Ultra-premium, high-quality tequila is on the rise. More and more drinkers are seeking a smooth, complex flavour perfect for sipping, and high-proof blanco tequila offers just that.

Where traditional blanco tequilas are typically bottled at 40% abv (expressed as 80 proof in the US), high-proof blancos can range anywhere from 45%-55% abv.

Made from 100% Blue Weber agave slow-cooked in brick or clay ovens, these high-proof, additive-free blancos are distilled to proof and keep water dilution to a minimum (or skip it entirely) for greater clarity and intensity of flavour, delivering a bolder sip.

‘In well-crafted spirits, such as the [54% abv] Tequila Ocho Plata Puntas, this translates to a more vivid, layered and complete expression,’ says Jesse Estes, a global brand ambassador for Tequila Ocho.

‘It does so without the harshness or burn many associate with higher-proof spirits.’

Taste the agave

More producers are now experimenting with high-proof blanco, not only to showcase tequila in its purest, most expressive form, but also to align with the growing appreciation for a more complex profile.

‘Consumers and bartenders want to try genuine, pure agave-forward tequila flavours, whether enjoyed neat, on the rocks or mixed into cocktails,’ says Léon Bañuelos Jr, a third-generation tequilero at El Mexicano.

‘A higher proof brings out stronger aromas and delivers a traditional agave taste, making cocktails more vibrant and memorable.’

High-proof blancos help enhance the herbal notes, pepper and earthiness of the agave.

‘At lower proof, some of that gets lost in the dilution,’ says Sammy Hagar, co-founder of Santo Tequila. ‘At higher proof, the agave flavours hit you in waves.’

How should you drink higher-proof blanco tequila?

These high-proof blanco tequilas can be enjoyed however you prefer.

Tony Salles, the third-generation Master Distiller at El Tequileño, recommends starting with a neat serve to fully experience the tequila’s intensity and character.

‘High proof blancos like El Tequileño Still Strength [50% abv] also work beautifully in cocktails,’ he adds. ‘The higher proof allows the tequila to hold its own.’

Bañuelos proposes using El Mexicano Blanco 90 (45% abv) to craft a bold, agave-forward cocktail, such as a Chai Sour, paired with rich chocolate made with 50%-60% cocoa.

Hagar suggests using Santo 110 Proof Blanco (55% abv) in a Margarita. ‘The flavour doesn’t disappear behind the lime and triple sec,’ he says. ‘It stands up.’

One to try

Tequila Ocho Plata Puntas

£141/70cl The Whisky Exchange

Made with Jalisco Highland agave, using the ‘puntas’ (the still-strength portion taken from the early stages of distillation) for intense oil and flavour concentration. Agave and salted chocolate hit the nose, followed by a spicy pop of cacao and a creamy finish. A strong choice for a Paloma. Alcohol 53%.

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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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On 14 July 1789, a mob of Parisian citizens stormed the Bastille, a prison that had become a symbol of the oppression of the ruling monarchy.

It was a turning point in the French Revolution, a culmination of social upheaval and the dissatisfaction of the common people against the ruling elite.

It marked the end of the ancien régime – the old order – and the beginning of the first French Republic.

Wine, as it happens, was tangled up in all of it.

Quick-fire history of wine in France

The vine likely arrived in southern Gaul (the anicent area of Europe that roughly corresponds to modern day France) around 600 BCE – centuries before any king wore a crown or the concept of France even existed.

Winemaking and viticulture flourished under Roman rule, but it was the monastic orders in the Middle Ages that turned viticulture and wine into a discipline.

Monasteries often owned huge swathes of vineyards – especially in places such as Burgundy.

Both church and nobility used their vineyard holdings to fuel the feudal economy, while increasingly far-reaching and sophisticated trade networks in which wine was a key commodity contributed to the rise of wealthy bourgeois mercantile classes as well.

Into the early modern era, wine increasingly became a status symbol in the royal courts, the nobles drinking Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux.

But the Revolution toppled the monarchy, and broke the aristocratic leash on wine. Vineyards and land were redistributed, sold back to the people, and wine became their tonic.

Bastille Day is marked as a recognition of the power of the people. Here are five French wines with which to toast it.

Five French wines to toast to Bastille Day

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Krug is a Champagne house keen to remind us that it does things differently.

There is no ‘entry-level non-vintage’ here; instead there’s the Grande Cuvée, numbered in editions following the composition of the harvests used.

Then there are the single vintages, and the two Clos of Ambonnay and Le Mesnil, in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay respectively, whose prices and rarity ascend beyond the reaches of all but the luckiest Champagne lovers.

Should these rarer, more expensive wines be considered finer than the Grande Cuvée?

Absolutely not.

Equal footing

There are no hierarchies,’ says cellar master Julie Cavil. ‘At Krug every wine receives the same red carpet treatment. It is only the blending which decides’.

Despite the price difference, collectors and Krug fans tend to agree. While Krug vintages are rare treasures, side-by-side tastings tend to reveal little sense of down-grade to the more accessible Grande Cuvée.

The vintage is not ‘the best wine,’ says Cavil. ‘It is a wine that tells the singularity of the year’.

Grande Cuvée 174th Édition

Whether Grande Cuvée editions themselves always follow the strengths and weaknesses of the youngest years in their blend is open to debate.

Yet a comparison of the new 174th Édition, built around the generous, immaculate 2018 vintage, and the 173rd Édition centred on the challenging 2017, does make the case – even with the help of the house’s enviable reserve wine library.

Indeed, the reserve wine library takes precedence, even over the vintage bottling.

When the still base wines of the year, having spent a short ‘birth’ in old oak barrels before moving into individually tailored stainless steel, are lined up and assessed, first choice is given to blending components for Grande Cuvée, ‘and then to the library of reserve wines,’ says Cavil.

Only then, if interesting wines of the year remain, will a single vintage be released.

The 2013 vintage

Could it be said that the vintage bottling sometimes remained in the shadow of Grande Cuvée?

If so, then 2013 steps out boldly.

The 2011, 2008 and 2006 vintage releases told the story of the year, but the completeness, balance and age-worthiness of the blend in late-ripening 2013 has yielded the greatest Krug vintage of recent times.

