with a slice of cucumber. Alc 10%

M&S St Michael Limited Edition Gin & Tonic

Best for: classic taste

It’s 40 years since M&S launched the first canned G&T to the thirsty British public, kick-starting the tinnie trend. Today the M&S range includes Mojitos, Cosmopolitans, Whisky Sours and a great selection of spritzes. Look out for the ‘Marksologist’ range which features creative serves like a Smoked Pineapple Daiquiri and Blood Orange Negroni. Its latest launch is a limited-edition release of the classic G&T tinnie that started it all, in a smart anniversary can, with packaging inspired by the original archive design. Inside the tin you’ll find a double measure of London Dry gin for a clean, sharp taste with plenty of juniper punch. If you’re not drinking it on-the-go, serve it in a highball glass full of ice with a lemon slice. Alc 8%

Mezcal Reina Mezcalita

Best for: flavour explorers

Mezcal is having a moment in the UK, with more of us starting to appreciate the smoky character and diverse personalities of tequila’s agave cousin. Mezcal Reina was founded in 2017 by friends Susana Franyutti and Monica Torroella to showcase traditionally produced mezcals from Oaxaca. Their Espadín expression forms the base of this well-crafted Mezcalita – think Margarita but made with mezcal rather than tequila for a spicier, more earthy version of the classic Mexican cocktail. Serve in a rocks glass over ice, garnished with a slice of lime. Alc 10%

MOTH Mango Margarita

Best for: fruity fans

Launched in 2021 by childhood friends Rob Wallis and Sam Hunt, MOTH is now the biggest player in the UK’s canned cocktail market, with 41% of sales in the off-trade. So you’ve probably seen their black cans in your local supermarket. Standing for Mix Of Total Happiness the 12-strong MOTH range runs from Palomas and Piña Coladas to Passionfruit Martinis. Their fruity Mango Margarita – made with award-winning Tequila Enemigo – launched this year, alongside a Strawberry Daiquiri. Serve it chilled over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with a lime wedge. Alc 14.9%

Whitebox Collina & Co Espresso Martini

Best for: kick-starting your night

Whitebox was founded by a team of bartenders and spirits pros, including Alex Lawrence of Mr Lyan Studio; Josh Rennie, co-founder of Porters Gin and Pietro Collina, former bar director of the NoMad Hotel Group. So it’s no surprise that these dinky little cans deliver punchy bar-strength drinks. I’ve got several favourites in this range, including the latest additions: Clover Club and Mai Tai. The Freezer Martini is a handy standby too. But the Collina & Co Espresso Martini makes it onto this list; a full-flavoured take on Dick Bradsell’s ultimate pick-me-up cocktail, created back in the 1980s. Shake the chilled can for at least 12 seconds to create foam, then serve in a coupe glass, garnished with two or three coffee beans. Alc 22%

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Sure, the United States hasn’t been making wine since ancient times from vineyards studiously plotted out over the centuries by monks. But the country has packed plenty of wine accomplishments into its 250 years of existence, thanks to all the European settlers who couldn’t tolerate life in the New World without a good drink.

From the earliest explorers to more recent immigrants, people have turned to both native grapes and imported European varieties to see which can make the best wines ‘from California to the New York island’.

While the most important events in the founding of our country were fuelled by imported wine, American winemakers and viticulturists have since proven sceptics wrong, shocked French wine judges, resurrected near-dead wineries and lured prestigious European wine companies into expanding to the States.

How much do you know about US wine history, from the colonial era up to the early 1990s? Find out with our 14-question challenge.

Take our US wine history quiz

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About Eleni Kechri

After two decades making wine at her family estate Kechris and forging a reputation for new-wave Retsina, Eleni Kechri has created 1979 Kallos. Established in 2024, after four years of research, 1979 Kallos is focused on exploring the finer nuances of this distinctive Greek wine. Trained as both a chemical engineer and oenologist, Kechri has done extensive studies on the pine resin used in Retsina – crafting the first modern wines to use sustainably sourced resin – a method that has just been granted a patent by the Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation.

Now she is exploring the influence of a forest’s terroir on the resin and resulting wine – using resin from different areas in the same wine to shine a light on “single-pineyard” expressions. We caught up with Kechri and Yiorgos Darlas, who works alongside Kechri at 1979 Kallos, to find out more.

A drink with Eleni Kechri and Yiorgos Darlas

Eleni Kechri: 'We call it meta-retsina. I saw that the resin is not the same every year. It’s not the same from every region. It's not the same from one forest to another. But the most interesting thing to see for me was the collection without sulfuric acid. The collector puts sulfuric acid in order to make the tree release more resin, more quickly.'

Yiorgos Darlas: 'This is the conventional method. The sulfuric acid paste keeps the wound open and this way the tree gives a larger amount of resin and it’s much easier for the collector. When you leave it without sulfuric paste, the resin closes the wound, so you have to go and tap the tree again.'

Eleni Kechri: 'But this sulfuric acid, it influences the quality a lot. I said, okay, what if we don't put any chemicals on the tree and, where the tree is giving us resin, we leave it free-run? We’ll have less in quantity, but I was feeling that the quality would be much, much higher. But what about the quality of our wine?

'So I started to make lots of experiments – some lots with conventional resin and some lots with sustainable resin.

'We worked three years with lots of different protocols and we found clearly [confirmed with tastings, gas chromatography and liquid chromatography] that the conventional resin has a more oily character and the sustainable resin produced more limonene, which is the citrus character, and more terpenes – the components that we like to have and are more refined.

'Not only this, we found that in sustainably collected resin, the nature is expressed: the retsina produced from the pines near the sea smells differently from the retsina produced from the pines on the mountain every year. The trees that are by the sea, they have almost the roots in the sea, so you smell the saltiness, and the mountains are different.

'It’s the first time that we are putting in the conversation the terroir of the pine in the background: imagine how many different combinations of areas, of vineyards, of grapes, of pineyards…

'It is an enormous topic – with a lot of factors to explore: the area, the family, the age of the tree, and the freshness for me. We are going to make new research now, more specific in the same areas, how different it will be family by family of trees.'

Yiorgos Darlas: 'We are going to look deeper into the terroir of the microclimate of the forest.'

Eleni Kechri: 'And we are researching now the early collection – the collection of very cold resin in April, versus hot resin in August or September – because most of the time the collectors prefer to collect resin in the hot months because it flows more easily.'

Yiorgos Darlas: 'But we know from experience, and it makes sense, that resin that flows in April and May is different, has different qualities and different aromas.'

Eleni Kechri: 'In the style of retsina that I’m making, I like mature Assyrtiko – harvesting golden grapes. I also like very low yields in the vineyard in order to have a very concentrated wine, with a lot of elements.

'With conventional resin, I had to do things during the vinification in order not to take the resin’s heavy character. But if the resin doesn’t have the oily, heavy aromas that I don’t want, I can put more [in the wine] because I want this character – so I’m not afraid to leave it.

'It’s the first time that we speak not only of the terroir of the vineyards, but in the background, we have the terroir of the pine-yards.

'It’s a matter of mentality for us – to leave the nature to be expressed. It is the sense of place of Greece: the terroir is the plant, the climat and the human. In Retsina, there are all these things two times – once for the vineyard, once for the pineyard.'

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About Alejandra Chadwick

At the table with Alejandra Chadwick

Alejandra will share her knowledge of Chile and exclusive insights into her family's benchmark Chilean wine Seña during a masterclass at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter London on 7 November. The tasting will include several Seña wines, from 1998 to the new-release 2024 vintage.

A perfect Chilean dinner party

Insider travel tips: From Chile to London

At the coast itself, there is little better than a chiringuito on the sand: fresh seafood, something cold in the glass and the Pacific in front of you.

We're increasingly opening the vineyards to visitors. We would love to welcome people to Viñedo Chadwick, Seña and Errázuriz, because each offers a different perspective on Chile.

Join Alejandra Chadwick and taste several Seña vintages back to 1998 at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter London on 7 November.

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I’m sure it won’t be lost on readers that the wines I taste and review are not necessarily the wines I am able to drink at home regularly. Especially when it comes to Burgundy.

As France editor, I’ve been lucky enough to taste some thrilling Burgundy over the years, from the new Domaine de la Romanée-Conti releases shrouded in mystery, to sipping samples of Domaine de Montille, Domaine Dujac and Domaine Leflaive while listening to hip hop in a 16th-century château.

I understand the compulsion to search for the kind of tension, precision, poise and concentration that stops you short mid-sentence.

But Burgundy prices remain at an all-time high, despite a general softening of the secondary fine wine market.

And with plenty of other fine and honourable wines available at far more accessible price points, the question has to be asked: why look to Burgundy at all for value or everyday drinking?

Well, even on a modest home-drinking budget, when you find the right bottle, things can just...slot into place. When you pick up a wine that’s reasonably affordable and delivers freshness and pleasure and not disappointment, you’ll keep going back to it.

So instead of abandoning the search, it’s a region I’ll keep hunting for value in – and if you have some good insights, there’s nothing like the thrill of a canny buy.

Confession time

When I’m opening wine at home, I don’t really think about how it will pair with what I’m eating. I’m just not that big on food and wine pairings. There, I’ve said it.

My partner is a great cook, so we pick a dish we want to eat, and we simply pick a wine we feel like drinking – unless there’s heavy spice and heat involved, in which case we tend to stick to beer or cider.

We cook hearty vegetarian dishes where good quality organic vegetables take centre stage. Pulses and grains feature heavily and bring great textural variety.

Our staple flavour palette ranges from the herbs and olive oil of the Mediterranean, to the deep spicing of harissa, ras el hanout, paprika and cumin, to miso, sesame and soy.

It’s simple cooking, but deep and warming. I get as much joy from the food and the wine as separate pleasures as I would from fussing over matching exact flavour, fat or acidity profiles.

That means when I buy Burgundy to drink at home, I’m not looking for a wine that needs a dish to complete it.

Wines that stand on their own

I recently discovered this £30 Montagny 1er cru 2023 from Domaine de Montorge. that packed in so much zesty flavour, there was more than enough going on in the glass to hold its own throughout the evening.

Looking for something more opulent, I recently reached for Maison Roche de Bellene’s Bourgogne Côte d’Or Chardonnay 2022. It has this gorgeous burst of ripe pineapple, the richness of vanilla cream and toast and a really appealing succulence of sweet fruit, balanced by the salinity of crushed sea shells.

It offers a lot of pleasure at the £25-£28 price point.

Beyond style I look for lesser-known appellations that punch above their price. The Pouilly-Loché Les Mûres 2022 from Clos des Rocs is one.

Loché is less well known that neighbouring Fuissé, so it’s a little cheaper, and from the 2024 vintage this site will be reclassified as premier cru, making this 2022 a sweet buy while it lasts. It’s vibrant, racy, with a little confit lemon and tarte tatin.

Auxey-Duresses is another example. The 2021 from Domaine Lafouge is a dainty, perfumed Pinot from a cooler vintage that’s perfect for early drinking and still retails under £30.

Some sleuthing pays off too. I love finding wines that are much more than what they appear.

Secret insights

Domaine Arlaud’s Roncevie Bourgogne 2023 is a favourite of mine for this reason. This 4.8ha plot of Pinot Noir was historically classified as Gevrey-Chambertin, but when Joseph Arlaud, an incomer from neighbouring Morey-St-Denis, bought it in 1964, Arlaud’s half was declassified while the other half remained Gevrey.

Essentially village-level red Burgundy at a regional-level price point, under £30.

I also look for lesser appellations made by renowned producers. Bret Brothers, the négociant side of top producer La Soufrandière, makes Cuvée Terroir du Mâconnais, Mâcon-Villages 2023 which is sourced from from parcels in Pouilly-Fuissé, Pouilly-Loché and Pouilly-Vinzelles.

It’s so mouthwatering yet also has these notes of buttery biscuit and spiced apple.

Or there’s Domaine Tessier’s Cote d'Or Bourgogne – made by a small Meursault domaine from two lieux-dits (Les Pellans and Les Herbeux) in the Meursault appellation and one (Femelottes) in Puligny.

With its rich and silky texture, it’s a steal for the quality.

I have a real soft spot for Aligoté; at its best it can be fragrant, floral, crisp and juicy. The Domaine Jean-Baptiste Ponsot, En l'Asne, Bourgogne Aligoté 2022 is a serious wine in its own right.

From 65-year-old vines (old vines are another thing I look out for, for the extra concentration and depth they can bring) grown in Rully.

And under £20?

If I want something under £20, I've more or less accepted Burgundy isn't really the place to look – personally for that money I'd rather buy something knockout from the Languedoc.

But when I need Burgundy that’s widely available and decent, I turn to a reliable cooperative, like Cave de Lugny.

It produces a fair amount of the own-label Burgundy sold at lower price points in the UK.

I particularly like the Bourgogne Blanc it makes for Yapp Bros (£18.50), and the Crémant de Bourgogne it makes for Tesco (£15).

I’m yet to be truly wowed by red Burgundy at lower price points, so for great value reds with real character I tend to look south instead, to Beaujolais, where fine and ageworthy Gamay can be found for a fraction of the equivalent quality in the Côte d’Or.

Finding everyday drinking wines in Burgundy isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible either, and once you find some favourites they’ll have been worth the wait.

Some Burgundy to drink at home

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No stranger to sweltering New York summers, Sydney Fusto finds relief in zesty, high-acid wines. 'You want something that’s going to really wake up your palate and get your saliva moving, and the key is really fresh, zippy acidity,' she says.

With regards to seasonal food pairings, Fusto shares her love of Sauvignon Blanc, especially when sipped with citrus, cilantro, or anything with a hint of spice (think ceviche, crudo, and other raw bar favorites). If grilled meats and veggies are on the menu, she looks to darker-hued rosés and chillable reds, especially those made from Grenache, Gamay, and other high-acid varieties.

For crisp summer produce, crunchy pickled veggies, or when she’s really not sure what she’s in the mood for, Fusto usually lands on easy-drinking bubbles.

'When I don’t know what to drink, I reach for something sparkling,' she says, highlighting the versatile and spunky personality of Prosecco.

From budget-friendly bubbly to refreshing whites, rosés and chillable reds, Fusto’s following bottle recommendations promise to keep you satiated all summer long.

Fusto's five wines to sip this summer

Sommariva Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene Superiore Brut NV

'When it's 100+ F in New York and I'm sticking to my clothes, I am not looking to think too hard, ball out, or show off–I want bubbles that are easy-going, juicy and straightforward,' she says. The answer? An ice-cold bottle of high-quality Prosecco, particularly the Superiore Brut NV from Sommariva. 'It has the lip-smacking tart juiciness of a fresh Granny Smith apple, delicate white floral aromas and zingy acidity to keep everything playful and bright,' Fusto says. 'Think of it like the sparkling equivalent of a refreshing glass of lemonade. It’s so pleasurable, you could drink it all day long–no need to be super cerebral about this.'

Dog Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2024

In the words of Fusto, haters need not apply here. 'Sauvignon Blanc is "that girl" and always will be,' she says, citing the signature herbaceousness and distinct citrus notes synonymous with wines made from it. Additionally, Fusto notes that Sauvignon Blanc-based wines typically have high acidity, making them perfect for summer fare, as well as cracking open and sipping solo on a hot day. 'I’ve been drinking Dog Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc nonstop, and I even pour it by the glass at Manhatta – yes, I said New Zealand,' she says, highlighting the wine’s unique, savory curry leaf and Thai basil aromas, as well as its long, salty finish. 'It’s a showstopper,' she affirms.

Tiberio Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo 2023

Rosé and summer go hand in hand, and for Fusto, Tiberio Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo 2023 has become a go-to. Crafted entirely from the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo grape, this vibrantly colored wine oozes with flavors of pomegranate, sour cherry, blood orange, and Mediterranean herbs–though don’t let its dark hue fool you. Contrary to the numerous myths surrounding rosé, darker-hued bottles don’t mean sweet or heavy. 'The wine is lifted and drinkable like a white, but has more stuffing and concentration than a lighter, less extracted rosé style,' she says. 'I highly recommend it with barbecue.'

Domaine de Terrebrune Bandol 2024

During her time at Cote, Fusto discovered her passion for pairing rosé and grilled meats, especially less rich cuts. 'I used to be more or less indifferent to rosé, as I would typically reach for a chilled red if I wanted some substance; however, I’ve since come to enjoy the summer spoils of a juicy grilled skirt or hangar steak with a darker, more full-bodied rosé,' she says, emphasizing that textured, fuller-bodied expressions produced with a bit more extraction – like Domaine de Terrebrune Bandol 2024 – work best here. Crafted from a Mourvèdre-dominant blend, the wine’s structured body and complex notes of red fruits, juicy citrus, and salty sea air come to life when paired with equally savory summer meats.

Domaine Giacometti 'Sempre Cuntenu' 2024

Come warm weather months, Fusto reveals that Manhatta’s customers can’t get enough of chillable reds, though not all bottles are created equal. 'A chillable red wine should have a higher acidity-to-tannin profile (or softer tannins in general) and a fruit-forward, juicy flavor profile,' she says. While Beaujolais is a classic option, she’s been reaching for light Corsican reds made from the Sciacarello grape. 'This bottle offers a great bang for your buck and absolutely sings with a chill,' she says, stating that wine has become a non-negotiable fridge staple for her. 'It's great with food, it's great alone. Sempre Cuntenu literally translates to "happy wine" in the Corsican dialect, and I couldn't agree more.'

Summer is made for exploration

Above all, Fusto states that summer is one of the best times to experiment with regions and varieties, thanks to the season’s light-hearted, laid-back nature.

Currently, she’s diving deeper into the wine regions of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as the appellations of coastal California. 'There are a ton of premium producers in these areas, and you’re also going to get a lot more value for your money,' she says. 'Trust me, there are so many bangers to be found at solid entry points.'

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As in love, certain wines come into your life by chance. My affair with Jurançon began literally as far from its Pyrenean home as possible.

Browsing the shelves of Moore Wilson’s, the iconic grocery store in Wellington, New Zealand, I came across a bottle labelled Petit Manseng, from the Marlborough grower Forrest.

It sounded vaguely Chinese, possibly a miniature horse breed, though it is in fact one of Jurançon’s two principal grapes.

I took it home, where the off-dry little Manseng made a big splash: lush yet electric, exuberant yet poised – a tropical beach party in a wine glass. Yet each time I returned, the bottle was gone, and life beat on.

We were reunited years later in Paris, thanks to an astute sommelier at Macéo restaurant, who pointed me to a Jurançon Sec from Domaine Bellegarde.

Though the appellation is traditionally associated with sweet wines, this was a dry expression of striking tension and lift.

In the foothills of the Pyrenees

Spread across the verdant foothills of the Pyrenees southwest of Pau, Jurançon's vineyards climb in south-facing amphitheatres, framed by the Pic du Midi d'Ossau.

The appellation divides into three distinct zones: Chapelle de Rousse, to the northeast, where vines root into poudingue – a cement-like soil of chalk and river-worn pebbles; Monein, to the west, on more varied, molasse-dominant soils and now the most widely planted; and Lasseube, in the south, smaller and sandier.

Situated in the lee of the Pyrenees, the mountains shield the vines from harsher continental extremes, while the Atlantic keeps the growing season temperate – together preserving the acidity and aromatic intensity that define these wines.

Winemaking in Jurançon dates back to Roman antiquity and by the 14th century the Parliament of Navarre had classified its best sites – one of France’s earliest examples of vineyard classification.

Legend holds that the infant Henri IV had his lips touched with a drop of Jurançon at his 1553 baptism, by which time it had become a wine of court ritual.

Colette, 19th century French writer, actress and journalist, would later call it ‘a prince – warm, imperious and insidious, like all great seducers’.

Sweet to dry

For most of its history, Jurançon was synonymous with sweet wine. The appellation was classified for its moelleux (sweet) style in 1936 – among France’s earliest APs – while the dry expression was not recognised until 1975.

Since then, momentum has shifted toward the dry style, in line with a broader retreat from dessert wines.

Petit Manseng – the very grape that started all this – excels across the entire spectrum. Small and thick-skinned, it is defined by acid and concentration, which only intensifies through foehn-fanned passerillage (drying on the vine).

The traditional engine of sweet Jurançon, in dry form it delivers density, minerality and ageworthy grip, often developing truffled notes over time.

Its offspring, Gros Manseng, is the workhorse: larger-berried, less concentrated and more reliably ripe, generous and fruit-forward.

Supporting local varieties such as Camaralet, Lauzet and Courbu round out some blends, adding spice, aromatic lift and finesse, with Camaralet especially prized in dry wines for its peppery, cinnamon accent.

Three delectable styles

Like its three distinct zones, three styles express a striking range.

Jurançon Sec, often led by Gros Manseng, can be broad in texture yet focused by Petit Manseng’s vivid acidity, with flavours ranging from citrus and stone fruits to pineapple and quince, sometimes picking up a smoky or savoury edge over time.

Sweet Jurançon, the appellation’s historic heart, layers ripe mango, candied citrus, apricot and spice over a structure that keeps richness in check.