With Chardonnay singing, Krug’s designation of the wine as ‘exalted citrus’ fits like a glove.

Clos d’Ambonnay 2008

The fortune doesn’t end there for followers of Krug’s rarer cuvées, though.

The blanc de noirs Clos d’Ambonnay cuvée from one of Champagne’s greatest vintages spent 17 years ageing in the cellar.

‘It was an incredible year, with lots of intensity,’ says Cavil. ‘But we had to be patient’.

The sheer force of the year in this charmed 0.68ha walled vineyard of Pinot Noir has yielded a wine of dramatic density, freshness and potency.

All wines may be treated as equals at Krug, but when it comes to vintages such as 2013 and 2008, some may be more equal than others.

New Krug releases not to miss

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Since the late nineteenth century Spain has been producing traditional method sparkling wines, and like Champagne, French Crémants or Italy’s Alta Langa, Franciacorta or Trentodoc, Spanish Cava is produced with this method, remaining on its lees for a minimum of nine months with secondary fermentation in the bottle.

What’s unique, however, is that Cava is often produced with a blend of indigenous white grape varieties: Macabeo, Xarel-lo and Parellada. Several international varieties, including the more common varieties for sparkling wines, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, can also be used.

Scroll down to see the top 15 Cava wines of DWWA 2026

Cava has established a global reputation for making some of the best value sparkling wines produced by the traditional method. But it’s important to note the quality to be found across Cava’s categories and styles, with top expressions on par with some of the world’s best.

Styles of Cava

There are three main categories of Cava which produce different styles of sparkling wine.

When labelled Cava, the wine must undergo a minimum of nine months of lees aging, providing subtle notes of autolysis (the bready aromas and flavours found in traditional method sparkling wines). These Cavas typically have light apple, citrus and herbal notes with moderate acidity.

Cava Reserva must spend a minimum of 15 months on the lees – three months less than Champagne requires. Here, biscuit autolytic notes are more evident.

Aged a minimum of 30 months on the lees, Cava Gran Reserva wines can show pronounced autolytic characters including smoky and toasty notes. These Cavas can be premium in price but can show outstanding quality for value, especially when compared to traditional method sparkling wine counterparts.

To strengthen Cava’s notoriety as a world-class sparkling wine, estate produced and bottled Cava can qualify for a relatively new category, Cava de Paraje Calificado. These wines must age a minimum of 36 months, showing even more development and integration of flavours.

Quality rising

Cava’s quality continues to be recognised by leading experts at the 2026 DWWA with Catalonia’s celebrated sparkling wines earning eight Golds including a Top Value Gold. The competition also recognised two magnum-format Cavas with Silver medals.

Along with the top accolades, Cava was awarded an additional 46 Silver and 72 Bronze medals.

To celebrate International Cava Day this 12th July, we highlight 15 award-winning wines to celebrate with.

International Cava Day: 15 award-winning wines to try

Asda, Exceptional Mas Miralda Brut 2023
Value Gold, 95 points
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. Alcohol 12%

Bardinet Wines, Palau Gazo Brut NV
Gold, 95 points
Light and frothy, imbued with luscious lemon, fresh herb and wet stone character in a frame of curvaceous acidity. A linden blossom fragrance inures the length. Alc 11.5%

Cavas Hill, Panot Gaudí Brut, Reserva 2020
Value Gold, 95 points
A delightful perfume of chamomile, yellow fruit and butterscotch underscored by a twist of saline. Zesty lemon pith mousse and grapefruit acidity dapple the creamy texture. Alc 11.5%

Conde de Caralt, Brut Nature, Guarda 2024
Gold, 95 points
Well-defined green apple, pear and quince fused with lightly toasted brioche. Energetic and fresh with fine mousse and a zingy eucalyptus buzz at the end. Alc 11.5%

Dominio De La Vega, Cerro Tocón, Reserva 2018
Gold, 95 points
Restrained strawberry and rose petal perfume slinks into the smoke-infused effervescence and brushes against the fulfilling creamy texture. Gushing grapefruit. Alc 12%

Guilera, Centenari Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2005
Gold, 95 points
Vast swathes of ripe peach, apricot, pineapple and mango simmer over the creamy brioche texture, complete with fine bubbles and red apple acidity. Fabulously moreish. Alc 12%

Jaume Serra, Reserva Brut Nature 2022
Value Gold, 95 points
Evocative dried petal, resin and nut aromas gently soothe the nose; bright. green apple fruit and lemon foam textures lavish the palate. Long, herbal finish. Alc 11.5%

Vallformosa, 150 Brut, Gran Reserva 2020
Gold, 95 points
Engaging floral perfume simmers alongside gooseberry fruit and french toast. Buttery and textured with a stylish smoky mousse and fine, savoury aftertaste which is just phenomenal. Alc 12%

Maria Rigol Ordi, Maria Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2017
Silver, 94 points
Characterful aromas of fennel, dried herbs, brioche and intense toasty touches. Creamy and smooth, with a crisp acidity. Alc 11.5%

Rabetllat I Vidal, Brut Nature, Gran Reserva, Cava 2021
Silver, 94 points
Restrained character with earthy undertones and delicate aromas of brioche. Showing tension and energy, elegant and stylish palate. Long finish. Alc 12%

Art Laietà, Alto Alella 10 Pujol-Busquets Guillén Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2014
Silver, 93 points
Savoury character with notes of butterscotch, bread, orange, golden pineapple and lemon balm. Toasty and creamy palate, well layered. Alc 12%

Família Ferrer, Can Sala Brut Nature, Paraje Calificado 2013
Silver, 93 points
Developing nuances of caramelised apple, quince, toasted almonds and butterscotch. Honeyed palate, rich and creamy, with a mineral finish. Alc 12.5%

Marevia, Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Brut, Reserva 2020
Silver, 93 points
Light nuances of delicate brioche and citrus fruit on the nose. Creamy on the palate, very tasty and elegant. Alc 11.5%

Pere Ventura, Clos La Secreta Paraje Calificado Can Bas, Gran Reserva 2017
Silver, 93 points
Delicate aromas of peaches, apricots, brioche and digestive biscuits. Well made and layered, with a crisp acidity and lovely mousse. Alc 12%

Sumarroca, Ecològica Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2019
Silver, 93 points
Perfumed, with bittersweet lemon, peach skin, Mediterranean herbs and aniseed. Savoury, saline and precise, with a nougat-like richness and long finish. Alc 12%

Search all award-winning Cava wines from DWWA 2026

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Early Bordeaux 2025 en primeur sales rose on last year’s weak 2024-vintage campaign, according to Geraint Carter of international merchant Bordeaux Index and Miles Davis of Vinum Fine Wines. Farr Vintners’ Thomas Parker MW said sales were up ‘a little’ although below the level of five years ago.

Cheval Blanc 2025 was one success. ‘We sold everything we could get,’ said Carter.

Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said that the St-Emilion estate released everything it made after especially low yields.

Parker said Batailley and Lynch-Bages were top sellers. Will Hargrove, head of fine wine at Corney & Barrow, cited interest in Lafite, plus Mitjavile and Moueix offers, but also said: ‘Demand has been slower than the vintage deserves.’

Despite high scores, Bordeaux 2025 is entering a world of macroeconomic uncertainty. Carter said en primeur is largely ‘an amplification of what’s going on in the [wine] market, and the market is flat.’

He agreed it’s a great time to be a Bordeaux drinker, with good availability of high-quality vintages, but said 2025 release prices weren’t compelling enough in a tough environment.

He also highlighted the value offered by the well-regarded 2019 vintage (see table), with several years of bottleageing (and storage costs) under its belt.

Liv-ex’s Bordeaux 500 index – one indicator of pricing in the secondary market – was down 16.5% in value over five years to the end of May 2026.

While stable year-to-date, it was back to mid-2016 levels. Châteaux haven’t stood still. For example, Liv-ex data showed Lafite 2025’s release price was up year-on-year but otherwise the lowest of the past decade.

Vinum’s Davis said many 2025 en primeur prices looked relatively reasonable. He said there’s an ‘amazing opportunity’ for younger collectors to build a drinking cellar.

In his view, it’s not an investment market and people aren’t buying to make money, but he added: ‘There will be a time when we look back at these prices and think, were they really that cheap?’

Bordeaux 2025 vs 2019: A pricing snapshot

Bordeaux Index’s Geraint Carter said 2019 is a good-quality vintage that may present value for collectors who are considering alternatives to 2025 en primeur releases.

While some 2019s look more expensive than corresponding 2025s at face value, they have already been aged for several years.

DATA SUPPLIED BY BORDEAUX INDEX/LIVETRADE

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

En primeur own goals

The old maxim is that you can only control what you can control. For en primeur, that boils down to two things: the price and the offer.

Leaving the price to one side, en primeur today is, in essence, a marketing event. Bordeaux enjoys an extraordinary privilege: for a few weeks each year, the attention of the fine wine world is focused almost entirely on the region.

That opportunity should be cherished. Yet the 2025 campaign has felt like a masterclass in how to squander momentum.

Late April’s early releases were followed by two weeks of near silence, before a few releases around the holidays and a flood of big names in the closing stages.

In what was always going to be a difficult campaign, allowing interest to dissipate for weeks at a time was bizarre. For en primeur to succeed, the process has to feel transparent.

Visibility has improved, but buyers increasingly suspect that release quantities are being managed more aggressively, which feeds a damaging conclusion that the wine will be as easy, and quite likely cheaper, to buy in a few years.

Direct consumer engagement is also better, but in a world of abundant choice, the case for greater outreach is stronger than ever.

It’s difficult and expensive, yet it’s one of the few levers still entirely within Bordeaux’s control. If consumers are worth courting, then chances to do so must be seized wholeheartedly.

Now, did someone mention price?

Leroy leads Burgundy mega-sale

Wealthy collectors’ thirst for superstar Burgundy has appeared undimmed at recent US auctions, led by notable rarities from Domaines Leroy and Georges Roumier.

Auction house Hart Davis Hart (HDH) claimed a new record auction price for a single bottle of Domaine Leroy wine after selling the Burgundy producer’s Musigny Grand Cru 2015 for $95,600 (£71,374), including buyer’s premium (hammer price $80,000; high estimate $30,000).

It was from the ‘Orion Collection’ that formed part of a three-day auction marathon in May. All 3,563 lots offered found buyers, generating sales of $14.66m.

‘The market remains incredibly robust,’ said Hart Davis Hart CEO Paul Hart. Leroy’s Musigny is among the world’s most expensive wines, although prices can vary.

From the same collection, HDH sold single bottles of 2011 and 2013 for $41,825 and $35,850 respectively (high e: $30,000 and $28,000). In New York in June, a Christie’s auction of wines from ‘a Silicon Valley pioneer’ was also 100% sold.

Six bottles of Georges Roumier, Bonne-Mares 1971 fetched $100,000, including buyer’s premium (high e: $35,000).

In Hong Kong, meanwhile, rare Bordeaux was prominent as Bonhams offered wines from fashion designer Marie France van Damme.

A bottle of Saute Loup 2010, rarely sighted and made by Pomerol icon Petrus, sold for HK$13,750 (£1,314), including buyer’s premium (high e: HK$9,500).

A bottle of legendary Petrus 1961 fetched HK$81,250 (high e: HK$70,000).

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Cycling in Western Slovenia's wine country

Sun-drenched slopes. Gentle hills sloping into fertile valleys. Terraced vineyards, orchards and olive groves. Every few kilometres, another pretty hilltop hamlet with a stone church, a small square and a different grape variety to try.

From the highest hills, views of the Gulf of Trieste to the south and Alpine peaks in the distant north. The air feels clean: Alpine fresh. The aromas are enticing: Mediterranean.

This is what it’s like to cycle through Slovenia’s key wine region, Primorska, in the country’s far west.

It’s a special place – especially for wine. Rebula (also sometimes called Ribolla here, after its Italian name Ribolla Gialla) and Refošk are the key grape varieties, but a few grapes are as local as the dialects.

Many French varieties, brought to the region in the second half of the 19th century, have found homes here, too. Italian varieties have spread from neighbouring Friuli, just over the national border to the west. It’s a vinous melting pot.

And the best way to explore the region? By bike… well, e-bike – there are a lot of hills.