Vendanges Tardives (late harvest wines) are almost impossibly concentrated, unctuous yet vibrant thanks to the tensile acidity that is Jurançon’s signature.

Across all three styles, what lingers is not simply opulence or freshness but a radiant tension, like an autumn sun rising over cool Pyrenean hillsides.

The future is bright

‘What has always fascinated me about the Mansengs is their ability to reconcile power and freshness,’ says Antoine Arraou of the biodynamic Château Lafitte, one of Jurançon’s standout estates.

‘Few grape varieties are capable of reaching such high levels of ripeness while retaining such acidic energy.’

He is among the growers expanding Jurançon’s stylistic range and sharpening its contemporary identity.

‘Many astute observers have said this is the next Jura,’ says Arraou.

Having heard the same comparison applied to other up-and-coming appellations, such as Savoie and Bugey, I ask him to explain.

‘A hilly vineyard, a cool climate, distinctive grape varieties, geological diversity, limited volumes and wines with strong personalities – the reasons that drew wine lovers to the Jura also exist here.’

Yet while Jura’s cult success has pushed its prices steadily upward, Jurançon still offers striking value. At the cellar door, most Jurançon Sec sells for €12-€20; a smaller tier of ambitious cuvées runs closer to €30, with rare bottles climbing to €50-€70.

For readers who love the tension of Loire Chenin Blanc or the structure of serious dry Alsace, Jurançon Sec offers a compelling alternative: distinctive, long-lived and affordable.

As in love, what begins in contingency ends in necessity. Jurançon, for my money, deserves a seat at the table of noble white wines.

Whether you seek it out or stumble upon it by chance, taste and see if you do not fall for this great seducer, the little prince of the Pyrenees.

Six Jurançon wines to get you hooked

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The juxtaposition of Old and New World is a popular lens through which to understand the wine world.

The distinction is both geographical and cultural. It separates countries with centuries of vinous heritage from those where winegrowing took root from the Age of Exploration onwards.

At the same time, it contrasts Europe’s view of wine as an everyday staple, identified primarily by its place of origin and produced under strict appellation laws, with the greater regulatory freedom of the likes of Australia and Chile, where winemakers enjoy wider creative latitude and grape variety is often central to the liquid’s identity.

The distinction carries some stylistic archetypes, too.

Old World wine is associated with restraint, structure, higher acidity, firmer tannins, and a profile shaped to complement food or reward ageing.

The New World, by contrast, is thought of being defined by generosity, ripe fruit, and immediate approachability.

These broad stereotypes were once a useful – although imperfect – framework for understanding wine. Today they are simply obsolete.

The global dissemination of ideas and techniques, climate change, and shifting economic and geopolitical realities have blurred the boundaries between regions and their approaches to winegrowing.

Producers around the world are now borrowing from each other, creating regional and national identities that are neither wholly ‘old’, nor ‘new’, but something far more nuanced and utterly unique.

Redrawing the wine map: A short A–Z guide covering key growing areas

Australia

The rich, jammy Shiraz that defined Australia’s international image in the 1990s remains an important part of the country’s output, but winemakers are now also producing mineral, citrus-driven Chardonnays, perfumed Pinot Noirs, and vibrant Grenache.

Australians are embracing cooler-climate winemaking in regions such as Tasmania and the Mornington Peninsula, and adopting Mediterranean varieties, better suited to the country’s warm (and warming) climate.

Central Europe

The likes of Germany, Austria and Hungary are redefining what Old World means today, with wineries doubling down on precision, freshness and site expression through complex Rieslings, perfumed Grüner Veltliners, and laser-sharp dry Furmints.

Eastern Europe & the Caucasus

While many former Soviet republics still produce the unassuming semi-sweet wines traditionally popular with Eastern European palates, they have steadily shifted towards drier styles with greater character, quality and regional identity.

Romania and Moldova offer some of the world’s best-value bottlings from both indigenous and international grapes.

Georgia has successfully revived the ancient winemaking tradition in clay qvevri, while neighbouring Armenia – whose millennia-old winemaking heritage was interrupted during the Soviet era – is forging a new identity through experimentation and innovation.

England & Wales

Britain’s modern wines are largely inspired by France, from traditional-method fizz (the flagship style) to the high-quality still Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs that are becoming increasingly common as the climate warms.

Yet all of it is produced within a framework of entrepreneurial freedom more often associated with the New World.

France

France is the archetype of the Old World, with appellations and a strong sense of local heritage still at the heart of its wine culture. Still, new approaches have percolated here, too.

Vignerons craft wines that are more approachable in their youth, including in strongholds of tradition like Bordeaux and Burgundy, but without sacrificing structure, elegance or sense of place.

Many place greater emphasis on grape varieties too, particularly in more viticulturally liberal regions such as Languedoc-Roussillon (now part of the Occitanie region), and a growing number are even stepping outside the appellation system altogether to experiment with new styles, philosophies and techniques.

Italy

Italy’s wine identity is a mosaic of local cultures, landscapes, and climates, all linked by food-friendly acidity, savoury character, firm tannins and a remarkable wealth of indigenous varieties.

Alongside these elements, there exists an equally important universe of international grapes, innovative or unconventional winemaking and more contemporary approaches, with dramatically different interpretations of the same grapes or style often coexisting within a single region.

The Mediterranean

Winemaking in the eastern Mediterranean predates the Old World itself, stretching back thousands of years to the Phoenicians and the ancient Greeks.

That millennia-old heritage remains central to the area’s identity today, through ancient grape varieties such as Lebanon’s Merwah and historic wines like Cyprus’ Commandaria.

It’s only through the adoption of modern winegrowing, however, that these regions have emerged onto the international stage, with wines such as Santorini’s Assyrtiko earning acclaim from sommeliers around the world.

New Zealand

New Zealand’s international reputation was built on the vibrant, intensely aromatic and instantly recognisable Sauvignon Blancs of Marlborough, but the country’s identity has broadened considerably in recent years.

New Zealand is now equally respected for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah that combine finesse and structure with an unmistakable New World exuberance.

Portugal & Spain

Portugal and Spain are one of modern wine’s greatest success stories. For much of their recent history, their wines were honest regional expressions destined largely for local consumption, with the likes of Port or Rioja some of the most notable exceptions.

Today, the Iberian Peninsula offers arguably the best value in Western Europe, its wines combining distinctive regional identities and a remarkable wealth of native grape varieties with modern technical precision.

South America

Argentina and Chile helped define the quintessential New World stereotype by building their international reputations on fruit-forward expressions of varieties such as Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère.

While those wines remain central to their identities, both countries have increased their awareness of alternative stylistic approaches, with Argentina’s Mendoza in particular leading the way in exploring the influence of altitude, vineyard site, and soil.

South America is also contributing to redefine viticulture’s geographical limits, from the arid landscapes of Chile’s Atacama Desert to the cool, wet vineyards of the Bío Bío Valley in the far south, and the breathtaking high-altitude vineyards of Argentina’s Salta province.

South Africa

South Africa is often seen as bridging the stylistic divide between Old World restraint and the fruit-driven approach associated with the New World.

It offers some of the world’s best value, while its wealth of old bush vines and a new generation of quality-focused producers are crafting liquids of remarkable character and structure.

USA

American wine was once exclusively synonymous with the bold Cabs and heavily oaked Chardonnay of California’s Napa Valley.

In recent decades, however, quality winemaking has spread across the country, with states such as Oregon and New York's Finger Lakes producing elegant cool-climate expressions, and Washington State bottling exceptional reds from its hot, dry east.

California itself has been challenging its stereotypes, with a new generation of winemakers exploring cooler sites, Mediterranean varieties and lighter, more restrained styles.

The Rest of the World

Once confined to a relatively small slice of the world, wine has become a truly global cultural phenomenon.

It’s now made in almost every corner of the earth, from Mexico and China (both rapidly emboldening their vinous ambitions) to the Balkans, where countries are reinterpreting their winemaking heritage through a more modern lens.

At the same time, improved viticultural techniques, climate change and humans’ uncontrollable drive to push boundaries are expanding the map of wine even further.

The emergence of wine industries in Nordic countries such as Sweden and Denmark, or tropical regions like Bali and Thailand, would have been unimaginable a few decades ago.

Wine is no longer ‘old’, nor ‘new’, but rather defined by the constantly evolving relationship between place, people and the global exchange of ideas.

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Puligny-Montrachet is, for some, the centre of the white wine universe.

Although it is endowed with the smallest vineyard area among the ‘golden triangle’ villages of Meursault, Chassagne and Puligny, it boasts some or all of no fewer than four grands crus: Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet.

From this epicentre of grands crus, top-notch premiers crus radiate north, and village-level vineyards stretch down the slope.

It is a compact, ideally situated terroir. Superlative wine, though, requires more than a brilliant site.

It also needs winemaking talent, and Puligny today enjoys a rich array of talent ranging from experienced domaines with deep traditions to newer domaines and innovative young winemakers that make this a truly exciting village.

Puligny: Five family names to know

Domaine Leflaive & Olivier Leflaive

Domaine Leflaive is among the finest producers of white wine – not just in Puligny, but in the world.

Despite a period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s when the domaine struggled with premature oxidation, the wines are today better than ever, thanks to the efforts of previous winemaker, Pierre Vincent.

A recent tasting of the 2024s showed that his replacement, Amandine Brillanceau, is carrying the domaine forward in style.

The domaine farms an enviable portfolio of vineyards, from the grands crus of Bâtard-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet (where it is the largest landowner), to Chevalier-Montrachet and on to the equally compelling premier cru offerings, making magical wines that age supremely well.

This domaine, however, is not the only Leflaive in town. Olivier Leflaive produces a range of delicious wines under his eponymous négociant business, alongside his brother Patrick.

Although Olivier became co-manager of Domaine Leflaive with his uncle Vincent in 1982, in 1984 he founded his négociant operation, and by 1994 he had departed the family business to focus entirely on this business.

The Olivier Leflaive négociant business has flourished; his Bourgogne Les Sétilles is among the most reliable entry-level white Burgundies.

He always makes wines from his own vineyards, marked ‘Récolte du Domaine’, which include Chevalier-Montrachet and the Puligny premiers crus Pucelles and Folatières.

The winemaking today is overseen by Solène Panigai, successor to Franck Grux, who had been the technical director for 35 years.

Chartron

Another luminous name in Puligny is Chartron. The domaine produces delightful wines throughout the range, but is known above all for its three clos: Clos des Chevaliers, Clos du Cailleret, and the Clos de la Pucelle monopole.

The family has owned these plots since the early 20th century. Portions have been replanted over time, and the oldest vines date to the 1950s and 1960s.

Jean-Michel Chartron is the fifth-generation owner and the winemaker. His style is elegant and sophisticated: the wines are concentrated and focused without showy amounts of reduction or oak, making them wines of restraint and timeless beauty.

The Carillon clan

The Carillon family has lived in Puligny longer than either the Leflaives or the Chartrons, tracing their ancestry to the 16th century.

Well into the years following World War II, however, the family was selling the majority of its production to négociants.

By the 1990s, the domaine, then known as Louis Carillon, was run by brothers Jacques and François. With the 2010 vintage, the brothers split the vineyards between them.

Jacques got the slice of Bienvenues-Bâtard Montrachet, premiers crus Referts, Champs Canet and some of the Perrières, and labels under Domaine Jacques Carillon.

François farms the Folatières, Combettes, Champs Gain and the balance of the Perrières and produces village-level wines from Enseignères, Aubues and Clos du Vieux Château, labelling under Domaine Franc.çois Carillon.

François’ sons Paul and Mathis have recently branched out on their own as Carillon Frères, and are producing delicious wines.

To date, there is the village-level Noyer Bret, and a premier cru Cuvée Loulou blended from the family sites and named for their grandfather.

Pernot

Another winemaking dynasty in Puligny is the Pernot family. The older wines from Domaine Paul Pernot age gracefully, while young Alvina Pernot is among the most exciting new voices in the village.

The granddaughter of Paul Pernot, she and her husband Philippe Abadie began their own domaine in 2018.

Alvina’s style is beguilingly taut, slightly reductive, with a racy finesse that suits the character of the village.

She presses the grapes as whole bunches without sulphur under the press and ferments with native yeasts in mostly used barrels.

The grands crus from Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet are superb, but the entire range bears investigation, particularly the premiers crus Peux Bois, Champs Canet Clos de la Jaquelotte, Clos de la Garenne, Clos des Folatières, Caillerets and Pucelles, and the village-level Rue aux Vaches and the Clos des Noyers Brets.

Thomas-Collardot

I was seduced on my most recent visit by the wines from another relative newcomer, Domaine Thomas-Collardot, whose vineyards were leased out until 2010.

The mother-and-son team of Jacqueline and Matthieu Collardot began bottling the wines under their own label in 2015 and received organic certification in 2023.

The wines are fermented and matured partly in barrels (mostly used) and partly in glass globes.

They produce delicious village-level Puligny wines from Enseignères, Nosroyes, Derrières les Velles, Houlières, Au Paupillot and Rue aux Vaches, along with a blended wine called Les Climats.

The range is completed by the premiers crus Hameau de Blagny and Folatières Au Chaniot.

Change is in the air in Puligny, and the village’s unique combination of established domaines and a new generation of players augurs well for the future of great white Burgundy.

Eight wines to try

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My name is Daria, and I am 28 years old. I live in Paris and have been working as a sommelier at Hotel Plaza Athénée for almost a year.

My journey into wine is not a conventional one. Before entering the world of hospitality, I worked as a civil engineer. After spending two years in that industry, I decided to follow my passion and pursue a career in wine.

I am a Champagne lover and am also particularly fond of Italian red wines and Californian blends. On warmer days, I enjoy exploring orange wines.

Challenging stereotypes

On a recent sunny day, my brother and I decided to organise a barbecue. My brother is a devoted beer drinker, especially with grilled meat, so I wanted to challenge his stereotype and pair our kebabs with wine.

The world of wine is evolving. It is no longer reserved for people who ‘understand’ it, nor is it confined to fine dining or formal occasions. So, to convince my brother, I stopped thinking in terms of traditional food and wine pairings and focused instead on sensations and emotions.

What experience did I want the wine to create? It was a warm, sunny day, so I wanted something that could be enjoyed slightly chilled. The grilled meat would be rich and hearty, required a wine with enough freshness to cleanse the palate. We were also serving tomato pasta, with its bright acidity, alongside a vegetable salad.

I chose a bottle of Austrian Furmint – Liszt’s Minimalist 2022 – and it delivered exactly what I had hoped.

My choice in my words

It’s a vibrant, citrus-driven white with notes of lemongrass, lime, dried orange peel and a hint of ginger jam. Refreshing and effortlessly drinkable, it was the kind of wine that naturally accompanied conversation, complemented the food, and enhanced the simple pleasure of a warm evening.

Furmint is much more closely associated with Hungary – it is the signature grape of the famous sweet and dry wines of Tokaj. But, in Austria, a small group of growers in the Burgenland region are showing that they can also make outstanding mineral-driven examples.

The cuvée name of Minimaliszt reveals that this is a natural wine – a style often associated with my younger generation (I bought it from specialist natural wine retailer Chenin Chenin in Amsterdam). Yet, when I asked several friends with little knowledge of wine what they thought about natural wine, almost all of them admitted they did not really know what it was.

It’s positive that wine, finally, is no longer perceived as something reserved for a specific social or age group. And while a new generation of wine, and new generation of drinkers, may already be here, it seems there is still work to be done in connecting the two.

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Don’t be in a rush to drink it

Most of us think of Sauvignon Blanc as an aromatic, early-drinking style, but Sancerre offers so much more.

Do as the growers do and wait a few years for the primary fruit characters to soften, revealing the complexities of the terroir.

The 2022 vintage is drinking beautifully right now.

Check out cuvées parcellaires

Small-batch wines from specific sites have proliferated in recent years, reflecting the appellation’s complex geology.

While there are no designated premiers crus in Sancerre, look out for wines from premium vineyard sites such as Monts Damnés, Cul de Beaujeu and Chêne Marchand.

The significance of silex

Following the success of the late Didier Dagueneau’s wine Silex, the name has almost become a brand in its own right, featuring on many Sancerre labels. ‘Silex’ is a reference to flint or silica.

These soil types make up a minority of the vineyard area in the region and produce wines said to possess a distinctive, powerful and smoky minerality.

It’s a great destination for wine lovers

One of the prettiest villages in France, Sancerre is perfect for a tasting trip. There are countless opportunities to visit and taste, often paired with a plate of the local goat’s cheese.

The vineyards are crisscrossed by a network of hiking paths and cycle trails for those wishing to get up close and personal with the vines.

Producer name is key

Sancerre sells at a premium these days, so it pays to seek out good producers.

Happily, there’s no shortage of winemaking talent, to be found at domaines Tabordet, Paul Prieur, Denizot, Claude Riffault and Jean-Philippe Agisson, to name a few.

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For despite the rigorous nature of his own self-discipline, Jukes was so much more than a disciplinarian.

Beyond the prodigious authority of his insights, he was so much more than a critic. And aside from the prolific wealth of his output, he was so much more than a writer.

Far more significant than the extent of his body of work was the quality of this work – a fact that marked him as a colossus of the British wine trade.

Most striking – and tragic – of all was the now extinguished promise of so much more to come.

Early days and formative years

Born in Hampshire in 1967, the young Jukes spent part of his childhood in Belgium, where his father worked in Brussels, and wine was a vivid part of his household.

In his teens he attended The Oratory School in Oxfordshire, before moving into the wine industry aged 19, serving customers in the Barnes Wine Shop in south-west London.

By the age of 23 he was wine buyer for the era-defining Bibendum Restaurant in South Kensington, a position he held until 2016, winning multiple awards for the quality of the list along the way.

In between times, he co-owned The Crescent wine bar, a popular spot with the Chelsea set in the mid-1990s.

It was arguably this rounded introduction into wine that gave him a broader perspective than many of his wine-writing peers. An appreciation of the consumer viewpoint and commercial reality never left him.

He once described a ‘favourite coup’ as buying the entire UK allocation of the 1996 vintage of Torbreck’s cult Barossa Shiraz RunRig.

‘I sold it for £32.50 per bottle on the [Bibendum] list and left it at this price after [Robert] Parker awarded it 100 points and the retail price in New York hit $1,000 a bottle.’

A love for Down Under

Jukes was drawn to Australian wine early in his career, feeling the Cabernets from the likes of Cape Mentelle or Wynns were ‘more attractive, accurate and delicious’ than similarly priced Bordeaux.

Coming to the same conclusion regarding Barossa Shiraz vs those of the Rhône, he became increasingly convinced that Australia was hugely undervalued both in terms of price and quality.

The country’s real appeal to him, though, came through its people.

Speaking to trade title The Buyer in 2018, he recalled how much more forthcoming Australian winemakers were than their European counterparts when sharing insights into their wines.

It was a trait he exploited early in his broadcast career when welcoming Australian winemakers into his radio studio, often straight from landing at Heathrow, for his show on the BBC London station GLR.

Jukes became convinced that Australia was chronically underappreciated, particularly at the fine-wine level, and hence worth championing.

With the ebullience of Aussie winemakers and his unwavering focus on the consumer, it made for the perfect marriage – and a lifetime’s mission.

His third book, The Wine List 2003, inspired what was to become his defining project.

The book detailed his top 250 wines, 50 of which were Australian – including, even then, Tasmanian Pinot, Adelaide Hills Chardonnay, and cool-climate Shiraz – ‘already a thing!’ as he later observed.

Determined to champion such fare, he resolved to produce an annual report solely dedicated to Australia.

His 100 Best Australian Wines was more than simply a list, however.

The notes on each wine were detailed, insightful and entertaining, and the initiative gained further traction when he grew it from a smart tasting event at Australia House to a roadshow, touring the country via tastings, masterclasses, music and dinners.

In time he would take the festival overseas, with events in China, New York and, naturally, Down Under.

His championing of Australia never ceased.

In a 2024 retrospective for Decanter, he bemoaned the fact that, while the country had been producing delicate, balanced, cool-climate wines long before the rest of the world caught up with the trend, it went largely unnoticed.

‘It drives me up the wall when people think Australia only makes big, blocky, clumsy wines when 20 years ago, delicacy and balance were already living and breathing mantras.’

A diverse and long-standing media presence

He was far from a one-trick pony, however.

The radio show in the late-90s led to a stint hosting Channel 4’s Wine Hunt, while, not long afterwards, The Wine Book was serialised by the Daily Mail, leading to a 22-year weekly column for its Weekend magazine, during which time the newspaper was the most read in the UK.

He also wrote a weekly piece for MoneyWeek magazine for two decades, as well as a monthly column for UK trade magazine Vineyard.

While the latter was unusual, in that its audience was the trade rather than the consumer, it was typical of the man.

He didn’t do it for prestige or money, but to support the English wine industry – another sector he felt had huge potential.

Back in 2016 he accompanied the Wine & Spirit Trade Association to Paris to host an English wine vs Champagne blind tasting, just as English wine was starting to make waves.