Since 2025, three of Primorska’s sub-regions – Brda (or Goriška Brda), Vipava and Kras – have been linked by a 93km circular cycling route as part of an EU-funded project called Bike Time.

Serious cyclists could do it all in a day or two, but they would miss out on so much. Instead, base yourself in each of the sub-regions for a couple of days and go on loops from the hotel (this also means you won’t need to transport your luggage).

At a glance: Key areas, travel and bike hire

How to make it happen

• Nearest airports Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, or Trieste in Italy.
• Best time to visit Late spring to early autumn.
• Bike rental Bike Vibe delivers bikes to hotels in all three districts.
• Top tip Many cellars welcome cyclists, but book tastings in advance – the smaller estates sometimes require a reservation.

Key sub-regions

• Goriška Brda (Brda) Slovenia’s best-known wine region, which sits cheek-by-jowl with northeast Italy’s Collio. Known for highquality white and orange wines, particularly those made from Rebula, and red blends made from Bordeaux varieties.
• Vipavska Dolina (Vipava valley) Specialises in light, crisp white wines made from rare grapes Pinela and Zelen
• Kras (Karst) An iron-rich plateau that produces a notable red wine, Teran or Terrano, from the Refošk variety. This is also the region I go to for white and orange versions of Vitovska Grganja.

Day 1: Brda – The kingdom of Rebula

The bike route

Kabaj → Dobrovo → Medana → Gredič → Ceglo → Vipolže → Kaba

Focus on Rebula

The recommendation for your first day in the saddle is to get to know Rebula, the key grape in Brda.

Although it also grows across the border in Italy, Slovenians swear their version is more mineral, more elegant, more itself.

Rebula has been here since Roman times and now comes in a variety of styles, including unoaked, oak-aged, skin-contact, sparkling and passito.

Try them all, but don’t forget to spit – you’ll need your wits about you for some of the descents.

Wineries to visit on this route

The central town, Dobrovo, is home to Slovenia’s largest wine cooperative. Klet Brda brings together 400 growers and nearly 1,000ha of vines (more than half of the region’s roughly 1,900ha).

It’s a good place to get an overview of Brda’s wide range of wines. Try Bagueri’s Sauvignon Blanc for reference, then Bagueri’s or Krasno’s Rebula.

South of Dobrovo, in the border village of Ceglo, is the acclaimed biodynamic winery Movia, Slovenia’s most celebrated producer. A pioneer of natural wines, the charismatic and idiosyncratic Aleš Kristančič has now handed the reins to son Lan.

Highlights of a tasting include a complex Rebula, an orange Pinot Grigio and the unique sparkling wine Puro, which is disgorged in front of you – in an ice bucket filled with water.

Also in Ceglo is organic producer Marjan Simčič – another standard-bearer for Brda wines.

French and local grapes grown on marl-rich schist (opoka) are fermented with native yeasts and boosted with a little bit of skin contact – try the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay to see a different side of these grapes before experiencing three different Rebulas.

Where to stay in Brda

A good base for this first part of the adventure is Homestead Kabaj Morel in the village of Šlovrenc, near Dobrovo.

Also known as Kabaj Wine & Dine, the homestead combines a top winery and charismatic French winemaker with an amazing restaurant and comfortable rooms.

Jean Michel Morel crafts wines that he likes to drink, regardless of trends and commercial viability.

Enjoy his skin-contact, low-intervention whites and old-school Bordeaux-style reds with dinner on the restaurant’s terrace. There’s no menu – the dishes are inspired by ingredients gathered in the market that morning.

Day 2: Brda beyond Rebula

The bike route

Kabaj → Biljana → Šmartno → Gonjače → Kojsko → Višnjevik → Kabaj

Wineries to visit

Brda is small but dense with excellent boutique producers. Whatever route you take, you’ll probably come across a good, family-run cellar.

Today’s loop explores the district’s other grape varieties and its underrated bubbles. Among the best sparkling wine producers in Slovenia is the specialist Bjana in the village of Biljana, east of Dobrovo.

Start the day with a sip of Miran and Petra Sirk’s Cuvée Prestige Extra Brut – typically 50/50 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, roughly four years on lees. Another good family-run winery in Biljana is Marko Sirk Wines (contact: vina.marko.sirk@gmail.com).

Father Marko and son Miha produce two premium sparkling wines, excellent Sauvignon and Malvasia varietals, and a delicious red blend made from Merlot and Cabernet Franc, among others.

At the Ferdinand winery, a small detour off the road between Gonjače and Kojsko, winemaker Matjaž Četrtič has teamed up with Italian friend Robert Prinčič (owner of Gradis’ciutta in Collio) to create a special fizz, Sinefinis Rebolium.

It’s a blend of Rebula/Ribolla Gialla grapes grown on either side of the border, paying tribute to the Brda and Collio terroirs, which have been divided since the imposition of that border in 1947.

The other white grape to try in this part of the world – perhaps at the end of the day in the quaint medieval village of Šmartno, northeast of Dobrovo – is the underappreciated Sauvignonasse (formerly Tocai Friulano; now simply Friulano in Italy).

It makes a beautiful aperitif, but few producers like its official name; Kabaj calls it Ravan, Zanut calls it Zakaj, others call it Jakot (Tokaj backwards) and Sauvignon Vert.

Whatever the name, it’s a fitting glass with which to conclude your time in Brda.

Day 3: Vipava valley – Indigenous treasures

The bike route

Slap → Planina → Vipava → Slap

Wineries to visit

The beautiful Vipava valley, a broad corridor flanked by mountains and dotted with vineyards, is home to three of Slovenia’s rarest, most delicate whites (which sound more like Marvel heroes): Zelen, Pinela and Klarnica.

A key feature of the terroir here is the strong wind, known as the bora or burja, which can exceed 200km/h.

This is why the old villages have narrow streets, the terracotta roofs are littered with rocks to keep tiles in place and such finicky grapes are able to thrive here and nowhere else.

In the picturesque village of Slap, eighth-generation winemaker Urban Petrič at Vino Petrič is working hard to get more complexity into the typically light, easygoing Zelen and Pinela.

He’s harvesting later, maturing longer and selecting the best southeast-facing, limestonerich sites for planting.

Planina is a bit of a climb, but has two producers worth visiting: Guerila and Štokelj.

The terrace, tasting room and three apartments at biodynamic producer Guerila offer amazing views over the valley. These views are best paired with their benchmark versions of Zelen and Pinela, or a sparkling wine made from both varieties: Castra Brut Nature.

Meanwhile, among the Štokelj wines to try are the still and sparkling Pinelas, and a very serious Merlot-Barbera blend.

Next, head to Vipava, a picturesque town situated at the source of the river of the same name, which consists of nine karst springs. It has a large winery, the former cooperative Vipava 1894, which makes good-value conventional wines.

However, the bistro and wine bar Gustl has better views, a more eclectic wine offer, and some very tasty dishes – such as the Vipava jota, a stew made from turnips fermented in grape marc.

Where to stay

Majerija in Slap, a 300-year-old estate with 10 rooms located under the herb garden and a superb restaurant, is a good base for the next two nights. Owner Matej Tomažič offers traditional cuisine with a contemporary touch and some excellent pairing suggestions.

Day 4: Vipava valley – International interlopers

The bike route

Slap → Branik → Sveti Martin → Dobravlje → Podraga → Orehovica → Slap

Wineries to visit

The medieval Rihemberk castle, overlooking the village of Branik, is one of the best and oldest in the region. It’s a fitting place to begin a day exploring the other face of the valley: the invading varieties.

There’s a lot of good Merlot here, but plantings are in decline. It’s largely being replaced by in-demand white Malvazija Istarska. Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Rebula and Cabernet Sauvignon are also widespread among the valley’s 2,060ha of vines.

From the castle, head north and then east towards the village of Sveti Martin and the Stegovec family’s Vina Sveti Martin.

As well as offering white and skin-contact Pinela and Rebula, Peter Stegovec can pour a good Barbera and Merlot, among others.

Heading northeast towards Dobravlje, the Tilia Estate in Potoče stands out as a Pinot specialist. Matjaž Lemut even calls his winery ‘the House of Pinots’. It’s one of the few wineries in the valley to offer consistently good Pinot Noir and Gris.

Beyond Vipava, near the eastern end of the valley, there’s a cluster of top-notch wineries.

In the village of Podraga, Mitja Lavrenčič of Sutor has built a good reputation for precise, elegant versions of Chardonnay, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.

A little further south, in Orehovica, the Burja Estate’s Primož Lavrenčič offers an excellent Pinot Noir (dubbed Burja Noir) and an exceptional red blend named Reddo that combines the valley’s traditional red grapes: Modra Frankinja (Blaufränkisch), Pokalca (Schioppettino) and Refošk (Refosco).

Biodynamic Pasji Rep has a superb Pinot Noir and Merlot, and one of the best examples of the valley’s traditional white blend, known as Vipaveca.

Pasji Rep’s iteration, Moser, contains Rebula, Welschriesling, Malvazija and Zelen.

Restaurant to know: Gostilna Pri Lojzetu

If you want a culinary crescendo to complete your visit, there’s the fine-dining theatre that is Gostilna Pri Lojzetu in Zemono Manor, near the town of Vipava.

You’ll have to book way in advance to land a table. Chef Tomaž Kavčič is one of the best in Slovenia and the wine list is a carefully curated love letter to Primorska.

Day 5: Karst – Where Teran rules

Karst plateau bike route

Štanjel → Sežana → Dutovlje → Krajna Vas → Gorjansko → Štanjel

Cycling the Kras wine road

It would be easy to concentrate on Brda and Vipava and skip the smaller (525ha of vines), more compact Kras, but Kras has a special terroir.

The Karst plateau, which underlies the region, is a table of limestone with a thin layer of rust-red, iron-rich (terra rossa) soil on top.

Refošk or Refosco is the signature variety, accounting for about 70% of plantings. It’s used to produce a wine called Teran (not to be confused with the Croatian grape of the same name) or Terrano, a dark, robust red with pronounced acidity, flavours of sour cherry and wild berries, and distinctive minerality.

To fully appreciate it, try it with fatty meats such as kraški pršut (Karst prosciutto). The region’s signature white Vitovska Grganja was once just a component in the local blend, but now produces elegant varietals and complex orange wines.

The Kras wine road connects almost 170 cellars across the plateau, along with two of the main settlements, Štanjel and Sežana.

The former – a medieval hilltop village – makes a good base. From there, make your way to the largest town, Sežana, in the region’s centre.

Wineries to visit

The Vinakras cooperative in Sežana, the area’s largest producer, is a good place to try different versions of Teran: from young, fruit-driven styles aged in tanks to full-bodied, oak-aged wines.

The ‘must-try’ is the single-vineyard La Marie Izbrani Teran, which is partially matured in concrete eggs. The La Marie Vitovska is also a good introduction to the variety.

On the way back to Štanjel, stop in the village of Dutovlje for Terans and Vitovskas from biodynamically farmed Renčel or family-run Domacija Lisjak – or continue to Krajna Vas for one of the area’s benchmark producers, Vina Štoka.

While Teran is central to their output, father and son Primož and Tadej Štoka also produce traditional-method sparkling wines that mature in a natural karst cave. Amazingly, these are also made from Teran and Vitovska.

But the ‘must-visit’ winery is Gorjansko-based Vina Čotar, a natural-wine reference in Slovenia. Father and son Branko and Vasja Čotar farm organically and bottle distinctive, terroir-driven whites (Vitovska, Malvasia Istriana, Sauvignon Blanc) and reds (Teran, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon).

Back in Štanjel, order a well-deserved glass of Vitovska in the castle’s prettily decorated bistro and reflect on your whole experience: Primorska isn’t just a wine and food destination, it’s a feel-good place where ancient grape varieties are kept alive out of love.

Where to stay

Hotel St Daniel is an ‘ecological’ boutique hotel in Štanjel with a range of rooms, suites and apartments, a restaurant that uses only ingredients from certified organic producers, and an outdoor pool.

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I’m not a Sauvignon Blanc denier, but I am all too often disappointed with thin, one-dimensional examples.

At its best, however, Sauvignon Blanc can be gorgeously textural and expressive, with weight but no heaviness, and richness balanced by salinity and succulence.