He would go on to volunteer his services to the WSTA’s lobbying campaign for fairer alcohol duty across a number of years.

Myriad causes, adventures and goodwill

Given his support of the industry, what was arguably atypical was his move to embrace the non-alcoholic sector, apparently inspired by a trend he saw coming across the Atlantic on a trip to New York in 2017.

Even then, he did it with full commitment, developing his own brand of drinks via the testing of 200 different ingredients in the kitchen of his family home in Clapham.

After two years spent perfecting three blends, he moved to a purpose-built facility under a railway arch in nearby Battersea for production.

By 2024, Jukes Cordialities had grown to a range of 10 products being sold in over a dozen countries.

When, earlier this year, he finally teamed up with an outside investor to grow the business further, it was none other than Sacha Lichine, founder of the Provence rosé phenomenon Whispering Angel, who called Jukes ‘a beacon of excellence’ in the world of alcohol-free drinks.

Throughout his career, Jukes delivered countless lectures, talks and seminars at trade conferences and consumer tastings, while judging wine across the world.

In 2006 he introduced the intensive, indulgent One Day Wine School; in 2009 he co-founded Quintessentially Wine.

He went on to publish 14 wine books, and evolved his focus on Australia into three other comprehensive annual reports, published on his website, on his other favourite regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy and Piedmont. Each of them ran to 35,000 words a piece.

All of it was done under his own steam.

If you will allow me a personal reflection, in the late Noughties, when editing Decanter, and at a time when I thought of him as Mr Australia, I learned of his love for Burgundy.

Seeking a new voice on the region, I commissioned him to write a Burgundy vintage report.

What followed was a tour de force of the region, bowling me (and readers) over with his knowledge, insight and access.

Most striking of all, it was all done entirely independently, without any demands for logistical help or practical assistance on the ground.

He didn’t have a PA or an agent, and dealt with all projects personally.

Enquiries and entreaties would receive an immediate response, business-like but courteous, grateful for the commission and excited by the possibilities.

Even the logistics of the mammoth 100 Best tastings, which he grew to become a two-month festival attended by trade envoys, ambassadors and politicians, were all arranged under his own steam.

He was the same away from the spittoon.

Proudly but quietly, he made it his personal mission to raise an annual sum greater than his own income for various charities, from the NSPCC to stroke rehabilitation, homeless initiatives and The Roundhouse youth arts community, of which he was a patron. He achieved this feat every year for over two decades.

With his rigour, integrity and energy, they simply don’t make them like Matthew anymore.

Two of the few fellow writers who bear comparison – Jancis Robinson MW and Victoria Moore – paid tribute, the former labelling him ‘exceptional in so many ways’, the latter recalling his ‘rapier-sharp intellect and almost superhuman energy’ (for more tributes, see below).

That booming voice remained authoritative to the end. But he was also a warm, collaborative, welcoming presence, encouraging to and engaged with wine lovers and professionals at all levels and of all experience.

He was, come to think of it, a bit too soft to be a drill sergeant – luckily for all of us…

Let’s cut the ribbon on our 23rd year of judging the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA)... with a question. What’s the competition for? Why do 245 expert judges from 35 different countries make time in their diaries to come to London’s Docklands each May to taste and then discuss 70-75 wines every day over a week? Why do the world’s wine producers make the effort to enter nearly 17,000 of their precious wines (this year’s total number of entries) for judgement?

There are many answers, but the simplest one is because the DWWA has become a wine-world showcase. Our thoroughness in judging (based always on discussion and never on the simple calculation of scores) is well known; that’s why those global wine experts find working with us rewarding.

Our audience, too, is unrivalled (annual data show that Decanter’s content, through all its various channels, is seen by more than two million wine lovers monthly around the world). If you have something to prove with your wine, this is the most trustworthy and effective place to come to do it.

But in 2026, there’s more. With the foundations of wine culture rattled by tariff barriers, inflation, decontextualised health messages, transport chokepoints, changing consumer tastes and oversupply, our competition has never been more useful to both producers and consumers.

The consequences were remarkable. We saw an uplift in the quality of entries overall (the Rhône team, for example, never before had a full flight of Côte-Rôtie wines to judge, nor has the Co-Chairs’ Best in Show selection simultaneously featured Clos de Vougeot, Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie, Pomerol, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Carmignano, Margaret River, the Dundee Hills, Stags Leap District and a 98-point 2005 vinsanto from Santorini).

That uplift was evident throughout: we’ve never had so many outstanding Gold medal wines competing in our Value category (including wines from prestige locations such as Argentina’s Gualtallary and Australia’s McLaren Vale, and from the Chianti Classico Riserva category), giving us a Top 35 rather than (as last year) a Top 30.

Most significantly of all, the proportion of wines finishing in our three top medal categories rose significantly compared to 2025, though the wines were judged with no less rigour. There were 59 additional Platinum medals this year (the total of 196 representing 1.2% of our 16,631 entry cohort), 191 extra Gold medals (total 924, 5.6%) and 578 extra Silver medals (total 6,193, 37.2%).

Climatic influence

The results, as always, bulge with stories and surprises. As we all know, the global climate is warming – one reason, perhaps, why this year’s top Germany medal, a Platinum, went not to a Riesling but to a Weisser Burgunder (Pinot Blanc) from the Pfalz region.

It might explain why in the UK the county of Oxfordshire receives its first Gold, and why Shropshire and Rutland were among the medals for the first time; why France’s alpine Savoie region took a Platinum as well as two Value Golds; or why Australia’s cool Frankland River made its debut in Best in Show, with wines from Orange and Mornington Peninsula among our Platinum medals.

Similarly, fresh New Zealand unhooked two Best in Show positions and no fewer than eight Platinum medals (including two from Canterbury); Spain’s winners included a Best in Show from moist Rías Baixas in Galicia and a Platinum from breezy Bierzo, neighbours in the northwest.

Don’t, however, assume that wines from warmer climates struggled: producers everywhere are thinking intelligently about the craftsmanship of ripeness – and our judges appreciate rich wines, as they do all wine styles. The fact that Spain, including Sherries, increased its top-medal tally of Best in Show, Platinum and Gold medals by an astonishing 52.4% compared to 2025 surprised us all (the 160-strong tally included Platinum medals for Jumilla, Castilla-La Mancha and Priorat).

Texas burst through our saloon doors with four Golds, while Virginia and Washington state took five apiece; Gascony’s always- statuesque Madiran featured among the Platinums for the first time; while Roussillon’s Maury Sec and the Croatian island of Hvar both achieved debut Best in Show places with splendidly bone-warming reds that nonetheless contrive to be perfumed and complex, too.

Changing for the better

Some team news to finish. Our 245 judges included 106 women this year, a new record but one we hope to keep beating; the overall total included 24 Master Sommeliers, 63 Masters of Wine and 36 new judges.

We instituted a Resident Co-Chair position in 2026, giving a different Regional Chair the chance to guest in the Co-Chair team every year and refresh its approach. This year Caro Maurer MW gave the four permanent Co-Chairs the benefit of her wide experience and insights – and her unrivalled sense of fun.

Finally, our sustainability efforts continue. We still package up and recycle all damaged cardboard; crush and recycle all glass; and send all leftover wine to Biffa’s anaerobic digestion plant at Cannock, north of Birmingham, to create biogas for the electricity grid and biofertiliser for agriculture.

From this year, though, we are breaking down then reusing undamaged cardboard for boxing up our tasting flights, as well as switching from plastic bags for blind-wine service to reusable cotton bags. More innovations will follow next year.

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You’re in the mood for something a little unexpected. A conversation opener for a lingering summer evening with friends. A refreshing glass or two with a good story attached. A variety you can’t pronounce with origins that offer alluring potential for that quick get-away from the sweltering desk job.

Then look no further than the wines of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). And don’t just take our word for it – we asked three regional experts for their views at this year's Ultimate Central and Eastern Europe wine fair, an annual trade event dedicated to wines from that part of the world.

For Decanter World Wine Awards co-chair Beth Willard, we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. ‘These are old wine-producing countries that have undergone something of a renaissance over the last 20–30 years, and now we are seeing just how good these wines are.’

The personal touch

And one of the key reasons for this growing interest? The personal side of things. As Decanter's regional chair (also a co-organiser of the CEE fair) Caroline Gilby MW puts it, ‘I love the human story: I think that is what is so exciting about this part of the world’.

Recent decades have witnessed a huge wave of investment and winemaking experimentation. For regional specialist and CEE fair organiser Zsuzsa Toronyi, ‘CEE wines also come with compelling stories. Many family-owned wineries have revived historic vineyards and traditions, creating wines that reflect local culture, heritage, and a strong sense of place’.

As new generations take the lead of these revived traditional family wineries, excellence is to be found from both international and local varieties. In the mood for pale pink bubbles? Try a Moldovan pink spumant from Dom Davidescu made from the Rară Neagră variety. Keen on a traditional Blanc de Noirs style? Why not pick up a bottle of Serbian producer Aleksandrović's saline and steely Trijumf Noir Brut.

Travel through the glass to the Croatian island of Vis, where intriguing red wines are made from the local Plavac Mali variety. Pair a sticky Tarte Tatin with a decadently sweet late harvest Furmint–Muscat blend from Hungary.

Taste widely. Most importantly, have fun while you are at it.

A journey of discovery that’s kind on the wallet

More than a mere talking point for the table, there is great value to be found among these lesser-known discovery varieties and regions. As Toronyi comments, ‘They offer a combination of quality, value, authenticity, and discovery that is increasingly hard to find in more established wine regions’.

Bolstered by year-on-year successes at the Decanter World Wine Awards and a promising rise in carefully curated wine bar lists featuring lesser-known wines, the diversity on the UK market is exciting.

As Gilby puts it, ‘You may still have to hunt down some of these wines with specialist importers and indies, but even some supermarkets are recognising that CEE wines deserve space in their ranges.’

Five wines to try

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Five years ago in an article for Decanter I made a claim that Cinsault was the most underrated red grape variety in the world. I’ve held this belief for some time, and I stand by it still.

In 2021, I organised a blind tasting of Cinsaults from all over the world and it revealed countless brilliant examples of this wonderful grape.

So, five years later, it was time to repeat the exercise to see how Cinsault has progressed.

I was joined by two top tasters – Natalie Earl, Decanter’s regional editor for France, and author and podcaster Henry Jeffreys – and together we worked our way through 52 examples of this unsung grape.

A stellar variety

It turns out there has been an important development in the world of Cinsault since the last tasting. A group of like-minded winemakers has formed a body to promote this under-appreciated grape, called Les Cinsónautes.

One of the founders is Guillaume Baron of Clos de la Barthassade in Aniane, Languedoc. ‘I’ve always loved Cinsault,’ he says, ‘its drinkability, lightness, suppleness and its ability to translate terroir.’ He describes it as a cross between Gamay, Pinot Noir and Grenache.

He’s also part of Les Aligoteurs, a group formed in 2018 to promote another underrated grape – Aligoté. ‘I realised that Cinsault shared the same poor treatment that Aligoté suffered from in the past,’ says Baron, and so he wanted to help reverse its fortunes.

For too long, Cinsault has been widely considered a second-class grape variety, cropped highly to bulk out blends, make cheap rosé or basic vin de soif.

In fact, some believe the grape’s name comes from cinq sauts, meaning five buckets: if you crop it highly enough, one vine will give you that many grapes.

But with lower yields, gentle handling and appropriate care, Cinsault can make beautiful wines. What’s more, it ripens at just 11.5%-13.5% abv.

The tasting

Five years ago, it was South Africa that dominated the leaderboard. Since then, France has improved dramatically.

The top 10 this year contained five wines from each of these countries – but France took the top three places.

‘One of Cinsault's real strengths is its beautiful soaring fragrance,’ says Earl, ‘and that was really on show in the French wines… Many examples felt extremely well handled and cared for.’

Some of the French bottlings felt clunky and over-extracted last time, but now the grape’s innate delicacy and tenderness is being embraced and celebrated.

‘The French are clearly doing something exciting, they’re rediscovering it,’ says Jeffreys.

South African examples don’t seem to have progressed quite so quickly, and are stylistically more varied.

‘The South Africans weren’t as strong as last time but there were some absolute stand-out wines, especially from Natte Valleij,’ says Jeffreys.

There were very good individual wines from Chile and the USA, too.

Brightest stars

We all picked our top seven from the tasting, and occasionally our favourites overlapped. Four wines were chosen by two tasters:

- Domaine Allegria, Spirale, Pays d’Hérault, Languedoc, France 2024

- Mas Cal Demoura, Belle Fiolle, Vin de France, Languedoc, France 2024 (grown near Terrasses du Larzac)

- Leeu Passant, Old Vines Basson Cinsault, Wellington, South Africa 2023

- Domaine Sainte Marie de Crozes, L'Escapade, Vin de France, Languedoc, France 2024 (grown near Corbières)

Two wines were unanimously selected as favourites by all three tasters:

- Alain Chabanon, Cinq Saut, St Guilhem le Désert, Languedoc, France 2023

- Domaine du Pas de l'Escalette, Ze Cinsault, Pays Hérault, Languedoc, France 2024 (grown near Terrasses du Larzair

There was one main criticism however: the grape is prone to reduction, which caused certain bottles to show rubbery aromas on opening.

But there were fewer instances this time round, and usually a brief decant helps reduce this.

Cinsault doesn’t produce blockbusters or icon wines. Rather than structure, power and complexity, what it offers is freshness, aromatic precision, lacy tannins and a sense of purity and levity.

And it’s delicious on its own, lightly chilled.

‘They were incredibly drinkable, concentrated but not cumbersome or heavy, with refreshing acidity. A wine for modern times,’ says Earl.

The stars have aligned, and it’s Cinsault’s time to shine.

Matt Walls 20 highest-scoring Cinsault

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Are today’s collectors cellaring more white wine?

It’s hard to say for sure, but recent data points to a gradual, if limited, challenge to reds’ fine wine market hegemony. Chardonnay, and specifically white Burgundy, is the spearhead.

Geraint Carter, of Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform, said: ‘The white Burgundy share of our [total] trading over the last decade has gone from about 2% to about 5%, by value.’

Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said trading by value on still white wine rose 650% from 2010 to 2025, when it reached 10.5% of total trade value. Sparkling wine also jumped 1,100% in that period, while reds dropped 15%.

Carter said the trend should be seen within a wider context of Burgundy, Champagne and other regions diluting red Bordeaux’s dominance. ‘It’s a much more heterogeneous [market] picture than it was 15 years ago.’

Tom Burchfield, head of decision intelligence at Liv-ex, told Decanter: ‘Collectors’ cellars have undoubtedly become more diverse, and that will be a factor. It is perhaps reflective of a broader change in taste and consumption habits, but I don’t think you can underestimate the impact Burgundy has had. Interest in Burgundy (both red and white) has soared over the past decade.’

How far can this go? Carter said trading was focused on icons (see table below), yet it’s necessarily a thin market due to relatively tiny production volumes on individual wines.

Prices are correspondingly high. While it has been affected by the broader recent market downturn, there is some evidence that top white Burgundy has been relatively resilient.

‘White Burgundy didn’t rise [in price] to the same degree as red Burgundy between 2021 and 2022, and subsequently didn’t fall as far,’ said Burchfield.

US auction house Hart Davis Hart highlighted white Burgundy’s allure after its June fine wine sale, noting: ‘White Burgundy continued its skyward trajectory, with everything from 1980s [Domaines] Leflaive and Ramonet to 2020s Bernard-Bonin and Paul Pillot setting new record prices.

The Bordeaux Index view

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com

Back to the future

The fine wine market is often described as fragmented and lacking direction.

In reality, today’s landscape looks less like disorder and more like a return to historical norms.

The true anomaly was surely the 15-20 years of boom, bust and boom again, when Asia exerted an extraordinary influence, elevating Bordeaux to an unprecedented position of dominance.

That era has passed. Bordeaux remains the cornerstone of the fine wine market, but its decline from overwhelming supremacy is the single biggest structural shift of the past decade.

The beneficiaries are well documented: red Burgundy, Champagne and, on the white side, white Burgundy have all captured a greater share of collectors’ attention.

Fragmentation extends beyond buying preferences. The days when one critic could make or break a vintage are over, and wine styles are less uniform.

Climate change is demanding new approaches in both vineyard and cellar.

And at the same time, outstanding wine is now being made almost everywhere. Even the most historic domaines increasingly face competition from ambitious terrea novea.

Perhaps the greatest change, however, is cultural.

Fine wine now behaves more like other luxury markets: trends emerge faster, information travels instantly and fashion exerts a greater influence than ever before.

Today’s market may feel fragmented, but it’s also broader, more transparent and, arguably, far more interesting.

Auction highlights: Italy & rare Sherry

Italian fine wines have been a highlight of the auction scene in recent weeks, but rarely sighted 19th-century Sherry also commanded bidders’ attention.

Giacomo Conterno, Monfortino is a hallowed name for Barolo lovers and, in late June, US-based Hart Davis Hart (HDH) brought forth what it described as ‘the most comprehensive offering of Monfortino ever to appear at auction’.

Highlights included the superstar Barolo 2010 vintage. Six bottles of Monfortino Barolo Riserva 2010 sold for $11,950 (high estimate: $9,500), including buyer’s premium, while a single magnum of the same wine fetched $4,183 (high e: $3,200).

From Tuscany, six bottles of Soldera, Case Basse, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2004 sold for $17,925 (high e: $14,000). HDH’s June auction was 100% sold – its fifth consecutive ‘white glove’ result.

Elsewhere, Zachys offered Italian gems from New York’s legendary, now-shuttered Barbetta restaurant; the Rolling Stones and Al Pacino are listed among its past patrons.

A Delaware-based ‘live’ sale in late June featured several wines from the 1990s, including 12 bottles of Bruno Giacosa, Santo Stefano di Neive, Barbaresco 1995: sold for $3,750 (high e: $3,000), including buyer’s premium.

In a change of pace, a Christie’s online auction ending 19 June featured library wines direct from Sherry producer González Byass.

A lot containing a bottle each of Pio IX Moscatel 1846 and La Cuadrada Palo Cortado 1997 sold for £2,500, including buyer’s premium (e: £2,000 – £3,000).

LiveTrade and Wine Hub link up

Private collectors and merchants can benefit from a new partnership between the LiveTrade fine wine trading platform powered by Bordeaux Index and a leading business management system, Wine Hub, created by Wine Owners.

Both partners said their deal enhances access to global fine wine trading, such as by enabling businesses using Wine Hub to trade directly on LiveTrade, plus see real-time pricing and stock availability.

LiveTrade has nearly £50m of in-bond, pristine blue-chip stock readily available for trading at any one time.

On the benefit to collectors, Matthew O’Connell, co-CEO of Bordeaux Index, said: ‘Integrations such as Wine Hub make it easier for merchants to participate in the marketplace as part of their daily workflow.

‘Increased participation drives greater liquidity, and that means broader access to fine wine, improved pricing transparency and a stronger trading experience for private collectors using LiveTrade.’

Coming up

Burgundy charity sale

Christie’s will co-host a charity auction of rare Burgundy wines sourced directly from celebrated producers, plus exclusive experiences, from 4-19 September – in aid of restorations at the historic Cistercian Abbey of Cîteaux.

The sale’s conclusion will also coincide with a charity dinner at Chȃteau Clos du Vougeot.

Ex-Chȃteau Haut-Brion

August is broadly a quieter month for auctions, but autumn is hotting up. Sotheby’s announced in July that it will offer Château Haut-Brion wines sourced directly from the Bordeaux first growth’s cellars.

Bidding opens 17 September and concludes with a ‘live’ auction in Paris on 1 October. Stay tuned for more details.

The Golden Vines weekender

Philanthropy-focused fine wine and gastronomy event The Golden Vines returns to London in 2026, from 6-8 November, said organiser Liquid Icons in July.

Held in support of the Gérard Basset Foundation, the weekend includes The Golden Vines Awards Gala. Tickets are £10,000 per person. See liquidicons.com/london

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Driving the highways just west of Washington, D.C., you’ll see monuments and museums on one side, corporate offices and government buildings on the other. But after a short while, the offices become trees, the monuments become cascading mountains. You end up on a dirt road, among vines, views and stillness.

A wine weekend in Northern Virginia is one where you can do it all. That sounds like a big statement, but Northern Virginia has a distinct advantage over many other U.S. wine regions: geographical convenience. Flying into Dulles International Airport places visitors within a 20- to 30-minute drive of premium wineries in Loudoun County and the Middleburg AVA. This makes the region one of the most accessible wine destinations in the country.

The proximity to D.C., brings with it a level of flexibility for itineraries, especially for groups who want to intersperse wine tasting with other activities. Visitors can spend the morning tasting distinctive wines, enjoy a museum or nature in the afternoon and experience fine dining in the evening. This seamless partnership between rural agribusiness and urban nightlife makes for a weekend worth a trip.

Virginia wine and fine dining are big draws

In 2024, Virginia attracted nearly 45 million visitors who spent more than $35bn across the state, putting it in the top 10 of U.S. tourism economies. Food and beverage made up nearly 30% – nearly $10 billion – of total spending that year. Northern Virginia accounted for close to half of both the food and beverage spending (around $4.2bn) and total spending (about $16bn).

“For the most part, a traveler wants to know, ‘Where can I go drink wine, enjoy beautiful scenic views, and find fun things to do nearby?’ For us, it's about selling the experience and why we're different,” said Juliana Thomas, director of communications for the Virginia Tourism Corporation. She and her team build itineraries that give travellers a way to experience all of the things the state has to offer, even when wine is the main focus of the trip.

‘There are some really unique spots that pair beautifully with a sophisticated wine audience,‘ Thomas noted about Northern Virginia. ‘I think of the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, staying at the Goodstone Inn, or eating at the historic Red Fox Inn & Tavern or the nationally recognised Red Truck Bakery. There is so much to discover right next to the vineyards.‘

Wineries to suit many interests: from Bull Run to Stone Tower

Northern Virginia is now home to more than 110 wineries, accounting for more than a third of the state’s 300-plus wineries and encompassing some of its top names. The region spans the area from the Potomac River west to the Blue Ridge Mountains, including Loudoun and Fauquier Counties and beyond. The land is diverse, with elevations from 400 feet to 1,900 feet and soils ranging from greenstone and granite along the mountains to sand, silt and shale farther east.

Working together, winegrowers and producers have helped the area evolve. ‘Ten years ago, our focus was entirely on baseline quality, ensuring wines weren't flawed or structurally reduced. Today, the shift is phenomenal,’ says Aimee Henkle, owner of Lost Creek Winery and treasurer of the Loudoun Wineries & Winegrowers Association. As Loudoun County expands to 50 wineries, the organization is now focused on telling a more nuanced story – one focused on subregional identity and a sense of place.

Wineries in Northern Virginia are as diverse as they are accessible, serving a range of interests. For the wine lover who is passionate about history, the Winery at Bull Run is perfect, sitting between a battle post and wartime hospitals from the two major Battles of Bull Run during the Civil War. The winery offers a wide array of varietal wines and blends, including Cabernet Franc and Norton, a hybrid grape first grown in Virginia.

A visit to Stone Tower winery feels like leaving D.C. for Napa Valley. Its unobstructed views of the Blue Ridge Mountains allow the 400-acre property to dazzle visitors. The views are matched only by the impressive hospitality of the friendly, knowledgeable staff, who host ‘somminar’ wine education events in the evening. Stop in for a tasting or grab a glass of their estate sparkling wine, Chardonnay or Nebbiolo.

Northern Virginia’s fine-wine history: Linden Vineyards

After Prohibition, Virginia didn’t begin to rebuild its wine industry until the mid-1970s. Pioneers like Italy-born Gabriele Rausse, who planted vitis vinifera to help launch Barboursville Vineyards near Charlottesville, and Burgundy-trained winemaker and consultant Michael Shaps, who also opened the first contract winemaking facility in the state in 2007, paved the way for the modern era in Northern Virginia.

When Linden Vineyards opened in 1988 in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it helped define the state’s style and chart a path forward. Founder and winemaker Jim Law is known as the architect of modern Virginia wine. He pushed the state away from casual, tourism-focused operations towards the terroir-driven, scientific standards that drive the state’s winemaking today, introducing site-specific viticulture and single-vineyard wines.

Law also mentored notable Northern Virginia winemakers, including Rutger de Vink of the famed RdV Vineyards (now under French ownership and renamed Lost Mountain) and Jeff White of Glen Manor.

Today, Linden boasts 72 acres under vine, spread across three properties. The space continues to focus more on quiet, educational, immersive experiences rather than entertainment and events. Check out their Hardscrabble Chardonnay, Petit Manseng and Bordeaux blends. The Chardonnay vines sit on well-drained, volcanic-based greenstone, which gives the wine a distinct minerality and the complexity and structure to age for a decade or more.

A new generation of winemakers: Walsh Family

The contributions of Law, Rausse and Shaps ushered in a new wave of winemakers, including Matthieu Finot of King Family Vineyards and Maya Hood White of Early Mountain Vineyards in the Charlottesville area. In Northern Virginia, this second generation is well represented by Nate Walsh of Walsh Family Wines.

Walsh Family clearly takes inspiration from Linden, focusing on expressing the local terroir and bringing it into the tasting room with side-by-side comparisons that make it clear why site-specific viticulture matters to the end result. ‘For example, we bottle our Sauvignon Blanc from different vineyard sites. When guests taste the wines and experience those differences firsthand, it’s a light-bulb moment. Terroir shifts from being an abstract wine term to something tangible and easy to understand,’ says Walsh Family founder Sarah Bryant Walsh and Nate’s wife.

For an intriguing tasting experience, compare the following two pairs at Walsh. For whites, look for the Sauvignon Blancs from the Bethany Ridge and Twin Notch Farm vineyards. Bethany Ridge sits on shallow, stony soils and its wines tend to be ripe and more textured, while Twin Notch’s silty loam results in a leaner, crisp and aromatic profile. For reds, try the mineral-driven, structured Cabernet Franc from Dutchman’s Creek against the softer, more fruit-forward version from Twin Notch Farm.

Going high-end and more exclusive: Crimson Lane

As the D.C. metro area consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest regions in the country, that has created a demand for luxury experiences and elevated tasting spaces. Wineries like Crimson Lane are working to meet this demand.

This winery is uphill from Linden Vineyards, with 160 acres of forest and views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The tasting room is clean, sleek and modern, designed by Napa-based architects to distinguish itself from other wineries in the state.

Visiting Crimson Lane requires a reservation, with a maximum of six guests per reservation, ranging from $45 tastings to a $110 tasting of the full portfolio. The winery focuses on low-yield, high-elevation grape growing, only producing about 4,000 cases per year, which go to wine club members and special events. The winery is known for its rich, bold, red blends, Collina and Parral. Both boast concentrated dark fruit, with ripe tannins and acidity that provides a great balance.

Crimson Lane serves as a compelling example of the contrasts in Northern Virginia wine country, with its proximity to the big-city amenities of D.C. and the charms of small-town life near the Blue Ridge Mountains.

While wine lovers can spend hours exploring the area’s sense of place through the vineyards and in their glasses, they can also keep their whole family or group of friends happy enjoying Virginia hospitality, American historical and cultural sites, music, hiking and other nature activities. This combination turns a wine weekend into an unforgettable adventure for all.

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Prosecco has cemented its status as the world’s bestselling sparkling wine after enjoying a meteoric rise to prominence in the 21^st century.

Global sales of Italy’s budget-friendly fizz reached 307 million bottles in 2013.

That meant Prosecco overtook Champagne for the first time (by volume), and it has pulled well clear in the ensuing years.

Annual production now stands at 700 million bottles, and fans can’t get enough of this light, refreshing sparkler.

Many enjoy Prosecco on its own, but it’s also a key ingredient in popular cocktails like the Aperol Spritz.

Scroll down to discover 10 award-winning Prosecco wine wines from DWWA 2026

Why is Prosecco Day on August 13?

Riondo, one of the leading Prosecco producers, established Prosecco Day in 2016.

By that point, Prosecco was a cultural phenomenon in the UK and other parts of Europe, but Riondo wanted to boost its popularity in the US.

The winery chose August 13, as it’s the height of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, making it the perfect time to enjoy a chilled glass of Prosecco.

What began as an American marketing campaign has been enthusiastically adopted around the world.

In 2021, the US overtook the UK as Prosecco’s largest export market.

More than 80% of Prosecco is typically exported, with the US, the UK, France, Germany and Belgium among the top destinations.

A village, a grape and a name change

Prosecco takes its name from a small village near Trieste, which is close to Italy’s border with Slovenia. The grape is thought to have grown there for centuries.

Both the wine and the grape were traditionally called Prosecco, but that changed in 2009.

Italy wanted to protect its local industry from global competition, so it renamed the grape Glera and turned Prosecco into a strict geographical designation.

Prosecco must now be produced from grapes grown across a defined zone spanning the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions.

Some of the finest expressions come from the steep hills between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene.

The landscape there is so striking that UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list in 2019.

Wines from this area carry the superior DOCG classification, and the tiny Cartizze hill within the zone is treated as the region’s unofficial grand cru.

How Prosecco gets its sparkle

Unlike Champagne, which gains its bubbles through a slow second fermentation in the bottle, Prosecco is made using the tank method.

The second fermentation happens in large pressurised steel tanks. It’s faster and less expensive, but it preserves the fresh, fruity aromas of the Glera grape.

Prosecco is designed to be light-bodied, youthful and easy-drinking, offering a different experience to Champagne.

One label quirk is worth knowing. A Prosecco labelled Extra Dry is sweeter than one labelled Brut, so if you prefer your fizz dry, Brut is the one to reach for.

You’ll also find fully sparkling (spumante) and gently sparkling (frizzante) styles, while Prosecco rosé – which is made with a splash of Pinot Noir – has been an official category since 2020.

Prosecco conquers the world

Prosecco’s rise has been remarkable. In the early 21^st century, it was relatively unknown outside of Italy, but it became the world’s bestselling sparkler in the space of a generation.

It’s easy to see why Prosecco has proved so popular, as combines a crowd-pleasing style with an affordable price tag, offering everyday luxury and easy-going charm.

Prosecco is also the engine behind two of the world’s bestselling cocktails: the almost ubiquitous Aperol Spritz and the peachy Bellini, which was invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice.

Its success has even sparked an international turf war. In Australia’s King Valley, growers planted the grape back when it was still legally called Prosecco.

They continue to sell Australian 'Prosecco' at home and in some export markets – much to the fury of the Italians, who insist the name belongs to their protected hills alone.

Wherever you stand on the dispute, it’s proof of how valuable those eight letters have become.

Prosecco Day is the perfect excuse to put a bottle on ice. Pour a glass, raise a toast to the summer and join the celebration.

DWWA 2026: 10 award-winning Prosecco wines to try

Il Colle 1978, Rive di Rua di Feletto Extra Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive, Veneto 2024
Platinum, 97 points
Expressive apple blossom, pear and peach aromas sizzle over the nose and voluminous texture, tamed by steely mineral undertones. Lush lemongrass, thyme and lime notes furnish the infinite perlage and chalky acidity. Long and precise. Alcohol 11%

Bisol 1542, Dry, Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze, Veneto 2025
Gold, 95 points
An absolute treat, demonstrating immaculate depth and precision. Pear, citrus, elderflower and acacia aromas swirl around the nose with a melon succulence glazing the mousse. Alc 11.5%

Borgo Molino, Motivo Millesimato Brut, Prosecco Asolo Superiore, Veneto 2025
Gold, 95 points
Fragrant pot pourri, blossom and baked apple notes decorate the nose and sink into the peachy palate with its fine mousse and subtle mineral aftertaste. Alc 11.5%

Casa Farive, Brut, Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore, Veneto NV
Silver, 92 points
Intense, honeysuckle, green melon, grapefruit pith, orange, sweet dough and almond blossom, well-supported by a bright chalky white fruits finish. Alc 11%

Collalto, Isabella Di Collalto Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive, Veneto 2024
Silver, 92 points
Spicy and intense aromas of white flower, crushed herbs, showing some chalkiness, long finish with green fruit notes: really well-made! Alc 12%

Montelvini, Collezione Serenitatis Extra Dry, Prosecco Asolo Superiore, Veneto NV
Silver, 92 points
Vibrantly fresh and fruity with fuzzy peach and Gala apple flavours; lovely purity of the fruit for the price point. Alc 11.5%

Luca Ricci, Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore, Veneto NV
Silver, 91 points
Bright and vibrant jasmine, sea breeze and white peach; gently frothy and creamy with fresh almond character. Alc 11%

Tenuta Amadio, Brut, Prosecco Asolo Superiore, Veneto 2025
Silver, 91 points
Frothy and fun with loads of pear drop and fuzzy peach flavours. Generous and moreish style with pink grapefruit finish. Alc 11.5%

Tenuta Castaldo, Brut, Prosecco Asolo Superiore, Veneto 2025
Silver, 91 points
Bright notes of green apple and tinned pineapple framed by fresh herbs and grapefruit, lingers with fine bubbles. Alc 11.5%

Vedova, Extra Brut, Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore, Veneto 2025
Silver, 91 points
Candied fleshy peach, melon, honeysuckle, white rose mingle with jasmine, lime peel and white fruit with salty, mineral-chalky finish. Alc 11%

Search all DWWA 2026 results

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The Texas High Plains does not look like most visitors’ idea of wine country. It is broad, flat and exposed, a place of cotton fields, caliche soils, hard winds, spring frost and summer hail. For many wine drinkers, the region may barely register at all. Yet this high, dry plateau around Lubbock and Brownfield grows more than 80% of the grapes that become Texas wine.

Far to the south, in the pastoral rolling limestone hills around Fredericksburg, visitors sip those wines under live oaks and string lights, often unaware that a bottle of Texas wine frequently begins in one landscape and is sold in another. The industry is unusually dependent on relationships between growers and wineries separated by more than 644 kilometres.

‘The High Plains is just such a wonderful place’, says Remi Immler, head winemaker at Becker Vineyards, one of Texas Hill Country’s legacy wineries and a significant buyer of High Plains fruit. ‘You have this high, dry, desert climate where you can grow a lot of wonderful varieties: Italian, Spanish, Bordeaux and really beautiful whites. They all just do so well up there’.

Texas wine has been called ‘emerging’ for so long that the word has begun to obscure more than it explains. Today, with stronger ratings from critics and growing international recognition, the state’s wine industry is better understood as established but still misunderstood. The question is whether the long-distance agricultural system behind its quality can endure.

Better grapes, but lower demand

That system has always required trust. Grapes grown in the High Plains shape wines poured in Hill Country tasting rooms, and relationships built over years on handshakes and repeated harvests have long held the system together.

During the early years of the pandemic, many Texas wineries saw sales surge as consumers bought more wine to drink at home. ‘From 2020 into early 2023, we couldn’t keep wine on the shelf’, says Ron Yates, owner of Ron Yates Wines and Spicewood Vineyards. Wineries bought grapes aggressively, growers responded to that demand, and higher prices followed. Then consumer sales softened, inventories backed up, and growers had fruit in the vineyard with fewer buyers ready to commit.

‘The irony is that 2025 might be one of the best vintages we’ve ever seen in Texas’, Yates says. ‘It was cooler, the storms dropped the temperatures at the right time, we didn’t add a single grain of tartaric acid, and yet a lot of that beautiful fruit struggled to find a buyer’.

The weather this spring may have countered that two-year dip in demand. A freeze across both the High Plains and Hill Country on 17 March significantly lowered yields, particularly among white varieties. Several growers and winemakers see the short crop as a painful but potentially useful reset, helping bring supply back into balance.

This is the paradox defining the High Plains right now. The region is not struggling because Texas failed to improve. Many winemakers argue the opposite: the best High Plains fruit is better understood, better farmed and more important than ever. But quality alone cannot stabilise a farming economy.

The pressures of High Plains viticulture

High Plains grapegrowers have always faced weather challenges. Spring frost, hail, wind, drought and synthetic pesticide drift from nearby row-crop agriculture are part of the region’s reality. But recent pressure has come as much from the market as from the sky. Wineries with excess inventory have pulled back on grape purchases. Multi-year contracts have become less common. Some buyers wait until harvest to see what fruit can be found on the spot market at a lower price.

For Katy Jane Seaton of Farmhouse Vineyards, that uncertainty directly affects how she farms. ‘The High Plains is always going to carry on quality for the same old reasons’, she asserts. ‘We’re a region of generational farmers. Many of these families farmed row crops for generations before planting vineyards. It’s agriculture for a living, here’.

But agriculture requires planning and capital. At Farmhouse, fully contracted blocks receive the premium program: nutrition, hand work, pruning and detailed canopy care. Blocks with likely buyers get solid but reduced attention. Uncontracted fruit receives only enough care to keep vines healthy.

‘If it was contracted, you got an A-plus farming plan’, she says. ‘If it wasn’t contracted, we give nutrition down the drip line, and that’s it’.

From one of the state’s largest and most diverse High Plains properties, Akhil Reddy of Reddy Vineyards sees the same fragility. His father, Vijay Reddy, planted the family’s first vines near Brownfield in 1997 and later added a winery. Akhil grew up around the farms, became a dentist, built practices, and eventually returned full-time to vineyard and winery life. Today, the vineyard spans just under 162 hectares, with 38 grape varieties.

For Reddy, diversity is both ambition and insurance: the dozens of varieties, clones and more than 100 blocks are designed to absorb Texas volatility. Freeze, hail, heat and market shifts rarely affect everything equally.

Still, he is candid about the economics. ‘It’s extremely hard to farm and to make a profit’, Reddy says. ‘And then it’s extremely hard to make really great wine, but you can only do that with really great fruit. And what’s even harder is selling the wine’.

Looking beyond Texas’ borders

If wine does not sell, grapes do not sell; if grapes do not sell, vineyards lose investment. For Reddy, one answer is professionalization. The handshake culture of earlier decades no longer feels sufficient, so he now uses formal grape contracts, including deposits to ensure buyers have ‘skin in the game’.

Connor Wilmeth, vineyard manager at Lahey Vineyards, is also pushing beyond old assumptions. At 33, he oversees roughly 405 hectares of vines and brings a row-crop marketing background to grapes. Much of his crop goes to wineries such as McPherson Cellars and Becker Vineyards, but he has also been driving to East Coast states, introducing Texas grapes, juice and wine to buyers that already source from California and South America. For many East Coast buyers, Texas also offers a shorter freight route than California.

‘I try to apply my experience in the row-crop industry’, Wilmeth says. ‘I was on the board of a cotton marketing cooperative that merchandises cotton all over the world, and for me the question was, why are we only selling grapes locally’?

He understands the importance of strengthening Texas wine, but he also has a business to run. Rather than leaving fruit to rot when local demand softens, Wilmeth argues that Texas should compete where it has advantages: its proximity to eastern markets and its broad range of prestigious vinifera grape varieties.

That idea has support from Kim McPherson of McPherson Cellars, one of the few prominent producers making wine in the High Plains itself. After decades working with regional growers while building a brand that sells beyond the tasting room, McPherson argues that the next chapter depends on wider distribution and wines that can compete outside the state’s local markets.

Seeking a succession plan

Several growers who helped build the High Plains’ reputation are now trying to transition out of the business. Jet Wilmeth of Wilmeth Family Vineyards is retiring; Andy Timmons of Lost Draw Cellars has reduced the acreage he farms; and families such as the Binghams and Newsoms are considering how to carry important vineyard sites into the next phase.

Neal Newsom, whose vineyard has long been regarded by winemakers as one of the state’s benchmark sites, is not pessimistic. Last year, he says, was one of his worst for moving fruit, but demand has improved.

‘I’m not worried about the industry’, says Newsom. ‘This is at least my third or fourth rodeo when it comes to these types of challenges. It’s going to come back; it is already happening’.

His personal question is succession. Over 70 years old, he wants to slow down without walking away, ideally by finding a working partner with enough local presence and financial resources to help carry the vineyard forward.

For wineries that depend on Newsom fruit, the transition is critical. Mike Nelson, winemaker and co-founder of Ab Astris, considers Newsom one of the state’s benchmark farmers. ‘Growers like Neal Newsom prove what’s possible in the High Plains’, he says. ‘But that old guard is aging out, and we need others to continue his level of work’.

Making and keeping connections

Despite this pullback from pioneering growers, others, such as Tony and Madonna Phillips of Phillips Vineyard, are choosing to stay in. Last year, despite a substantial decrease in demand, the Phillipses were able to place their 2025 crop.

‘It took a lot of phone calls and emails, but we found a home for every grape in our vineyard,’ Madonna Phillips says.

For Tony, grapes remain different from other crops such as cotton or peanuts. ‘When you grow and sell cotton, you have no connection to where that cotton ends up’, Phillips says. ‘The grapes we grow show up as wine in a bottle, often with our vineyard name on it. We can share that with friends and family’.

That emotional connection helps explain why many High Plains growers still believe the work is worth doing.

Chris Brundrett, CEO and co-founder of William Chris Vineyards, sees the current market as a correction, not a collapse. The best growers and most committed wineries will align more closely. But he also warns wineries against exploiting the short-term situation. ‘It’s a buyer’s market today, but that’s not going to last forever’, Brundrett says. ‘How we got to where we are today isn’t by win-lose on the grower side. It’s got to be win-win’.

Immler, 29, brings a younger voice to that same idea. Her focus at Becker in the years ahead is on direct communication: honest reports from growers, honest feedback from wineries, and earlier conversations when weather, quality or cash flow change the plan. ‘It has to be built on relationships’, she says.

For Texas wine to keep moving forward, the Hill Country and High Plains must remain connected not only by refrigerated trucks and purchase agreements, but by a shared understanding of what each side makes possible.