Its aromatic and zingy nature makes it one of the world’s most popular grape varieties, and flavours and aromas vary depending on where and how it's grown – climate, pruning and trellising systems, even the yeast strains used in fermentation.

Expect anything from tropical and exotic to citrusy and zesty, grassy and herby, or stony and mineral.

Organic Sauvignon Blanc – not an easy task

Despite its popularity, Sauvignon Blanc is fairly tricky to grow, and needs careful work in the vineyard to keep it healthy.

‘Sauvignon is relatively complex to work organically or biodynamically,’ says Jonathan Pabiot, a biodynamic winemaker in Pouilly-Fumé. 'It's sensitive to powdery and downy mildew, so in humid years treatments have to be very regular.'

Yet Pabiot says the vine's flower is very sensitive to copper, which is problematic for organic growers because copper-based Bordeaux mixture is one of the only permitted fungicides used to protect against powdery mildew.

For Pabiot, Sauvignon Blanc's very sensitivity to climate and disease stressors is what makes it so responsive to biodynamic farming. ‘Biodynamics helps us overcome these climatic risks, but it isn't magic either,' he says. ‘What it does do is help build living soil.'

Biodynamic winemakers in Languedoc Patricia and Luc Bertoni, of Domaine les Eminades, believe that it is precisely the nearly 20 years of organic farming that has made their Sauvignon particularly resilient to disease – as well as the clement climate of the south.

My Sauvignon Blanc moment

The moment I realised the heights and depths that great Sauvignon could reach was when tasting Andreas Tscheppe’s Blue Dragonfly, from south Styria in Austria, near the border with Slovenia.

Tscheppe and his wife Elisabeth farm their terraced vineyards biodynamically, at 500m altitude. These vineyards, like the wines, are full of life: picture lush vegetation, myriad plants, weeds, flowers, grasses, bugs, beetles, bees, dragonflies and birds.

Fermented with natural yeasts and minimal sulphur, and aged for almost two years in large old barrels, it tastes like wildflowers and wild grasses, sun-warmed orchard fruit, lemon and brine, with an intricate texture like a crispy snowflake.

For me, this is one of the purest, most stripped back and alive versions of Sauvignon Blanc – far removed from the pungent blast of Marlborough.

Of course, not everyone is looking for this hyper textural, nuanced version of the grape. Sauvignon has become something of a celebrity accessory,: Gary Barlow and Graham Norton both have their own brands, though Taylor Swift has, tellingly, traded up to Sancerre.

Has the grape’s cultural moment peaked?

Not if this summer’s internet wine trend is anything to go by – dropping frozen dill pickles into a glass of Sauvignon Blanc suggests it’s found a new, slightly unhinged lease of life.

Either way, here are seven delicious organic bottles to satisfy the Sauvignon-seekers this summer – pickle optional, but not advised.

Seven Sauvignon for summer sipping

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While a high-quality baseline determined the tone and rhythm of this report, some producers stood out through wines that not only scored well but also jumped from the glass for their idiosyncrasy and self-assuredness.

Their wines are, in some instances, immediately recognisable – often shamelessly compromising the premise of a blind-tasting exercise – possessing their own distinctive style while also being unmistakably Riojan.

Our list of standout producers therefore aims to celebrate not just quality but also identity.

Theirs are wines that combine a sense of time and place with a distinct personality, making the case for typicity beyond uniformity.

There are clear common denominators: expressiveness (both terroir and personal), purity, drinkability and technical ability.

All of these wines evoke a sense of personal commitment and craftsmanship supported by painstaking work, deep knowledge of the vineyards and an overlap of personal and historical narratives.

This lineup also highlights the fact that it’s possible to arrive at a destination via different paths – it’s all about the journey and the many encounters it allows. And Rioja is, in its very essence, a region forged by serendipitous turns of history leveraged by very different stakeholders.

These are producers whose wines invite further engagement and discovery.

Arturo & Kike de Miguel

Artuke
Baños de Ebro, Rioja Alavesa

Brothers Arturo and Kike de Miguel (see what they did with the brand name there?), took over their father’s vineyards and small winery in Baños de Ebro and have since been crafting some of the region’s most exciting and sought-after ‘new wave’ wines. The purity and expressiveness of their creations became apparent in how they performed in our report tasting.

The two farm about 25ha following biodynamic principles and have a terroir-first approach, eschewing all ageing-based classifications in favour of village- and parcel-specific bottlings, all under the Genérico (formerly known as Joven) classification.

Their wines combine fierce intensity with structural exactness and aromatic nuance; not unlike the brothers themselves, whose frankness and bonhomie is framed by broad shoulders and warmly thunderous voices.

While their village blends (Pies Negros and the carbonic maceration namesake Artuke) are among Rioja’s most insanely good-value modern wines, Artuke’s top single-vineyard labels – La Condenada and El Escolladero – are on the path to icon status.

Artuke wines tasted for this report
La Condenada 2024 98pts
Trascuevas 2024 98pts
El Escolladero 2024 96pts
Paso Las Mañas Paraje El Chorro 2024 96pts

Carlos Mazo Gutiérrez

Vinos en Voz Baja
Aldeanueva de Ebro, Rioja Oriental

One of the wines that most surprised and delighted at the masterclass we hosted at the Decanter New York Fine Wine Encounter in June 2025, to celebrate Rioja’s centenary, was Carlos Mazo’s Nace La Sierra.

It stood out for its levity and purity, and introduced the audience – more familiar with the traditional, classical style of Rioja – to the possibility of a different interpretation of the region, more focused, fluid, quieter. It’s not by chance that he decided to name his project Vinos en Voz Baja – ‘wines in a soft voice’.

The same quiet rusticity and gentleness of touch made Mazo’s wines shine in this report’s tasting. Both traits are evocative of Mazo himself, a softly spoken, unassuming winemaker, completely committed to land and family.

He works mostly with old-vine Garnacha (red, white and grey), with scattered and interspersed plantings of Pasera, Viura and Tinto Velasco.

The fruit is handled with remarkable subtlety, infused rather than extracted, allowing the varieties to shine through the prism of their specific location.

Mazo’s wines coax you into slowing down and engaging with a different way of doing things; although refreshing and supremely drinkable, their textural appeal invites time on the palate – and some good bread, thinly cut jamón and fragrant olive oil.