The correction in the High Plains is real. Yet it is also revealing the industry’s strengths: growers willing to rethink markets, families choosing to commit to the difficulty of managing vineyards, wineries still betting on High Plains fruit, and a younger generation interested in building something durable.

Texas has already shown it can make compelling wine. Its next test is whether the long-distance relationships underlying those wines can become as mature as the best bottles now suggest.

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Chillable reds: a quiet revolution in wine

There was once a time when the wine world operated under rigid, unwritten laws: whites came ice-cold straight from the fridge or ice bucket, while reds sat wilting at warm room temperature.

Fast forward to today, and a quiet revolution has completely redefined how we enjoy our wine.

The rise of ‘chillable reds’ – often affectionately celebrated in French natural wine circles as vins de soif or glou-glou – has transformed light-bodied, low-tannin reds into the ultimate refreshing pour.

Driven by climate shifts, evolving dining habits, and a surge in minimal-intervention winemaking, bottle shop shelves are now stacked high with vibrant Gamays, fruity Frappatos, and lively new-wave Cinsaults.

These smashable reds are light, bright, crunchy, and, most importantly, best served after a brief spell in the fridge.

Chilling them for 20-30 minutes doesn't just make them refreshing; it tightens their red-fruit profile, makes the acidity sing and keeps high-tannin bitterness at bay.

Find out if you’re a true ‘cool climate’ connoisseur with our 12-question challenge. Good luck, and remember: if in doubt, put it in the fridge for 20 minutes!

Take our quiz on chillable red wines

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Just a matter of weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, heralding the end of division in Europe, the Cold War and (soon after) the USSR, almost exactly 1,000 miles south-west, the Bordelais saw the conclusion of one of the greatest decades in their vinous history.

With perhaps two exceptions (1984 & 1987) the 1980s was a transformative period in the region both economically and qualitatively after the various shades of brown that the preceding decade yielded.

Things were looking up for the world’s most aristocratic wine region, and it started with a bang…

1990

Many would argue that 1990 is a contender for the greatest global vintage in recent history, showing outstanding uniform quality in most regions around the world.

Bordeaux was no exception. This generally warm vintage has produced wines that are often voluptuous and decadent, a trait that we would not see again for a number of years.

The vintage is littered with stars on both banks and perhaps even more so in Sauternes.

Now 36 years-old the very best wines are hitting their peak but be warned that lower end examples may have succumbed to flamboyance and lack the structure of some other great vintages.

The finest wines are effortless: Château Margaux, Montrose, Léoville Las Cases, and Lynch-Bages to name but a few on the left bank.

Cheval Blanc, Petrus and Clinet all flirt with perfection on the right bank, as does La Mission Haut Brion in Graves.

There are dozens more world beating wines, but notable misses too. Latour is variable, but on its day one of the finest ever produced, while Mouton Rothschild and Pichon Comtesse both somehow miss the magic of so many of their neighbours.

Generally speaking I would happily buy well stored class growth claret across the board and expect to find a beautiful expression of plump, mature claret within.

1991

Now, dear reader, 1991 is a vintage where my opinion may differ from many of my esteemed colleagues.

My justification for the perceived quality of this wildly overlooked vintage is based upon dozens of bottles in recent years and an almost obsessive desire to vindicate my theory that, in this frost plagued vintage, those closest to the river fared best.

There is no denying that the right bank was not a success, with some châteaux opting not to produce a Grand Vin, but many of those in the Médoc that could afford to crop their yields produced good wines.

Palmer is the wine of the vintage, and even comparable to their legendary 1990, while neighbours Pichon Comtesse and Latour come a close second.

I would not suggest you research 1991 as extensively as I have, but if the vintage is of significance, then do try well cellared left bank wines from the most familiar names.

1992

Unlike 1991, I do not have such positive news for anyone who holds 1992 dear.

Generally the wines are well past their best, but passable bottles of Clinet (a wine I loved a decade ago), Gruaud Larose and La Mission Haut-Brion have piqued interest in recent years but perhaps not offered much on the hedonistic spectrum.

However, dry whites were largely a success with Laville Haut-Brion offering a genuinely outstanding effort even three decades on.

1993

More of the same sadly as the dearth of quality continues, even if 1993 is stylistically different, often hard, dry and tannic.

A recent bottle of Clinet, drunk at the château, was delicious as the plump nature of this great Pomerol overcame the tannins of the vintage.

Gruaud Larose and Beychevelle are wines I have enjoyed over the years, similarly Lafleur on the right bank.

But don’t go out of your way!

1994

There was an initial feeling that 1994 might have been the saviour of the region after a string of troublesome harvests.

The quality was undeniably better, but not close to what was about to follow. Latour is the wine of the vintage, closely followed by neighbour Pichon Comtesse.

At the more affordable end, half a dozen recent bottles of Branaire-Ducru have been delicious, if drying out a little.

The wines here feel more classic than either 1992 or the austere 1993s. If it’s a milestone year for you then I would suggest sticking to the Médoc for best results.

1995

Finally, Bordeaux waits no more! For decades to come Bordeaux lovers will argue the various merits of 1995 v 1996, but what the former has in its corner is a much stronger showing on the right bank.

I’ve always found the vintage slightly foursquare compared to its successor but the quality is undeniable and uniform.

On the right bank both Lafleur and Cheval Blanc are sensational.

Similarly on the left bank, not many people missed the mark, so perhaps it is more useful to mention the wines that I favour in 1995 to the more fleshy 1996s that followed: Pichon Baron, Léoville Barton, Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion to name four.

This is a vintage to buy with confidence, on both banks, relying on the fact that the structure here supports beautifully balanced wines that are just hitting their prime.

1996

Is this the vintage of the decade? For the left bank, probably. The wines from the Médoc are generous but reserved, structured but also ethereal.

A genuinely glorious vintage for almost everyone on the left bank. If I am splitting hairs, Pauillac performed best, with Latour, Lafite Rothschild and Pichon Comtesse all contenders for wine of the decade.

Lynch-Bages, Grand Puy Lacoste and Batailley are crafted from the same mould without the price tag.

Outside Pauillac, Léoville Las Cases and Margaux are also potentially perfect wines.

Almost everything west of the Gironde is worth seeking out.

The right bank is more patchy, so my recommendation would be to opt for 1998.

1997

Thought to be one of the weaker vintages of the decade, 1997 is (however) superior to 1992, 1993 and 1994.

The vintage is much lighter than those that surround it, which has given drinkers pleasure over that last few decades, in a way that other years have not.

There is no excess structure or greenness as you find in the early half of the 1990s. Just elegant, balanced, drinkable Bordeaux that would have, at one time, been labelled ‘luncheon claret’.

Recent bottles of Potensac, Meyney, La Conseillante and Gazin have all been delicious. Not more or less, just simply delicious.

Sauternes, however, is sensational. Those with a connection to 1997 may find some bargains as the wines have remained fairly priced.

A vintage that grows in my affection as I age and understand its place among its far more lauded siblings.

1998

If 1996 is THE left bank year, then 1998 is THE right bank year. The year Merlot turned to gold.

There are more successes on the left bank in 1998 than on the right bank in 1996, most notably a sensational bottle of Palmer knocked 1989 off the table, but St-Emilion and Pomerol displayed an embarrassment of riches.

It is little surprise that Petrus and Cheval Blanc both crafted wines that could last a century as well as La Mission Haut-Brion and Haut-Brion in Pessac.

The one word of caution I would add is, in this ‘peak Parker’ era, some estates were unnecessarily exuberant with their extraction.

Most wines here, on both banks, are still approaching full maturity.

1999

A curious and almost anonymous vintage to round off the century. Overshadowed by what was to come, I feel little affection for 1999, and the wines somewhat generic.

Perhaps because the top wines are some way off full maturity, but the first growths are all solid, if unexciting.

Gruaud Larose has always been nice as have dozens of other châteaux that produced very good examples on both left and right.

That said, an honourable mention should go to the often forgotten Tertre-Roteboeuf which produced a sensational wine to round off the decade.

The best is yet to come...?

It is fair to say that, next to the consistency of the 1980s, the 1990s was a more variable decade to end the millennium, but what was to come next might just be the greatest of them all…

Bordeaux vintages of the 1990s

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With its dark, pointed turrets and gleaming limestone façade Château Pichon Baron is one of the Médoc's quintessential châteaux.

A second growth Pauillac, it is renowned for the sleekness, polish and ageworthiness of its Cabernet Sauvignon-driven wines, produced from 92 hectares of vines planted in the region's famous gravels.

The estate was created in the 17th century when Baron Jacques Pichon de Longueville married Therèse de Rauzan, the daughter of a wealthy and enormously influential wine merchant.

The barons de Longueville owned the property from 1694 to 1933. In 1850 the estate was split with Baron Raoul de Longueville keeping the property known today as Pichon Baron, while his sisters inherited the other half that we know today as Pichon Comtesse.

The estate was bought by insurance group AXA – part of a wider portfolio of estates under the umbrella of AXA Millésimes – in 1987.

Under the group's ownership, the estate has been extensively renovated and remodelled, with state-of-the-art winemaking facilities and cellars.

The core plot at the centre of the estate's vineyards, the 'Butte de Pichon Baron', has been used to make the grand vin since 1694.

The property also produces two 'second labels', Les Tourelles de Pichon Baron and Les Griffons de Pichon Baron, and a white wine.

Pichon Baron vintages

Looking back over the most recent available vintages, we can see that Pichon Baron has averaged a score 97-points from various Decanter critics.

This puts it in the same category as Château Cheval Blanc or Château Haut-Brion.

However, an average case price of £1,038 (per 12x75cl) is a sizeable discount to either of those other estates which clock in at over £4,000 and £3,000 a case on average respectively.

Even better news for fans of polished Pauillac, there are currently four well-scored vintages available for under £1,000.

The most surprising of these is the 2017, which received a score of 98-points during a panel tasting. Not an especially renowned vintage, one judge, Andy Howard MW, called it: 'A classic Pauillac, which is remarkable in the context of 2017 overall.'

The wine has a current market price of £960 per case. According to Liv-ex, it is down from previous highs over the course of 2022-2024 but has seen some positive gains so far this year.

Another vintage that looks good value relative to other peers is the 2020. Like the 2017 it has a score of 98-points and costs under £1,000, with Georgina Hindle calling it: 'Generous, elegant and refined'.

Both vintages look even better value when compared to the 2022, which also has a score of 98-points but currently costs just over £1,200 per case. It's the better-viewed vintage but perhaps buyers have been overlooking other wines of similar quality?

Finally, the 95-point 2021 is really a very delicious wine, especially given the otherwise rather average vintage and the 2024 with 96-points is the cheapest available vintage by far at around £838 per case.

Although they sit under Pichon Baron's score-average their relative affordability makes them tempting potential pick-ups for thirsty buyers, especially given the estate's current track record for producing standout wines even in mediocre vintages.

Château Pichon Baron: Selected tasting notes

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It's always fascinating to visit a winery to see where, how, and by whom your favourite wines are made.

Sometimes an estate will be eagerly anticipating the first wines from a new vineyard. Ask where those young vines come from, and chances are the answer will be a proud ‘Rauscedo’.

With around 60% of Italy's vines and a quarter of those growing globally originating here, VCR is by far the world's largest vine supplier.

The 430 wine grape clones VCR works with represent 90 major world varieties, sold in 38 countries across five continents.

‘Nowadays we produce around 90 million grafted vines each year,’ explains Alessandro Leon, VCR president and one of 200 member growers.

Roots

The nursery cooperative was founded in 1933 to organise the growing local trade in vine grafting, which began 15 years earlier thanks to skills taught by a locally based army officer.

European wineries were still reeling from the Phylloxera epidemic, and replanting was underway with vulnerable European Vitis vinifera varieties grafted onto naturally resistant American rootstocks.

Grafting takes place between February and March. After protective paraffin waxing and a few months of growth at member nurseries, each vine is checked manually by one of the 1,300-strong team during an all-important winter selection process, ensuring only perfectly grafted, healthy plants are sold.

Around 78% pass the test.

The laboratory

For the past 60 years, VCR has been a major player in vine research. Alongside members' nurseries, VCR has 22ha of experimental vineyards and various plots across Italy and beyond.

Its contemporary, alpine-style research centre houses eight futuristic laboratories where around 10,000 genotypes (grown from individual seeds) are trialled annually.

Lab staff undertake the meticulous job of isolating seeds, genome testing, and micropropagation.

The tiny proportion selected for aromatic quality, productivity, or disease resistance may eventually become registered clones.

‘It gets busy’

Each year, VCR carries out roughly 700 microvinifications in small steel vats and glass demijohns.

‘It gets busy,’ says winemaker Massimo De Candido, ‘but I'd find working with regular-sized equipment a challenge after 20 years of microvinifications here.’

Clients can configure orders online from over 4,000 variety-rootstock combinations, but most prefer to discuss options and taste the results from different clones.

VCR's tasting room boasts a mind-boggling archive of bottles arranged by clone codes and varieties.

‘We have, for example, 15 Merlot clones,’ points out Elisa De Luca, head of the research centre.

‘Many producers choose to plant a mix of clones of the same variety to mitigate the risks of increasingly unpredictable weather.’

Pioneering PIWIs

Exciting ongoing research involves new resistant varieties, or ‘PIWIs’ – hybrids created by crossing traditional European Vitis vinifera with naturally disease-resistant American or Asian vines.

These allow for reduced vineyard intervention and mitigate climate change risks.

VCR holds exclusive rights to 14 PIWI varieties, including Pinot Iskra, Sauvignon Nepis, and Merlot Khorus, developed with Udine University.

Two of VCR's own resistant varieties derived from Glera (the Prosecco grape) will soon be released, with more due in 2027, followed by resistant versions of Grenache and Chardonnay.

While the EU approved PIWIs for denomination wines in 2021 and regions like Champagne have altered protocols to allow small percentages, Italy has been slow to follow suit.

Some Italian regions authorise PIWI cultivation, but no regulatory changes have been approved to include them in DOC/DOCG wines.

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Anne Krebiehl MW, Freddy Bulmer and Roger Jones tasted 163 wines, with 6 Outstanding and 57 Highly recommended

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc: Panel tasting scores

163 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 6

Highly recommended 57

Recommended 90

Commended 10

Entry criteria: UK retailers and agents were invited to submit their latest release, still, dry Sauvignon Blanc wines from any region in New Zealand

Over two days, three of us tasted 163 New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs that presented a brilliant overview of what’s on the market right now.

Most wines, four-fifths in fact, hailed from Marlborough and most, just under two-thirds, from the 2025 vintage.

Two things stood out.

First: while Marlborough still rules the Sauvignon Blanc roost and provided all the top-scoring wines, other regions offer worthwhile alternatives. Second: the 2025 vintage is weaker than 2024 but still holds plenty of treasure.

Sauvignon Blancs submitted from Central Otago where temperatures differ between day and night scored really well, while wines from warmer Hawke’s Bay were weakest, showing that the latter is a better hunting ground for other varieties.

2025s are good to go

As regards the vintages, 2025 with its higher yields and tricky growing season, featuring a cool January, i.e. midsummer in the southern hemisphere, meant we could really tell the wheat from the chaff.

Vines needed careful handling and management to ensure full ripening and thus aromatic development of the crop load.

Roger Jones put it succinctly when he noted that ‘wines that had some love and care, with time on lees, or with some careful oak age, but not necessarily always with oak’, did best.

This means that you should enjoy the 2025 wines while they are young and alive with primary fruit and flavours.

Those who adore varietal Sauvignon Blanc aromas in the greener spectrum will be in for a treat, especially with wines from the Awatere Valley sub-region, which is vibrant in 2025 with pea shoot, lime and green asparagus.

Freddy Bulmer noted another clear and positive development, particularly pertinent for 2025.

He found the wines well-integrated ‘with relatively few that seemed to compensate for underripe fruit by adding sweetness, which has been a particular issue at the entry level in the past’.

See all notes and scores from the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc tasting

The judges

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc panel tasting results:

Wines were tasted blind

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Asda

Gold

95 Asda, Exceptional Mas Miralda Cava Brut, Catalonia, Spain 2023

Hugely aromatic and soulful with boundless lemon peel, fresh herb and almond notes swaddled in glossy mousse and succulent acidity. A tasty joy to behold. (12%) £7.75

95 Asda, Exceptional Pouilly-Fumé, Loire, France 2025

A beguiling interplay of abundant lemongrass and bergamot florals over grassy gooseberries and crushed stones. Steely in structure with green apple acidity and an umami finish. (13%) £17

95 Asda, Exceptional Barbera d’Asti Superiore, Piedmont, Italy 2022

Cheerful and vibrant, comprising red cherries, brambles, violets and aromatic herbs encased in an earthy structure, with sandy tannins, immersive acidity and a supple chocolate length. (14.5%) £8

95 Asda, Exceptional Cabernet Sauvignon, Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia 2023

Pretty red and purple flowers, savoury bay leaf and twinkling cassis fruit collide decisively on the nose and palate with agile tannins and energising acidity. (14%) £7.50

95 Asda, Exceptional Zinfandel, Lodi, California, USA 2024

Gorgeous chocolate-covered cherry, raisin and bergamot aromas flourish over the nose and seep into the deep, sun-drenched core. Gentle spice adds warmth to the long length. (14.5%) £7.50

95 Navigator, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California, USA 2023

Bursting with primary fruit fragrance and subtle wafts of baking spice. Dense and fulsome with plush oak tannins and ripe cherry acidity. Well-defined and long. (14.5%) £18.50

95 Asda, Exceptional Asti, Piedmont, Italy NV

Spilling over with guava, pineapple, passion fruit, yellow apple and pear that fills the exuberant froth and imbues the bright, jagged acidity. Long, honeyed and joyful. (7%) £4.70

96 Asda, Exceptional Noble Riesling, Canterbury, New Zealand 2017

A lingering perfume of manuka honey, saffron, ginger and toffee pudding qualifies the fruit aromas, while the long palate is sustained by cleansing acidity. (8.5%) £10/37.5cl

Booths

Platinum

97 Craggy Range, Te Muna Sauvignon Blanc, Martinborough, Wairarapa, New Zealand 2025

Quivering with fragrant florals, fresh orchard fruits and passion fruit nuance that enrobes the soft succulence of the palate. Expressive and complex with a fine seam of grapefruit acidity that carries the finely-tuned aromas to the finish. (12.5%) £16.75

Gold

95 Trinity Hill, Chardonnay, Gimblett Gravels, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand 2024

Sultry peach, red apple, Amalfi lemon and nutty brioche aromas surround the melted butter texture, chiselled by grapefruit acidity. Whisps of pithy peel unite the finish. (13.5%) £18

95 Wirra Wirra, Church Block Grenache-Shiraz, McLaren Vale, South Australia, Australia 2024

Enticing florals, creamy red and blue fruits and hints of white pepper bring charm and breadth. Darting acidity, fine tannins and ample purity mark the palate. (14.5%) £16.50

95 De Bortoli, Noble One Botrytis Semillon, New South Wales, Australia 2022

A panorama of candied citrus, dried fruits, honeyed nuts and vanilla sweetness that extends to the creamy palate with a kiss of oak on the finish. (10.5%) £20/37.5cl

96 Graham’s, Quinta dos Malvedos Late Bottled Vintage Port, Portugal 2018

Glowing with confidence and panache. Blackcurrant, bramble and violet-tinged fruits are offset by a savoury backdrop, wrapped in a satin texture and fleshy tannins. Long and linear. (20%) £34

Co-op

Gold

95 Co-op, Irresistible Malbec, Bío Bío Valley, Chile 2024

An unmistakable typicity of violet florals, fresh mint and basil amid raspberry and black plum. Energetic, textured and mouthwatering with a swirling tobacco finish. (13.5%) £9.50

95 Co-op, Irresistible Douro, Douro Valley, Portugal 2024

Attractive blackberry, blueberry and violet aromas seep into the dense, juicy texture and fold into velvet tannins. Scatterings of eucalyptus and mint pervade the length. (12.5%) £9.50

95 El Esteco, Don David Blend of Terroirs Malbec, Calchaquí, Salta, Argentina 2025

Beautifully expressive black plums, cherries and strawberries embellished by smoky spice and floral touches. Graphite tannins add freshness and complexity, with minty notes to end. (14%) £11.50

95 Trapiche, Pure Fairtrade Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina 2025

Stacked with raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and herbal aromas that extend generously to the juicy palate. Softly structured with folding tannins and seamless acidity. Great value. (13%) £10

Majestic

Platinum

97 Cattier, Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru Brut, Champagne, France NV

Impressive Chardonnay typicity. Well-defined honeyed peach, yellow apple, toasted sourdough and light brioche notes are subtly sewn into the fine, creamy mousse. An enhancing wet-stone freshness guides the razor-sharp acidity and long, saline finish. (12.5%) £57

97 Te Kairanga, Pinot Noir, Martinborough, Wairarapa, New Zealand 2024

An intriguing savoury intensity, combining dark iodine, graphite and nori seaweed with inflections of violet florals and berry fruits. Bold wood-spice tannins and vivid acidity carry the flavours and build towards the lengthy finish. (14%) £19