Vinos en Voz Baja wines tasted for this report
Barrio Pastores 2024 95pts
Costumbres Blanco 2024 94pts
Nace la Sierra 2024 94pts
Costumbres Tinto 2024 93pts

Sandra Bravo

Sierra de Toloño
Villabuena de Álava, Rioja Alavesa

One of our standout producers last year, Sandra Bravo easily earned a spot in our top lineup again. Her wines are immediately recognisable in the glass: elegant, upfront, crystalline and textural.

Their evolution since Sierra de Toloño’s first harvest in 2012 is also remarkable, showing ever greater confidence and increasingly lending more expressiveness to Bravo’s pristine technical ability.

After completing her studies, Bravo honed her craft in Bordeaux, Chianti, Marlborough, California and Priorat, she returned to Rioja in 2012 with equal amounts of emotion, drive, work ethic and critical thinking.

Knowledge and approachability are the foundations of her style, informed by emotion and technique, allowing her to interpret the more than 20 plots of old vines – mostly Garnacha – she farms on the rugged slopes of the Sonsierra region.

While technically pristine, Bravo’s wines never come across as ‘technical’ or ‘cold’; there’s indeed a comforting quality to them that reflects Bravo’s down-to-earth authenticity.

Classical approachability and elegant rusticity are possibly the best ways to summarise the essence of her wines – from her pure, poised so-called entry-level red and white (an outrageous steal at just €12 in Spain, about £20 in the UK), to her single-plot creations, of which there are many.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: wines such as the white Nahikun (‘desire’ in Euskadi) and Tereseño, from Garnacha planted in 1944, are among Rioja’s future (present?) classics.

Sierra de Toloño wines tasted for this report
Tereseño 2023 97pts
La Dula Garnachas de Altura 2023 96pts
Nahikun Blanco 2024 95pts
Sierra de Toloño Tinto 2023 94pts

Victor Ausejo

Alberite, Rioja Oriental

Victor Ausejo’s trajectory was unusual from the outset. The son of an experienced Rioja viticulturist, he never liked viticulture and began working as a plumber.

However, when work dried up, he found himself working towards a degree in viticulture and winemaking in Logroño; and while studying, the wine bug bit him hard. While gaining experience at Vivanco and Gómez Cruzado he started to set his sights on making his own wines.

Here again, his path wasn’t obvious. In 2014, his father convinced him to regraft a family vineyard of Tempranillo with Garnacha Blanca, anticipating (correctly) increased demand for white grapes in Rioja.

Little did he know that this would become one of his son’s specialisms. In 2016, Ausejo planted two more hectares of the variety; in 2018, the first Victor Ausejo Garnacha Blanca was produced. It wasn’t until 2021 that Ausejo produced his first reds.

Today, he works with Garnacha, both white and red, and Mazuelo to produce a boutique range that’s unique in its energetic grip and electric tension. Ausejo calls his tiny winery a workshop, a place of experimentation and discovery.

Victor Ausejo wines tasted for this report
Garnacha Blanca Vino de Clavijo 2024 96pts
Garnacha Tinta 2023 96pts
Mazuelo Vino de Alberite 2023 96pts
Parcela 333 2024 95pts

Muga

Rioja Alta

With the third generation now at the helm, Muga continues to evolve, not resting on its many laurels, and not taking success or status for granted. Ultimately, this is part of Muga’s enduring appeal: an unpretentious classicism and authoritative humility.

The evolution of the range has been both a response to market demands and a refinement of the house style.

Alongside long-standing classics such as Torre de Muga and Prado Enea now stand Muga’s flagship white and rosé (both dubbed Flor de Muga), whose development in the past decade itself reflects ongoing fine-tuning and self-questioning – while staying painstakingly true to a recognisable identity.

A meticulous approach is paramount, in the vineyard as in the cellar. With help from the University of Salamanca, technical director Isaac Muga and head winemaker Pablo Orio are conducting an extensive study of the soils in each vineyard parcel.

Meanwhile, Muga is the only winery in Rioja with its own cooperage, fastidiously selecting and maturing the wood for each barrique and foudre in-house.

Clarification of the wines is still done with egg whites and racking (transferring between containers) is done by gravity only – the approach is low-tech, high-detail and craft-heavy.

Like other Rioja powerhouses, Muga also plays a crucial socioeconomic role in supporting a tight-knit network of small growers – something that makes its evolution and success very much a collective endeavour.

Muga wines tasted for this report
Flor de Muga Blanco Reserva 2022 97pts
Flor de Muga Rosado 2025 95pts
Torre Muga 2021 94pts
Muga Selección Especial 2021 90pts

More from the report

The year after its momentous centenary celebration, producers in DOCa Rioja are going through what some might call a ‘post-celebratory hangover’.

But others – including my fellow tasting judge Beth Willard and I – see it as a moment of exciting development and, crucially, an opportunity to establish a new kind of relevance for Rioja on the world stage.

What does this moment look like? We see it as a point of inflection, in which Rioja’s winemakers become more confident in the quality and character of their wines and the spotlight shines on both small and big names.

New headliners

Last year was not merely a token landmark anniversary.

The centenary coincided with never-before-seen quality levels and the coming of age of a bubbling community of maverick independent growers whose wines – some of which topped this annual report’s scoring charts across categories – questioned where Rioja was heading by reminding everyone about where it had come from.

This year’s report is witness to a new canon that is steadily establishing and framing itself, built from strong historical foundations while animated by a sense of benevolent dissent.

If one of the sections in last year’s Rioja guide report focused on the unsurprisingly standout performance of the long-standing classics of the region, this year a new cast of protagonists (the classics of the future?) has fully come into focus.

It’s an exciting, satisfying validation of many producers that we have long been rooting for and are now topping the score charts (and, in some cases, the investment market spreadsheets).

Overall, this has allowed stylistic expressiveness and character to develop, while also consolidating a more layered yet cohesive portrait of Rioja as a region of great (and significantly differing) terroirs and wines.

In front of these producers is a make-or-break challenge. We circle back to the idea that this is a tipping point for Rioja; leveraging this explosion of potential relies on the ability to deliver what Pablo Franco, technical director at DOCa Rioja, himself identified as a key goal: to support both small producers as innovators and big producers as consolidators, while allowing an overall balance of legacy and progress.