Gold

95 Laurent-Perrier, Héritage Brut, Champagne, France NV

Eloquent ripe citrus, apple, apricot and sweet pastry notes glaze the nose and glossy texture. The acidity melts in and funnels through to the outstanding length. (12%) £80

95 Viñalba, Reserve Malbec-Touriga Nacional, Gualtallary, Tupungato, Mendoza, Argentina 2025

Bustling with coffee bean and vanilla appeal and speckled with berries and cherries, all underlined by gentle, savoury complexity. Lively and bright with polished tannins. (14%) £13.50

Marks & Spencer

Platinum

97 Marks & Spencer, Delacourt Blanc de Blancs Brut, Champagne, France 2017

A dazzling complexity of peach, apricot, quince and golden apple with lashings of toasted bread and brioche. Broad and muscular, with rippling mousse and racy lime acidity curtailing the grilled nut glow of the finale. (12.5%) £35

97 Marks & Spencer, Collection, Peironte, Barolo, Piedmont, Italy 2021

Unmistakably Barolo, capturing the essence via cherry, strawberry, sweet herb and balsamic notes that permeate the taut structure and tightly wound, muscular tannins. Cured meat and black pepper energy brings up the rear and lingers resolutely. (14%) £20

Gold

95 Marks & Spencer, Collection, Rosé, Côtes de Provence Cru Sainte Victoire, Provence, France 2025

A symphonic purity of raspberries, strawberries, peaches and cream ripples over the satin texture and juicy melon acidity and gathers at the saline mineral ending. (12.5%) £14 95

Marks & Spencer, Yarri-Karri Cabernet Sauvignon, Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia 2023

A dense core of black and red cherry with adjacent floral aroma conjoining. Deftly textured, shrouded in serious, gravelly tannins and bright acidity. Long and fulfilling. (14%) £14

Morrisons

Gold

95 Louis Jadot, Couvent des Jacobins Chardonnay, Bourgogne, Burgundy, France 2024

Disarming ripe peach, apple, yellow plum and almond enthroned in vanilla oak, with a buttery texture and precise tangerine acidity flowing to the long, rapturous end. (12.5%) £21

Sainsbury’s

Gold

95 Sainsbury’s, Taste the Difference Grillo, Sicily, Italy 2025

Alluring white florals and ripe tropical fruits scatter over the nose, meeting cooling mineral tones on the palate. Orange-peel vigour laces the acidity and length. (12.5%) £8.50

Tesco

Platinum

97 Tesco, Finest Black Birch Sauvignon Blanc, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand 2025

Cool, precise and eloquent, emanating a gooseberry, bell pepper, pea shoot and passion fruit perfume entwined with mystifying sea spray minerals. Sumptuous lime acidity and expressive saline elements carry the freshness and character to the lengthy finale. (12.5%) £15.50

Gold

95 Tesco, Finest Grand Cru Brut, Champagne, France 2019

A delicious immediacy of yellow peach, apple, walnut and pastry flavour that binds generously with the salient lime acidity and cushioning fizz. Long and mineral. (12.6%) £32

95 Tesco, Finest Chianti Classico Riserva, Tuscany, Italy 2021

Capacious red plum, sour cherry and dried floral notes within a finely-tuned structure of smooth tannins; there’s a balsamic edge to the long finish. (13.5%) £11.75

96 Tesco, Finest Late Bottled Vintage Port, Portugal 2020

Densely flavoured with bramble, black cherry and sweet blackcurrant on a bed of liquorice and caraway. Complex, sumptuous and brooding. (20%) £14.75

95 Tesco, Finest 10 Year Old Tawny Port, Portugal NV

Hugely concentrated and powerful, packed with toffee richness mingled with dried prune, caramel and pecan-nut complexity. Harmonious and smoothly textured. (20%) £14.75

Waitrose

Gold

95 Château de Rochemorin, Blanc, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux, France 2024

An engaging, fine-knit citrus core layering of tropical fruit salad, white blossom and honeysuckle. Spacious and textural with gentle acidity and a long, bright finish. (12.5%) £24

95 Faustino, I Gran Reserva Blanco, Rioja, Spain 2021

Exuberant aromas of macadamia, praline and peach melba combine and seamlessly infuse the broad oak structure, with silty lemon acidity poking through. Exemplary Gran Reserva. (13%) £20

95 Waitrose, No.1 Malbec, Uco Valley, Mendoza, Argentina 2022

Alive with herbaceous energy, exhibiting blue and black fruit, violet florals and a vivacious menthol zing. Fleshy and fluid with smooth tannins and a youthful texture. (14%) £15

The Wine Society

Gold

95 Castelnau, Brut, Champagne, France 2006

Compelling buttered toast and honey, nougat and orchard fruits envelop the plush, rounded texture and melting acidity. Flecks of citrus tickle the finish. (12.5%) £49 95

Famille Bougrier, Première Idylle Brut, Vouvray, Loire, France NV

Brimming with ripe Granny Smith apple, chalky mineral and hazelnut notes that complement the fine, frothy effervescence and waxy texture perfectly. Beautifully crisp and refreshing. (12%) £12.50

95 Bononia Estate, Gomotartzi Dimyat-Vermentino, Danubian Plain, Bulgaria 2024

A delicious tension of green apple, melon and green herbs with bounding citrus-fresh acidity and an engaging salty line. Rounded and long finish. (13.5%) £11.95

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On my desk are two bags of green tea given to me by Beefeater’s head distiller, Adam Cocker. One holds Chinese green tea – shards of dried and shredded leaves that exude a toasted aroma as they tumble over one another.

In the other are dried leaves rolled into tight, deep green needles with a satin sheen. Their cut-grass top note has faded but they still smell rich and vegetal with a hint of seaweed. This is Japanese sencha. Its price has risen tenfold in the last few years – a knock-on effect of the craze for matcha-flavoured everything.

Both feature in Beefeater 24, which was pioneering in its use of tea when it launched in 2008. When one taste tester commented they ‘couldn’t taste the tea’, Master Distiller Desmond Payne made it clear that was the point. In this gin its role is to modify the other botanicals rather than shine in its own right.

Tea in the spotlight

It was Ki No Bi Kyoto Dry Gin that elevated the use of tea from a supporting role to a full-throated member of the botanical chorus, especially in Japanese gin. This year is the 10th anniversary of its release.

The Kyoto Distillery gets its gyokuro tea from the oldest tea plantation in Japan. It is by far the most expensive botanical in the gin. Ki No Bi’s even more tea-steeped sibling spirit, Ki No Tea, adds matcha to the mix.

It is not what’s grown that separates a green tea from a black one, a tencha from a keemun. These types of tea, and more besides, all come from the same plant, camellia sinensis. How it’s grown has some say, but what matters most is what’s done with the leaf once it has been picked.

Leaf logic

Briefly, then: some tea is grown under shade to inhibit tannins and encourage chlorophyll and amino acids. These teas taste sweeter and have more umami. After harvest, tea leaves are withered – left to lose moisture and go limp. Next growers roll, bruise or cut them to encourage oxidation, then heat them to stop it.

Done almost at once, you get green tea. A little longer and you get oolong. Longer still and you get black tea. Skip it and you get white tea. Pu-erh is its own thing again: leaves are fermented and sometimes aged.

It doesn’t end there. You can grind it (matcha), roast it (hojicha), smoke it over pine (lapsang souchong), flavour it with bergamot (Earl Grey) or jasmine (you get the idea).

A tea tapestry

For gin distillers, then, tea is not a single botanical but a spectrum of flavours and textures. And how you handle it can alter it yet further. At Beefeater, the 24-hour steeping before distillation means that, rather than being added directly to hot water like when brewing a cuppa, the tea starts cold and slowly warms. This means a longer, slower drawing out of its lighter flavours.

‘It’s all got to be in balance,’ says Cocker. ‘Contemporary gins can do what they want, paint a picture with a whole bunch of botanicals. Ours has to work with juniper first, then make sure everything else brings something to the party.’

Karl Mason, joint founder at Masons of Yorkshire, takes a different approach with his Tea Edition gin. ‘We challenged our distiller to make our Original Edition drier, but do it in a totally unique way,’ he says. ‘We had tried a tea gin previously but it used Earl Grey tea and wasn’t to our taste at all, as it was a lot more floral.’

Instead the Tea Edition uses Yorkshire Tea from Harrogate – I mean, what else? This is black tea: tannic, drying, dominant. The result is a gin that is most definitely tea flavoured. The tea is the point.

Made to go together

Tea now shows up in plenty of gins — I have 46 in my notes alone. None use white tea; too expensive and too delicate for the still. Most opt for green or black, falling broadly into either Japanese or English breakfast flavour camps.

The more adventurous choose an oolong (Bimber’s Da Hong Pao Tea Gin) or even an aged pu-erh (That Boutiquey Gin Company’s Vintage Pu-erh Tea Gin). Either way, tea and gin have a natural affinity. In my experience, the Venn diagram of people who enjoy both is more or less a circle.

Six of the best gins with tea

Beefeater 24

A gin where tea deepens the other flavours rather than muscling its way past them. You can taste it, but you have to look for it; tonic helps. It has a softly silken texture and makes a very moreish Martini. Like regular Beefeater from a parallel dimension. Alcohol 45%

Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin

So named because the tea is rolled into tight little balls that resemble gunpowder. And you can taste it: earthy and herbal among the bright citrus, piney juniper, caraway and pepper. There’s lots going on but it makes sense in the glass. Alc 43%

Jindea Single Estate Tea Gin

Bone china rather than a Sports Direct mug; its first-flush Darjeeling is only lightly oxidised. It opens with bright grapefruit and creamy cardamom, then builds with warming angelica and ginger spice. The quietly spoken star of the summer fête. Alc 40%

Ki No Bi Kyoto Dry Gin

The green tea is evident alongside waxy juniper, citrus and pine. Silky on the palate, where yuzu and floral notes join. The tea keeps going as everything else swirls around it. A corker in a G&T or simply neat over ice. Alc 45.7%

Masons of Yorkshire Tea Edition Gin

Smooth juniper and sharp citrus rub up against crisp, drying black tea in a most agreeable manner. Not quite like drinking a cuppa; there’s cardamom and pepper spice in there too. Yet somehow, spiritually, it gives the same satisfaction you get from a proper brew. Alc 40%

That Boutiquey Gin Company Vintage Pu-erh Tea Gin

Tea, yes – bold and markedly different, with juniper dancing attendance. Herbal but also nutty and rich with dark cherry fruit just on the right side of decay. Then it tumbles into blossom, honey, and tea that’s halfway between green and black. Alc 40%

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The launch of a new vintage of Penfolds Grange is always an occasion. But this year had an added sense of anticipation, since the wine being released was the 75th anniversary bottling.

‘We’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting for the 2022 Grange for some time,’ admitted chief winemaker, Peter Gago at the first global tasting of the 2026 Penfolds Collection, held in London.

‘It comes off 2018 and the terrific 2021 of last year, so there’s a little bit of pressure… But it’s risen to the occasion,’ he added, with typical understatement.

The 2022 vintage

Grange has always been a multi-vineyard, multi-district blend, aged in US oak.

For the 2022 vintage fruit was sourced from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra.

The growing season across South Australia was defined by a cool and measured year, with winter rainfall above average, which supported steady early vine growth.

Unsettled temperatures, wind and hail in spring affected yields for Barossa Shiraz but this was also a year that benefitted from an extended ripening period, producing small berries with a firm tannin structure.

The resulting 2022 Grange is both full-bodied and full of life; immediately approachable even at this young age (full tasting note and score below).

‘The 2022 Grange assuredly authenticates its flagship role and 75th anniversary credentials. No pressure. Both timely and lucky to avail such a stellar vintage in such a symbolic year,’ noted Gago.

‘I always like the cooler years,’ he added, drawing comparisons with the 1998 vintage. ‘The 2002 is my favourite after 2018, and that was one of the coldest years in the Barossa.’

Commenting on the immediate approachability of the 2022 Grange, he said: ‘I think a lot of people will drink it very early, but it’s going to look great in 50 years.’

2026 Penfolds Collection highlights

Aside from Grange, standout reds from this year’s collection are the St Henri 2023, Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon 2024, Magill Estate Shiraz 2024 and ‘Baby Grange’ Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon 2024.

Top white Yattarna Bin 144 Chardonnay 2024 also impressed. ‘The 2024 Yattarna is defined by purity and composure… A quietly assured release promising remarkable endurance,’ said Kym Schroeter, Penfolds’ white winemaker.

The collection once again includes wines from France, the US and China; testament to both Gago’s global vision for Penfolds and the extensive vineyard holdings of parent company Treasury Wine Estates.

They include Châteaux Cambon La Pelouse, Lanessan, Gironville, Bolaire and Belle-Vue in Bordeaux.

‘No longer a novelty, no fancy wordsmithing – all of these wines are unmistakably Penfolds, sourced from different hemispheres,’ says Gago.

Finally for collectors and investors, the newly updated ninth edition of Rewards of Patience by Andrew Caillard MW has also been published alongside the 2026 collection.

First published in 1995, it’s regarded as the definitive reference guide to Penfolds wines, with the new edition containing updated tasting notes on every vintage of every wine in the Penfolds portfolio, with contributions from some of the world’s leading wine critics.

When and where to buy

Wines in the 2026 Penfolds Collection were released globally on Thursday 6 August.

The five new release icon wines – Grange, St Henri, Yattarna, Bin 707 and RWT – will also be available via La Place de Bordeaux to customers in the UK and Europe from 8 September.

The following Australian wines from the collection will be available to customers in Australia and other select markets worldwide, but won’t be available in the UK or Europe: Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling, Bin 169 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, Magill Estate Shiraz, Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz, Bin 21 Grenache and Bin 23 Pinot Noir.

Wines from the US and China will also be available to customers in Australia and other select markets worldwide, but won’t be available in the UK or Europe: Oakville Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Bin 149 Cabernet Sauvignon and CWT 521 Cabernet Sauvignon Marselan.

Grange La Chapelle 2022 is already available in Europe and the UK. It is a special release, so not part of the 2026 Collection.

The Penfolds Champagnes are also not part of the new collection.

The Grange legacy

The pinnacle of Penfolds’ multi-vineyard, multi-district blending philosophy, Grange is officially listed as a heritage icon of South Australia and is a sought-after bottle for collectors around the world.

First made as an experimental Shiraz bottling in 1951, it boasts an unbroken line of vintages since then.

From the start Grange was always intended to be an icon that epitomised fine Australian Shiraz.

Its creator Max Schubert (1915-1994), first chief winemaker at Penfolds, had travelled to Bordeaux and Germany in 1950, returning with a resolve to create an Australian red capable of ageing for decades; a wine that could rival Europe’s greatest bottles.

Aiming for consistency and commercial appeal, Schubert sought out fruit of exceptional ripeness – regardless of which vineyard region it was planted in.

This approach led to the multi-regional blend philosophy that Penfolds still embraces today. Ageing in new American oak added the finishing touch to the wine’s revolutionary style.

At the time, Schubert’s bosses and colleagues at Penfolds disapproved of his new wine. They were particularly critical of the high volatile acidity that has since become a hallmark of Grange.

Ordered to stop production, Schubert made subsequent vintages in secret, but an in-house tasting in 1960 proved the wine’s worth. In 1962, the 1955 vintage won honours at the Royal Sydney Wine Show and the same vintage was declared a Decanter Wine Legend decades later in 2017.

2026 Penfolds Collection: tasting notes and scores

NOTE: All white wines were double-decanted before tasting. Red wines were served as you’d open them at home and were not decanted. Tasting notes are written by Julie Sheppard, tasting in London and David Sly, tasting in Adelaide, South Australia.

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To win a Best in Show accolade, the very pinnacle in the Decanter World Wine Awards, is in itself an incredible achievement.

Only 50 wines of the many thousands entered make the cut, after being put through their paces over multiple rounds of judging.

To win a Best in Show more than once for the same wine in the world’s biggest wine competition is a resounding endorsement of what is clearly a very special creation.

Here we hear from the talents behind the bottles.

Deep Woods Estate, Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Margaret River, Australia

2026: 2023 vintage

2022: 2020 vintage

Matt Buchan, senior winemaker: ‘This wine is our greatest example of not only what we can achieve as a producer but what Margaret River can offer on the world stage.

‘This small, 40-year-old vineyard – the original Deep Woods Cabernet Sauvignon block, planted on ironstone-rich soils, just below the winery – continues to perform each season.

‘And the 100% Houghton clonal selection, which is unique to the region, gives the wine its hallmark cassis aroma and elegant structure.’

Clos du Val, Yettalil, Stags Leap District, California, USA

2026: 2023 vintage

2024: 2021 vintage

Carmel Greenberg, winemaker: ‘Yettalil has always been about expressing the very best of our Hirondelle Estate Vineyard. Yettalil is a wine of style that truly reflects our Clos du Val house style of freshness and elegance.

‘Every vintage begins with the same intention: to create a wine that reflects the character of this remarkable site with precision, balance and restraint.

‘We carefully select the finest lots from the vineyard and allow each component to contribute to a wine that is layered, ageworthy and unmistakably Stags Leap District.’

Brokenwood, ILR Reserve Semillon, New South Wales, Australia

2026: 2019 vintage

2023: 2017 vintage

Stuart Hordern, chief winemaker: ‘The ILR Reserve Semillon captures everything we aspire to achieve with this iconic Hunter Valley wine style.

‘Released only in exceptional vintages, it showcases the purity, precision and longevity that have made Hunter Semillon one of Australia’s great wines.

‘Extended bottle ageing before release builds complexity while preserving the freshness, vibrancy and elegance that are its hallmark.

‘The result is a wine that honours the region’s rich winemaking heritage while demonstrating the enduring appeal and remarkable ageing potential of Hunter Valley Semillon.’

Rutini, Single Vineyard Malbec, Gualtallary, Tupungato, Mendoza, Argentina

2026: 2023 vintage

2025: 2021 vintage

Juan Pablo Murgia, winemaking manager: ‘What makes this wine unique is the combination of our expertise as winemakers, the exceptional terroir of Gualtallary, and more than 25 years of work in this vineyard.

‘Throughout this time, we have developed a deep understanding of our estate, allowing us to identify the sectors that express its identity with the greatest precision.

‘This wine represents a constant pursuit of capturing the purest essence of Gualtallary, reflecting the balance between tradition, excellence and an increasingly precise interpretation of one of Argentina’s greatest terroirs.’

Birgit Eichinger, Grüner Veltliner Ried Lamm 1ÖTW, Kamptal, Austria

2026: 2024 vintage

2022: 2020 vintage

Birgit and Gloria Eichinger, winemakers (and mother and daughter): ‘Great wines start in the mind. With this wine, we are guided by our general philosophy – do as little as possible, as consciously as possible, out of respect for what is there.

‘The wine comes from one of Kamptal’s best single vineyards, the historic, 23ha Ried Lamm.

‘First mentioned in 1703, it’s a vineyard planted on loess and sandstone soils, which creates wines of remarkable minerality, depth and structure. This rare geological transition gives the wine its distinctive personality and exceptional ageing potential.

‘Fermented and matured in carefully selected used oak barrels, we find that it gains subtle creaminess without losing freshness or elegance. Every bottle captures the purity, finesse and unmistakable origin of this outstanding terroir.’

Bodegas Tradición, VORS 30 Years Amontillado NV, Jerez, Spain

2026 & 2024

Miguel Villa Cebrián, winemaker: ‘For me, amontillado is the most complete and distinctive of all Sherry wines. Its unique combination of biological ageing under flor and oxidative ageing using the criaderas and soleras system gives it an extraordinary finesse and complexity, and a set of sensory characteristics unlike any other wine in the world.

‘This very special wine is made in very limited quantities – around 2,000 numbered bottles per year, all bottled, labelled and sealed by hand.

‘I love pairing it with Asian and Mexican cuisine, but it also pairs beautifully with cured fish, bluefin tuna, rice dishes and clear consommés.

‘I also recommend it as an after-lunch wine, to be enjoyed during a good conversation with friends or while reading a good book.’

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Provence vineyard estate Château Vignelaure looks set to continue its resurgence after being sold to British entrepreneur Neil Utley and family for an undisclosed fee.

It’s the latest high-profile vineyard property deal in sought-after Provence, where vineyards mingle with lavender fields and olive groves close to the Mediterranean sea.

Vignelaure is one of the region’s pearls, said Adam Dakin, founder of independent property specialist Wine Objectives that helped facilitate the recent deal.

Once home to ancient Roman winegrowers, Vignelaure's modern era began in the 1960s under Georges Brunet, ex-owner of Bordeaux’s Château La Lagune.

While the estate makes rosé – now a Provençal calling card – it has a particularly strong reputation for high-quality reds, which are sourced from vineyards at relatively high altitudes (around 400m) for the area.

New owner Neil Utley said, ‘Having considered a number of vineyards in and around the region we were drawn to Vignelaure as it wasn't a blank canvas – our vision was to elevate something extraordinary. This is one of the few estates in Provence with a genuine red wine pedigree.'

Estate director and winemaker Philippe Bru will remain at the property, having been appointed by the previous owners, Swedish couple Mette and Bengt Sundstrøm.

Immediate plans include replanting some of the vineyard, as well as planting new vines on pre-prepared land. Vignelaure spans around 276 hectares in total, including woodland, with around 56ha under vine.

Utley added, ‘Our role now is to become stewards of an estate that already has so much to offer, and to support Philippe Bru and his team in taking Vignelaure to the next level through focus, patience and long-term investment.’

There are also plans to launch a cosmetics business, Maison Minu, to be based at the estate.

Olive trees will be planted and bee hives installed to both support biodiversity and the new cosmetics operations, the owners said, adding they plan to build an on-site spa in the coming years, too.

Provence and Loire vineyards in-demand

Provence’s vineyard market has ‘taken off again’ recently, said Wine Objectives’ Dakin. ‘There's quite a lot of movement. We've got another transaction down towards St-Tropez underway just now.’

Its appeal comes at a price, though. 'It's an area where land and buildings are relatively expensive', said Dakin.

As a comparison, he said that wine lovers dreaming of buying a vineyard on a tighter budget might find a winery with 10 to 15 hectares of vines for around €500,000 in Corbières in the Languedoc to the west, but it's a different picture in Provence.

‘That said, we’ve got a small vineyard in the process of selling just now at €900,000. It's a modern villa with I think eight hectares of vines around it and another building on the side which could be developed into a winery.

'It's odd, admittedly, to find stuff under the €1m mark in Provence, and reasonably rare to find vineyards under the €2m mark, but they do exist.'

Still, he said the heart of the market is in the €5m to €10m bracket.

Loire Valley is another fashionable area to watch, said Dakin. Wine Objectives recently expanded north in addition to its longstanding focus on Provence, the Rhône and Languedoc in southern France.

‘There are a lot of people visiting, a lot of professional clients looking to buy there,’ said Dakin of the Loire.

Climate change and consumer interest in white wines are among motivating factors for prospective buyers, he said.

In terms of vineyard land prices, Sancerre can reach €250,000 to €350,000 per hectare (p/ha), said Dakin. But he said prices elsewhere, such as Savennières, are much lower and the Loire overall remains relatively inexpensive.

Interest in both regions comes amid a tough market situation facing some of France’s major red wine regions, such as generic Bordeaux and the Southern Rhône outside top appellations.

A recent report by French rural land agency Safer showed Burgundy vineyard prices continued to defy gravity in 2025, yet also found declining values in Bordeaux.

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Welcome to Decanter magazine's August 2026 issue

DWWA 2026: The wine-world showcase

Leader by Simon Wright, Head of Awards

We are thrilled to share the results of the 23rd Decanter World Wine Awards.

Holding the world’s largest wine competition gives us – and all our judges and Chairs – an incredible wide-angle snapshot of the current wine landscape. It helps us to pinpoint – and share with you – the exceptional producers and exciting regions redefining the wines we’re able to drink today.

After 10 years overseeing the logistics side of the competition, this was my first year as Head of Awards. My new role gives me the opportunity to take a step back and gain a unique perspective on how Decanter’s various teams – from Events & Awards to Marketing, Sales and Editorial – collaborate on such a monumental operation.

From opening for entries in November right through to printing the bumper results issue that you hold in your hands now, immense care and craft are poured into what we all do.

On that theme of care and craft, the rigour and strength of the DWWA competition truly rests with our judges. We’re incredibly happy with the steps we took this year to reduce the average number of wines tasted daily (now no more than 75) by each panel. Giving our experts more time to focus on every tasting flight ensures you can have absolute confidence in the calibre of the wines featured in the pages that follow.

Indeed, in his introduction to this year’s results, Co-Chair Andrew Jefford emphasises the ‘uplift in the quality of entries overall’ seen by the judges, and highlights the final figures that reveal a notable increase in the proportion of Silver, Gold and Platinum awards achieved at DWWA 2026.

I hope you enjoy getting to know the diverse, exceptionally talented individuals who make up our judging panels, just as much as you enjoy exploring the delicious and deservedly awarded wines. Cheers!

Contents list: Inside Decanter magazine's August 2026 issue

DWWA: Setting the scene

• Andrew Jefford The DWWA Co-Chair reflects on highlights and surprises of the competition in 2026
• This year in numbers A breakdown of medal winners in 2026, plus intel on this year’s 245 expert judges
• The judging process Discover how we conduct the tastings and choose the medal-winning wines, with an at-a-glance guide to the key stages of the competition
• Behind the scenes When not hard at work, our DWWA judges had a chance to taste other Golds (blind), to attend a special Coravin masterclass and to kick back and relax at the midweek party
• Meet the experts Introducing the talent behind the world’s biggest wine competition: our four Co-Chairs (plus Resident Co-Chair) and 37 Regional Chairs. We also list the judges and Senior Judges for each region

DWWA: The results

• Best in Show: wine profiles Full tasting notes, by Andrew Jefford, for the 50 wines from around the world that took top honours in 2026
• The Platinum medal-winners We present the 196 wines judged to be the best in their respective regions
• The Gold medal-winners The 924 Golds, listed alphabetically by region (Silver and Bronze winners can be found on Decanter.com)
• 35 Top Value Golds We highlight the Gold medal winners judged to offer the very best value, all priced at under £15 at the time of judging in May 2026
• Best in Show, again! We celebrate the six producers who’ve won Best in Show this year – for the second time in five years, for the same wine

DWWA: Shopping list

• UK shopper’s guide Your handy list of medal winners available on UK shelves

Collecting & investing

• Marketwatch Auction news and new releases
• Marketwatch The rise of white Burgundy

Regulars

• News The latest from the wine world
• The brief Ideas and inspiration
• Subscribe to Decanter
• On the rack: Ronan Sayburn MS The sommelier and DWWA Co-Chair talks to Amy Wislocki

DWWA 2026 Gold medals by region

• Alsace 100
• Argentina 101
• Asia 105
• Australia 106
• Austria 112
• Balkans 113
• Beaujolais 114
• Belgium 112
• Bordeaux 115
• Bosnia and Herzegovina 113
• Brazil 104
• Bulgaria 120
• Burgundy 116
• Canada 118
• Caucasus Regions 119
• Central & Eastern Europe 120
• Central Italy 123
• Champagne 124
• Chile 127
• China 105
• Croatia 128
• Czech Republic 120
• Georgia 119
• Germany 131
• Greece & Cyprus 132
• Hungary 120
• Israel 152
• Japan 106
• Languedoc-Roussillon 134
• Loire 136
• Moldova 122
• Montenegro 113
• New Zealand 137
• Northern Italy 139
• North Macedonia 113
• Piedmont 141
• Port & Madeira 142
• Portugal 144
• Provence 146
• Romania 122
• Rhône 148
• Serbia 113
• Sherry 149
• Slovenia 129
• South Africa 150
• Southern & Eastern Mediterranean 152
• Southern Italy 153
• Southwest & rest of France 154
• Spain 155
• Switzerland 162
• Turkey 152
• Tuscany 163
• United Kingdom 165
• Uruguay 104
• USA & Mexico 166
• Veneto 169

How to read the DWWA results

Wines are grouped into colour and/or type, in the order one might drink them with a meal: Sparkling, White, Rosé, Orange, Red, Sweet & Fortified.

Wines are identified by these colours: green (white wines), pink (rosés), orange (orange/amber wines), red (reds), golden (all sweet & fortified).

Within the Sparkling sections of each region, wines appear in colour order: white, rosé then red if applicable.

Profiles and tasting notes for all 50 Best in Show winners (the best of this year’s Platinum award winners) are listed from p37, with tasting notes for the Platinum winners (best of the Golds) from p61.

Within these categories, wines are listed by score, then alphabetically by producer name. From p99, we list the Gold medal winners by region. The Value and Top Value Gold wines are denoted by a V or G symbol within the listings; Top 35 Value Golds are also listed in one place, from p170.

Stockist and pricing details for Best in Show, Platinum and Gold medal-winning wines have been supplied by the producer, UK importer or submitter responsible for entering the wine.

We check these as carefully as possible, but cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of information provided. If no GBP price is shown, then there were no UK stockist listings found at the time of writing.

All tasting notes and price and stockist details for wines winning a Silver or Bronze medal can be found at decanter.com/decanter-awards. Wines that failed to win a DWWA medal have not been listed.

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Related articles

On hearing the term 'prestige cuvée', many seasoned wine lovers instantly think of the crown jewel of a Champagne house – the wine that represents the pinnacle of a producer's winemaking ambition.

Perhaps the most famous example is Dom Pérignon, Moët & Chandon's prestige cuvée, first released in 1936. Such bottlings are often associated with the finest vineyard sites, exceptional vintages – although some are released as non-vintage wines – and in many cases, collaborations with the worlds of art, fashion and luxury.

As English sparkling wine continues to gain recognition both at home and abroad, a new generation of prestige cuvées – some of England's leading estates and winemaking talents behind them – is on the rise.

May produced in small quantities and each with a story of its own, these English prestige cuvées naturally command premium prices (mostly £100 and above). But we managed to get hold of five – let's find out exactly what all the fuss is about.

Nyetimber: 1086 and 1086 Rosé

The unquestionable pioneer, Nyetimber was the first English wine estate to embrace Champagne’s prestige cuvée concept, releasing two premium sparkling wines – a white and a rosé – in 2018, priced at £150 and £175 respectively, on a par with premium Champagne.

The estate named the range ‘1086’ after the year the name ‘Nitimbreha’ – believed to mean ‘newly timbered house’ – first appeared in the Domesday Book, William the Conqueror’s great survey of landholdings across much of England and parts of Wales.

The ambition to produce a prestige cuvée came from Nyetimber’s proprietor, Eric Heerema, when he acquired the estate in 2006.

The winemaking team, led by head winemaker Cherie Spriggs, waited until the 2009 vintage – ‘a year that has all of the right stuff’, as Spriggs put it – to begin creating both the estate’s and England’s first prestige cuvée.

The 1086 wines are made from the finest grapes and parcels across Nyetimber’s estate vineyards in West Sussex, Hampshire and Kent, with the parcel selection and blend varying according to the vintage.

The estate highlighted extended ageing – seven years on lees as the baseline – as a ‘key marker’ of the 1086 range. The principal criteria for selecting a base wine capable of such a journey are not simply flavour, but ‘structure, balance and mouthfeel’, according to the producer.

The latest releases in the range are the 2014 white and 2016 rosé.

Our review

Chapel Down: Kit's Coty Coeur de Cuvée

Although not originally positioned as a prestige cuvée, Chapel Down's Kit's Coty Coeur de Cuvée, released in 2017, also sits comfortably among the pioneers of England's super-premium sparkling wines.

With the 2013 vintage as its first release, Coeur de Cuvée is a 100% Chardonnay sparkling wine sourced from the best parcels of the famed Kit's Coty vineyard – a roughly 40ha (100-acre), steep, south-facing chalk site on the North Downs of Kent.

As the name suggests, the base wine is made from the gently extracted 'heart' (coeur) of the first pressing and is aged in French oak. The current release (£126), from the 2016 vintage, spent seven years on lees.

The Kit's Coty vineyard is also home to DWWA-winning Blanc de Blancs and still wines including Bacchus (one of the most sophisticated expressions of the grape in England) and Chardonnay.

A major player in the English wine scene since the early 2000s, Chapel Down now makes wine, led by head winemaker Josh Donaghay-Spire, from its own vineyards in Kent while also sourcing grapes from Kent, Sussex and Essex.

Our review

Gusbourne: Fifty One Degrees North

The roots of Gusbourne’s late-release bottlings can be traced back to custodian Andrew Weeber, who decided to hold back some of the estate’s 2007 Blanc de Blancs.

The 2007 was eventually released in 2014, and the result encouraged the producer to pursue the idea further. The same year also delivered what the estate describes as a 'textbook' harvest, perfect for building a sparkling wine meant for extended ageing.

After 'eight years of tasting and monitoring behind the scenes', then-head winemaker Charlie Holland oversaw the launch of the estate's prestige cuvée, Fifty One Degrees North, in 2022, named after the latitude of its Kent and Sussex vineyards.

The inaugural release was a 2:1 blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with 80 months of ageing on lees.

The following year, after Holland’s departure that summer, the estate – known for specialising in vintage releases – announced the second release of Fifty One Degrees North, from the 2016 vintage (£195).

Produced from a warm, dry growing season, the wine retained a similar blend to its predecessor, combining the ‘richness of fruit’ from Gusbourne's clay and sandstone vineyards in Kent with the bright freshness derived from the chalk and flint soils in West Sussex.

After a further two years of ageing, in autumn last year (2025), a magnum edition (£395) was released in small quantities.

This year, to mark Gusbourne's 20th vintage, the team – now led by winemaker Mary Bridges with Laura Rhys MS continuing as consultant and global ambassador – decided to release around 250 bottles from the estate’s library, including wines dating back more than two decades. Among the highlights were just four bottles of Blanc de Blancs from the inaugural 2006 vintage.

Our review

Langham: Perpetual

This is perhaps one of the most innovative entries in this line-up, created by Langham's talented young winemaker Tommy Grimshaw.

When Grimshaw took over as head winemaker in 2019, he inherited a demi-muid (600L) of the estate's top Chardonnay from the 2017 vintage, and a puncheon (about 500L) of the best fruit from the highly prized 2018 vintage.

Inspired by grower Champagne pioneer Anselme Selosse, Grimshaw decided to start creating a multi-vintage cuvée from Langham's 13.8ha (34-acre) vineyard, with its base wine aged in solera.

With top fruit from 2019 added, the reserve was transferred to a 2,000L Slavonian oak foudre (named 'Judy'), purchased by the estate in 2020. Since then, the Dorset-based producer has kept back barrels of the most expressive Chardonnay grown on its belemnite chalk vineyard from each vintage, building a 'perpetually evolving blend', as the winemaker puts it.

The first Perpetual Blanc de Blancs was bottled in 2020, followed by four years of lees ageing, with just 650 bottles released in June 2025.

This summer, Langham released the second bottling of its prestige cuvée – this time a blend of the 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages (as shown on the label), finished with zero dosage and no sulphur.

Priced at £109.95, this is also the first Perpetual release made solely from the 2,000L Slavonian oak foudre, with the ambition to 'express Chardonnay beyond the boundaries of any individual vintage', said the producer.

Our review

Squerryes Estate: Patience

A relative newcomer to the league, Squerryes’s Patience 2014, named after the family ancestor Patience Warde (1629-1696), was just launched in July 2026.

Patience himself was a former Mayor of London and a successful merchant trading British wool for French wine, including Champagne, witnessing the rise of sparkling Champagne in the 17th century.

It was his legacy that eventually led to the purchase of the Kent estate in 1731. Nearly 300 years later, the Warde family still owns the 2,500-acre estate, including 21ha (55 acres) of south-facing vineyards near Westerham, close to the Pilgrims' Way.

The family only truly committed to winegrowing in 2006, two years after eighth-generation owner John Warde, who has a background in agriculture, was approached by a Champagne house searching for English chalk soils – a visit that drew his attention to the estate's potential for sparkling wine.

The estate has since developed a range of single-estate sparkling wines (many of which saw extended lees ageing) on the chalk soils at 140–170m altitude on the North Downs.

In 2013, John's son, ninth-generation owner Henry Warde, joined the estate and soon started preserving older vintages with the support of consultant Laura Evans MW.

More than a decade later, its prestige cuvée, Patience 2014, came to be. Described by the estate as its 'most characterful' and 'most considered' wine to date, it is an almost equal blend of the three Champagne varieties, although Warde believes future releases (with the 2015 and 2017 currently under review) will become increasingly Chardonnay-led.

Among the 3,000 bottles produced, the first tranche of 1,500 bottles are now available at £225 per bottle.

Our reivew

Super-premium English wine: more to come

Beyond these, the list of English prestige cuvée now also includes Sugrue South Downs' sold-out Cuvée Dr Brendan O'Regan (£125 per bottle), Exton Park's Cuvée M. Isaac Blanc de Blancs 'BBB' (£130), and Hattingley Valley's Kings Cuvée (£91).

Meanwhile, top producers are continuing to release highly selective, long-ageing bottlings such as Black Chalk's Eighty Nine Point Six 2020 (magnum, £165), not to mention an increasing number of rare library releases.

Although the concept of prestige cuvée is still relatively new to the English wine scene, and the ranks of this super-premium club remain small, there is little doubt that more are on the horizon.

Are they worth prices that rival the top end of Champagne? The quality and the ambition are certainly there. Whether they’re here to stay, is now up to wine lovers to decide.

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‘We never wanted to make wine’, says Youmna Asseily, and she means it literally.

When she and her husband Tony went looking for a property outside Bordeaux in the early 2000s, a vineyard was not the point.

They were looking for peace and privacy, but this year marks 20 years since the Asseilys bought Château Biac and ended up restoring it to its former winemaking glory.

The long way to Langoiran

Both originally from Lebanon, Tony had spent his career in finance in London. Youmna had lived in Switzerland and then in Lebanon before the two settled in London together to raise their children.

For the next 25 years the family lived between Beirut and London, never quite able to go home for good.

In 1990, with flights repeatedly delayed, the family chose to holiday in Entre-deux-Mers, as it turned out, just four kilometres from Château Biac.

They kept coming back to Entre-deux-Mers each summer for a decade and, in 2000, they rented the guesthouse in Biac and fell in love with the place.

The same year, Tony dissolved his wealth management company and began looking for something new to do. Youmna wanted to paint, and Tony wanted to write. Wine was not on the list at all.

What was on the list, when they sat down and made one, was oddly specific: half an hour from Bordeaux, 35 minutes from the airport, close to a motorway, near a town with everything they needed close by, a view over the Garonne, and, above all, somewhere private, not visible from the road.

Château Biac answered every point on it. The previous owners wanted to sell the main house but keep the vineyards and holiday homes.

Talks stalled over the split, and it took until 2006 for a contract to finally be signed.

A renaissance

Despite once carrying a serious reputation – Cocks & Féret's second edition guide to Bordeaux in 1868 rated Biac among the finest in the region – the property had been neglected for years.

The famous Bordeaux enologist Denis Dubourdieu, nicknamed the pope of white wine, who had once consulted there, told the Asseilys the terroir itself was exceptional regardless of its state.

The Asseilys soon gathered a top team around them.

Patrick Léon, a Château Mouton Rothschild retiree who had tried and failed to buy Biac himself years earlier, waited five or six months to be sure the couple were serious before agreeing to take the vineyard on.

Christine Sourdès, a consultant to Château Guiraud and Château de Myrat, and the first woman to open her own laboratory in the Sauternes-Graves area, came the following year to oversee the sweet wine.

Gilles Rey, an agronomist for Mouton Rothschild and, by his own account, familiar with practically every corner of Bordeaux, joined in 2006 to rebuild the vineyard itself.

Cellar master Sébastien Dupouy has been with the estate since 2008 – the year of Biac's first vintage under the new team.

The winery, meanwhile, was emptied of all the old stock and restored in six months flat.

The vineyard garden

Château Biac runs to 9.5ha split across 14 separate plots. The parcels are vinified separately in 13 small vats. Harvest dates are set plot by plot.

Rey has helped push the estate toward extreme precision, but it's Youmna who sums up the philosophy behind it.

‘We see it more as a garden than a vineyard,’ she says.

The blend changes every vintage – no formula, no house style to defend. As Youmna puts it, no two vintages, like no two children, are quite the same.

What stays constant is the combination of freshness and real ripeness, and the fact that Biac picks later than almost anyone else in the area. Harvest is done entirely by hand and sorted across four stations by a team of local workers.

The range itself has settled, too. There were once three reds, but in 2018 the Asseilys pared the line-up back to two – Château Biac and Félix de Biac.

Alongside them sit a dry white – Félicie de Biac – and a sweet white Cadillac – Secret de Biac.

There's a whisky too, born out of a necessity rather than a grand plan: new barrels are bought every year for the dry white and the sweet wine, which left the estate with a growing stock of good, used oak and not much to do with it.

A joint project with a distillery on the Isle of Harris followed almost as a matter of course, and the resulting single malt, aged in those ex-sweet-wine barrels, goes out under the name Haerach of Biac.

A name and a family behind

For a long time almost nobody outside the estate knew any of this.

Bottles were never sent out to critics or journalists. Biac was never sold en primeur – the Asseilys wanted to offer clients a wine that was ready to drink.

That changed by chance rather than design.

Daniel Boulud tasted the wine on a two-day visit, loved it, and began pouring it in his restaurants.

Jean Moueix director of leading négociant Duclot came separately and reached the same conclusion, and Biac has worked exclusively with Duclot ever since.

In 2013, eldest daughter Yasmina, who worked in finance in New York, took over the mission of building the American market.

Son Gabriel, previously in IT and trained in chemistry, joined as winemaker in January 2019, a few weeks after Patrick Léon's death.

Léon's son Bertrand has stayed on to work alongside him, as has Christine Sourdès.

The names on the labels trace back further still, to Youmna's own family – the Shihab (or Chehab) dynasty, which ruled Lebanon between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Félix de Biac takes its name from the family's coat of arms, a mountain cat representing strength and the protection of life, and the label itself features a stylised Kufic script.

Ask Youmna what the estate has taught her after 20 years of ownership, and she does not talk about wine scores.

‘You do something that will outlive you,’ she says. ‘It gives you the possibility to learn, to stretch yourself, to do something for the future. Agriculture gives you a lot of humility.’

Biac, in the end, seems to have given the family less a wine estate than a place to simply be together. The wine, it turns out, was what happened along the way.

A taste of Château Biac

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Robert Mondavi has done it again – or rather, his enduring vision has. The man himself died in 2008, at 94, more than four decades after a falling-out with his brother pushed him to leave the family’s Charles Krug winery and start his own – a move considered radical, verging on foolhardy, to some in Napa Valley at the time.

Six decades later, the same instinct is on display again, this time backed by a far bigger check.

Robert Mondavi Winery has reopened its original Oakville estate after a three-year renovation that owner Constellation Brands calls the most significant transformation of the property since it was founded in 1966. That’s not an overstatement.

The doors officially opened on 20 April 2026, timed to the winery’s 60th anniversary. Constellation has not confirmed the final cost, but industry estimates have put the investment at around US$200 million.

I attended the opening celebration, capped off with a humble performance by Grammy–winning singer-songwriter John Legend, and came away with one clear impression: even with hundreds of guests moving through the property that night, the redesigned space retained a cozy, upscale intimacy that is difficult to engineer at such scale.

In the weeks around the event, I also interviewed the winery’s key figures separately – head winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara, winemaker emerita Geneviève Janssens, director of vineyard operations Blake Wood and brand marketing director Peggy Hemphill – and became the first wine critic to taste with Ogasawara inside the new cellar.

A wine cellar built for precision and site expression

The new To Kalon Cellar introduces optical sorting, gravity-flow systems, temperature-controlled fermentation vessels and rooms for warming or cooling barrels, allowing for smaller, more precise lots from the estate’s 178-hectare portion of To Kalon Vineyard, which gained CCOF organic certification in 2023.

This fancy new winery is missing one big thing (well, a few big things): the 16-ton oak vats that were used for more than three decades to ferment and age Mondavi’s top Cabernets, including lots from To Kalon.

They were repurposed into the wooden ceilings throughout the facility.

‘We’ve added smaller stainless steel and concrete tanks to be able to isolate vineyard blocks and sections at ideal ripeness’, Ogasawara said. ‘Our goal is to push ourselves every vintage and continue to make wines that stand beside the greatest in the world’.

The cellar also puts production on display for visitors, he added, and has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the vineyard: ‘Guests can see harvest activities firsthand and get a better understanding of what it takes to craft wines.’

To Kalon Vineyard itself is undergoing a renovation of sorts. ‘We are replanting a portion of the vineyard this year, about four percent’, said Blake Wood, director of vineyard operations.

‘We’ve replanted a bit more than one-third of the vineyard in the past decade now, focusing on highlighting the various micro-terroirs’.

Individual stars

The To Kalon grapes are now split across four labels under the Constellation umbrella: Robert Mondavi Winery, Schrader Cellars and Double Diamond (both led by winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown), and To Kalon Vineyard Company (Tony Biagi).

Each operates independently, with its own picking decisions.

‘There are blocks that are exclusive to one another and some blocks that we share’, Ogasawara said. ‘We taste each other’s wines and share different perspectives to ensure we are staying on top of our game’.

Janssens, who trained under Robert Mondavi himself, still sits in on blending. ‘Geneviève joins blending sessions to give her thoughts and holds us accountable’, Ogasawara said.

‘It's amazing to have her experience and palate in the room to ensure we are following what Robert Mondavi had intended’.

Architecturally, the project, led by Aidlin Darling Design with interiors by BAMO, preserves architect Cliff May's original arch and tower while adding a new hospitality wing: the light-filled Vineyard Room and terraces for most guests, the restored Tower Library and Barrel Room for private tastings, and the new To Kalon Collective tasting room.

Outside, a linear water feature echoes the valley’s old agricultural aqueducts, and landscaping by Surfacedesign folds the property into its surroundings so thoroughly that indoors and outdoors barely feel separate.

Tasting fees don’t break the bank

Perhaps the smartest innovation is in the decision not to charge extortionist fees to visitors in a region where entry-level tastings often carry luxury price tags and fees can range from $85 to $300.

For the Mondavi wines, Hemphill explained: ‘Our tasting experiences range from $60 to $150 per person. We also welcome walk-in guests for any of our experiences, as availability allows’.

The signature culinary offering, The Mondavi Table, is a three-course, family-style, wine-and-food pairing for $95 per person – notably affordable for a chef-driven, estate menu in Napa Valley today.

‘We believe true luxury is defined by the quality of the experience, not by exclusivity’, Hemphill said.

The To Kalon Collective is the newest experiential room, where the focus is entirely on the iconic vineyard rather than a single producer and private tastings cost $180 to $195.

‘Most people only ever experience [To Kalon Vineyard] through a single producer or a single wine,’ Hemphill said.

‘The To Kalon Collective brings together wines sourced from To Kalon Vineyard, including Robert Mondavi Winery alongside Schrader Cellars, Double Diamond and the To Kalon Vineyard Company, to tell a broader story about place’.

The idea, she explained, is to provide context – showing how vineyard blocks, farming and winemaking philosophy shape different wines from one renowned vineyard.

Blending winemaking and culture

When pressed again about the renovation costs, Hemphill shifts the focus of the question: ‘For us, it’s about creating an exceptional experience for our guests that can continue to raise the bar for hospitality here in Napa, much the way Robert Mondavi did when he first opened this winery’.

That’s the point. Yes, they ‘want this winery to continue to stand the test of time’, and yes, they want to ‘honour our legacy’, and yes, they want to ‘deliver against the values and vision under which the winery was founded’, and all that marketing speak.

But the real reason – even if they can’t express it themselves – is that they want people to come back to Napa and have an experience that creates real memories, without walking away wondering if they spent too much money.

Pointedly, the reopening comes during a challenging moment for the wine world, with an ongoing barrage of reports about falling consumption and industry layoffs, amplified by anecdotal conversations re-hashing those doom-and-gloom stories.

‘I flatly reject the idea that wine culture is heading for extinction’, said Hemphill. ‘What we are witnessing right now isn’t a funeral; it’s a massive cultural evolution. The next generation of consumers doesn’t want the stuffy, velvet-rope exclusivity of the past. They want authenticity, values that align with their own, and incredible, unpretentious experiences’.

The reopening is meant to make Mondavi ‘that loudspeaker for Napa’ again, she said, by ‘blending world-class winemaking with contemporary [wine] culture.’

Passing the winemaking baton

Another momentous shift for Robert Mondavi Winery is the passing of the torch to winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara, who is not only one of the nicest people you’ll meet in Napa Valley, but one of the most humble.

Ogasawara has spent more than a decade working in the cellars alongside Janssens, who was named director of production at Opus One in 1989 and director of winemaking at Mondavi in 1997.

‘He understands that a great winemaker doesn’t try to force their own signature onto a legendary terroir’, Janssens says of Ogasawara, ‘but rather listens to the land to bring out its purest elegance and power. There is no one more deeply rooted in our winemaking philosophy than Kurtis to lead us forward’.

Tasting with Ogasawara in the new cellar gave me a front-row seat to his frame of mind. Yes, he has big shoes to fill. Huge shoes, in fact. But he’s more than ready – confident and sure of himself.

And, to extract a new era of wines from Mondavi’s grape sources, he has a new cellar full of shiny new tanks and concrete vats designed to emphasise fruit – or, more fittingly, place.

‘I see it as continuing the mission to create wines that stand beside the greatest in the world’, Ogasawara said.

‘I have worked with and learned from some of Napa Valley’s best winemakers, from Geneviève Janssens and Andy Erickson to Thomas Brown and Tony Biagi. I promise to never settle and keep pushing to see what else we can accomplish’.

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Oregon and Washington helped lead the United States to its best performance ever at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) in 2026, with an Oregon Pinot Noir earning one of only 50 Best in Show medals awarded globally. In addition, a Washington winery claimed its second consecutive Platinum award – the second vintage in a row that its Cabernet Franc has notched that honour.

The Awards helped solidify the reputations of two established Pacific Northwest appellations in particular, as their wines showed ‘a strong level of consistency’, according to Oregon-based DWWA Panel Judge Bree Stock MW. ‘Oregon’s best Pinot Noirs were very compelling, particularly from established Willamette Valley sub-AVAs such as Dundee Hills, where the wines showed aromatic definition, layered spice and the capacity to age’.

The Washington wine submissions showed ‘real strength and perform well, with Walla Walla Valley standing out for Cabernet Franc and Syrah that has depth, savoury complexity and a clear regional voice’, Stock added. ‘Royal Slope Riesling was another bright point’.

Oregon excellence: Pinot Noir, Cabernet and white wines

Domaine Serene, one of Oregon’s top producers, took home Best in Show – given to just 0.3% of the nearly 17,000 wines tasted in 2026 – for its 2023 Aspect Pinot Noir. The wine is sourced from the winery’s highest-elevation estate vineyards in the Dundee Hills, one of Willamette Valley’s prime winegrowing appellations. In fact, every one of the previous three Best in Show winners from Oregon (in the 2016, 2020 and 2023 competitions) has been a Pinot Noir from Dundee Hills.

The judges gave Aspect a score of 97 points, noting its ‘impressive craftsmanship’, ‘outstanding fruit’, supple palate and ‘textbook Dundee Hills aromatics of cherry cola and sassafras’. Domaine Serene also earned a Gold medal and 96 points for its ‘seductive’ 2023 Grace Vineyard Pinot Noir, a single-vineyard bottling from its Evenstad Estate, as well as Silver medals for three other Pinot Noirs and two sparkling wines.

To be recognised with a collection of medals ‘is deeply meaningful to our entire vineyard and winemaking team’, said Michael Fay, Domaine Serene’s vice president of winemaking and viticulture. ‘These awards reflect our commitment to wines expressing the character of the Dundee Hills and Willamette Valley while representing the world-class quality Oregon brings to Pinot Noir and sparkling wine. This recognition gives us an important opportunity to introduce more consumers to our wines and the remarkable region we are proud to call home’.

Another 2023 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir, an ‘elegant’ and ‘stylish’ selection from Alexana’s sustainably farmed estate vineyard, won a Platinum medal, scoring 97 points. ‘I see it as a high water mark for us,’ said general manager Jeff Lewis.

‘It’s the coalescence of so many things’ – including the work of new head winemaker Tresider Burns, new director of viticulture Drew Herman, the estate’s conversion to organic farming and a shift in winemaking approach.

Being recognised as ‘one of the great wines of the world’, Lewis added, ‘is a validation of the direction in which our team – in terms of farming and winemaking – had been evolving after 20 years, continuing to push ourselves in a really meaningful way to make wines of unique personalities that express what we feel is so special about Alexana and the Dundee Hills’.

Oregon wineries also collected three other Gold medals, for a total of four, including for Amaterra’s excitingly complex 2022 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (96 points) and Watermill’s rich, supple 2021 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (95) from The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater in Walla Walla Valley, where Bordeaux varieties and Syrah thrive. And bhn’s compelling, layered, off-dry Oregon Riesling 2023 (95) became the first orange wine from the state to receive Gold at DWWA.

In all, the state racked up 72 medals, a new high.

Washington wine winners: Walla Walla and Wahluke Slope reds

Washington winery Echolands earned a Platinum for its ‘lush,’ ‘harmonious’ 2023 Blue Mountain Vineyard Cabernet Franc (97), from one of the coolest sites on the Washington side of Walla Walla Valley. This follows the same wine’s Platinum success last year for the 2022 vintage – quite an achievement for a winery that was founded in 2018 and released its first wines in 2020.

‘The Walla Walla AVA is an incredible place in the world to grow winegrapes’, said Echolands winemaker and general manager Brian Rudin. ‘There is a great diversity of options for winemakers: the higher-elevation, cooler and silt-laden slopes are a sweet spot for Bordeaux varieties, especially when aromatics and elegant textures are the goal’.

The state also saw its strongest-ever Gold medal performance in 2026, with five diverse wines achieving that honour. ‘Washington State continued to have a strong showing with their characteristic powerful styles of wine,’ said James Tidwell MS, DWWA Regional Chair for the USA and Central America. Its medal total for the year came to 46.

While most of the Washington winners were red wines, Echolands’ harmonious 2024 Frenchman Hills Vineyard Block 1 Riesling (96) became the first Gold medal winner from the Royal Slope AVA. ‘We’ve always revered these two vineyards [Blue Mountain and Frenchman Hills] as the best-suited sites in Washington for their respective varieties’, commented Rudin.

UpWest’s 2023 Syrah (95) secured another first: Gold for Washington’s Wahluke Slope appellation.

Two Washington icons also took home Gold. L’Ecole No. 41 demonstrated the benefit of working with a suite of mature vineyards with its 2022 Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (95), from vines averaging more than 20 years old. That was just one of its four medals. Like Echolands, Spring Valley Vineyards put Cabernet Franc in the foreground in its 2023 Uriah (96), a blend with 40% Merlot, also from Walla Walla Valley.

Walla Walla’s parallel strength with red Rhône varieties was on display in the robust, meaty Francisca’s Vineyard Syrah 2023 (95) from Hoquetus Wine Co., a tiny producer with a wide range of wines, from Riesling to Roussanne and Nouveau-style Syrah to amphora-fermented Mencía.

Decanter’s annual awards: a guide to global wine standouts

Launched in 2004, DWWA is widely regarded as the global benchmark for wine quality based on its rigorous tasting process, its international reach and the expertise of its judges (245 of them in 2026, more than one-third of them Masters of Wine or Master Sommeliers). ‘With so many choices available, consumers often look for reassurance when selecting a bottle, and the DWWA medals help simplify the decision’, commented DWWA Co-Chair Ronan Sayburn MS.

Twenty-three years on, DWWA has become the world’s largest wine competition, awarding medals in five tiers: the 50 Best in Show, then Platinum and Gold (all scoring 95+ points), followed by Silver and Bronze.

In 2026, US wines won a total of 466 DWWA medals – nearly double the country’s previous highest tally. With two Best in Show wines, five Platinum and 32 Gold (one in the Top 35 Value Golds list), this is the biggest haul of top-tier medals the country has brought in at the competition.

Although California, Oregon and Washington continue to dominate, Texas took home its first Gold medals, while Virginia and Pennsylvania both achieved their third consecutive years with Gold medals. Wineries in Massachusetts, Missouri, Colorado and North Carolina claimed Silver medals.

The full list of 2026 winners from around the world can be found at awards.decanter.com.

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On a sunny April day, just before en primeur week, I stopped by to see the result.

What I found was the beginning of a new era for this fifth growth in the Haut-Médoc appellation south of Margaux. It’s a property reborn.

What a contrast to the Cantemerle I saw on my first visit to Bordeaux more than 40 years ago. Back then, the old cellar sported a dirt floor.

A few chickens pecked among the barrels. The grey-with-age limestone château and its ivy-covered tower seemed to echo a distant romantic past.

The cellarmaster dribbled wine from an ancient barrel in a smudged glass for me to taste, and later he proudly pulled out the château’s weather records, thick ledgers with tiny handwriting on yellowing paper.

The 20^th century proprietors kept a meticulous log of temperatures, precipitation, and weather events, and today they’re a brilliant source for tracking climate change.

Back then, Cantemerle seemed ripe for rescuing. There was the size of the property, nearly 500 acres, a long, fascinating history, complete with medieval lords, 19^th century awards in Paris, a visionary widow, and, of course, the gravelly terroir ideal for making great red wine.

Fast forward to its revival, which began with new ownership in 1981. The final part of the revamp was finished in time for the 2025 vintage, signalling a bright future for the wines, always at the top of the list of best value-for-money Bordeaux.

But on my visit, I learned there was much more.

A surprising history

Longevity testifies to tenacity and resilience, and Cantemerle’s origins go back to the 12^th century, way before Bordeaux’s most famous châteaux in the Médoc were founded.

It started as a fort that acted as a toll point, and the first record of vines was in 1354, when lord Ponset de Cantemerle paid a debt with a barrel of wine.

One theory suggests the name comes from le merle y chante, the song of the blackbird.

Then came various owners, but its golden age was during the 300-year tenure of the Villeneuve-Durfort family, which took charge in 1579 and oversaw it until 1892. The château as we know it today was built after the French Revolution.

Most important to its legacy was feisty visionary widow Caroline Villeneuve de Durfort, whose husband died in 1834.

Though her son inherited, he was only 19, and responsibility for the estate initially fell to Caroline. Then her son died tragically young, and she was left completely in charge.

She modernised everything, from the château to the winemaking, and pioneered an innovative method for fighting mildew.

She successfully sued a neighbour for using the name Cantemerle to sell his wine, but her unique contribution was making sure the estate was included in the 1855 classification.

One of my favourite Bordeaux tales is how she accomplished it. The famous list was based on the sales prices that local courtiers recorded, and she had long sold all the wine in the Netherlands, finally switching to Bordeaux négociants in 1853 or 1854.

When she discovered Cantemerle hadn’t been included, she was furious, demanded a meeting with the deciding brokers and brought 40 years of sales receipts to prove Cantemerle’s wine prices were higher than a few other châteaux on the list. It was added as a fifth growth at the last minute.

Then came the devastation of phylloxera, with Cantemerle among the worst hit estates in the Médoc. The influential Dubos family stepped in, owned it for nearly a century, and restored its reputation.

But, weakened by World War II, it was eventually on the road to ruin.

A real fixer-upper

I’m a huge fan of comeback stories, and so, apparently, was Albert Parment, the head of mutual insurance company SMABTP.

A passionate Bordeaux aficionado, he saw run-down Cantemerle as a unique long-term investment opportunity and, in 1981, paid 25 million francs (the equivalent of nearly US$6m) for it.

SMABTP was the first major insurance company to acquire a Bordeaux vineyard, and Parment poured in millions more to restore it.

First up was replanting and expanding the vineyard, which had shrunk to just 20 hectares. The idea was to bring it back to the 100ha it was at the time of the 1855 classification, using Mexican workers imported from California.

But the replant also included a shift in varieties, doubling the amount of Cabernet Sauvignon to nearly 70% by grafting over much of the Cabernet Franc, a change that’s reflected in current vintages of the wine.

Another ambitious woman, Laure Canu, arrived from Château Angelus to oversee the final phase (which started in 2022) and chart Cantemerle’s future course.

The renovated château, its stone façade cleaned, impresses, but the innovations in the huge vat room and underground cellar stunned me, especially a ceiling crafted from the recycled staves of 600 old barrels.

The delicious 2025 wine owes its quality partly to the parcel-by-parcel viticulture and winemaking that’s now de rigueur in Bordeaux châteaux with new cellars.

The vast vat room holds 114 shiny, conical stainless-steel vats, so each plot can be vinified separately, while the latest satellite technology tracks individual vines.

On a wall monitor with an interactive vineyard map winemaker Gregory Thibault showed me how he can zero in on the state of each vine, giving him the ability to pick old and young vines in each micro-plot at exactly the right moment.

The design of it all is, of course, eco-conscious, like the geothermal loop system that powers water from a pond to the entire facility.

Nature and the oenotourism future

Even as drinking wine is declining, wine tourism is rapidly expanding, and SMABPT – and Laure Canu – saw the trend.

The atmosphere in the new wine bar and boutique, featuring wine pairings, the chateau’s honey, children’s colouring books, and more, reminded me of the latest tasting rooms in the Napa Valley.

Cantemerle goes further, opening its park and woodland to visitors for the first time, as have other huge Bordeaux properties such as Châteaux Giscours in Margaux and Olivier in Pessac-Léognan.

While wandering the shady winding paths of Cantemerle’s leafy park, designed in the 18^th century, you get a sense of what biodiversity means: century-old trees, giant ferns, and about 160 species of plants and animals, including wild boar.

A wooden vat in the center of a labyrinth has been converted for observing wildlife. Hazelnut trees shelter ladybugs needed in the vineyard. There’s guided Japanese forest bathing, a floral cooking workshop, and, of course, you can picnic.

But what most fascinated me is their unique botanical project of collecting seeds from the estate’s plants, cultivating them, and then making space in the vineyard to replant them and create hedges and ‘ecological corridors’ connecting it to all those natural areas.

Spending a day at the revived Cantemerle is like immersing yourself in Bordeaux’s green future, discovering how important the ecosystem is to wine and people, while sipping great affordable wines that will only get better.

And there’s more to come. This year, Canu told me, they plan to graft over a hectare of vines to Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.

Château Cantemerle: 2010-2023

Wines are listed by vintage youngest to oldest

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