Creative tension

This means embracing an inevitable tension between different – but certainly not incompatible – ideas on typicity and style in Rioja’s wines.

Evolving beyond the traditional age-based categories is necessary; but so is the preservation and fine-tuning of those categories.

If stylistic freedom, based on a vineyard-first purity principle (see Stylistic variations with the 'generic' category and Vino de Municipio & Viñedo Singular), is yielding remarkable wines, equally of note is the finesse and identitarian strength (and outstanding value) of Rioja’s Crianzas and Reservas.

There’s a gradual but inevitable recognition that those differences are not, as perhaps many once thought, contradictions – they are rather expressions of the inherent complexities of a region that has evolved steadily through its long history, forging a strong heritage while never shying away from innovation and progress.

Perhaps the most obvious expression of this magnetic tension is the different attitudes towards the Vino de Municipio and Viñedo Singular categories introduced in 2017, implementing a geography-based quality pyramid in parallel with Rioja’s long-standing ageing-based categorisation.

The quality of the increasing number of wines released with these top-tier regional stamps fully justifies their creation – which ultimately, in the view of myself and Beth, helps to better contextualise the region’s other categories.

Explore the full 2026 Rioja Report

Tomioka in Fukushima is unlikely to appear on most travellers’ Japan itineraries, but the winemakers behind Tomioka Winery hope that, within a generation or two, it will be.

Fifteen years ago, this coastal town was devastated by the tsunami that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake and was entirely evacuated after the subsequent nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, just five kilometres away.

A curious spot for a vineyard, but Tomioka Winery’s founder and president, Shubun Endo, is determined to build the foundations for a more prosperous future for the next generations.

His ambition to start a winery in Tomioka predated 2011, catalysed by his world travels and a growing appreciation for wine culture. The disaster only strengthened his resolve.

‘After the earthquake, I came to feel even more strongly about the importance of the region’s revitalisation, and my desire to establish wine as a permanent part of the community grew,’ he says.

‘This region has sea, mountains, and rivers, each with its own culinary potential. I believed wine could serve as the link connecting them all.’

The journey to opening Tomioka Winery hasn’t been smooth. ‘As we moved forward with preparations, we spoke with and consulted Tomioka Town Hall staff, residents, acquaintances, and friends about making wine in Tomioka. However, most people were sceptical.

'We were constantly bombarded with reasons why it couldn’t be done. “Grapes won’t grow near the ocean,” people said. Others doubted anyone would drink wine made on land associated with radiation contamination.’

Facing the challenges

Despite the challenges ahead, Endo felt a sense of duty to push ahead.

His family is prominent in Tomioka, with 300 years of history in the town. His father was serving as mayor during the disaster on 11th March 2011 and led the town’s evacuation. These roots gave Endo a sense of purpose to rebuild the town.

‘I never once considered the option of not returning. I’d heard since I was a child that my Endo family ancestors spared no effort for the sake of the community, and that I had inherited that spirit,’ he says.

‘This compound disaster – a combination of natural disasters like the earthquake and tsunami with a nuclear accident – was something no country in the world had ever experienced. It was an extremely difficult mission, but it felt like destiny to me. The example set by my late father, who risked his life to protect the townspeople, was a major factor.’

The winery’s location, right by the Tomioka Station, seemed appropriate; it’s accessible, it is the welcoming face of the town, and it’s right beside the only Endo family property not destroyed by the tsunami – a storehouse that dates back around 80 years.

The building is now a symbol of the winery, incorporated into the logo. The metal rails on its window, bent and pummelled by the waves (see above picture), are part of the story of the town.

Endo assembled a team, including Junichiro Hosokawa, a seasoned sommelier and winemaker, who relocated to Tomioka in 2022.

‘The evacuation order had not yet been fully lifted, and I was shocked at the scene. A nearby Fashion Center Shimamura looked as if time had stood still since the disaster, with clothes in the store windows torn and strewn on the ground,’ he says.

‘We were starting a winery from scratch in Tomioka, a place with no track record or expertise in grape cultivation, so every day was spent exploring grape variety selection and cultivation methods suited to Tomioka’s proximity to the sea. I felt a sense of purpose that came from knowing we were undertaking a disaster recovery effort through wine.’

Perhaps the biggest challenge the team faced in turning this desolate space into a winery was to prepare the soil. They removed the topsoil, which had been ravaged by the tsunami, and replaced it with soil with a profile similar to the original – river sand from the Natsui River in Iwaki City and soil sourced from the Abukuma mountain range, about 45 minutes away.

‘By using topsoil from the same origin as the original soil, we believe that Tomioka’s terroir has been restored,’ says Hosokawa.

In April 2016, while the entire town was still under evacuation orders, Endo planted the first grapevines in Tomioka Town.

First Harvest

The first few years were challenging, with vine diseases and insects affecting the harvest. Endo, Hosokawa, and a team of volunteers had little success until 2019.

‘That year (2019), we were able to harvest the grapes and produce our first 57 bottles of wine,’ says Endo.

‘I felt that the volunteers’ mindset had shifted significantly. It was the moment when the impossible became possible, and I believe that was a major turning point.’

The winery now employs 12 people in its restaurant, shop and vineyards, which span around 60,000 square metres and grow 16,000 grapevines, serendipitously matching the pre-2011 earthquake population of Tomioka.

Tomioka Winery doesn’t yet produce enough grapes for the 10,000 bottles it produces annually, so production is supplemented with grapes from other prefectures.

Within five years, it will have the infrastructure to produce 30 to 40,000 bottles, including Chardonnay, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and Koshu.

Endo enjoys a whimsical approach to winemaking. Taking inspiration from winemakers who believe the sound vibrations in music can influence fermentation, he plays Debussy’s La Mer all day, every day in the cellar.

‘A lot of winemakers choose Mozart, but it didn’t work well here. We needed something better suited to the sea breeze, music that reflected the ocean,’ he says.

Endo has even taken inspiration from a soy sauce factory he visited in Nagoya, which had a sticker reading ‘Arigatou’, meaning ‘thank you’ in Japanese, to honour the living bacteria.

Endo has added a sticker of thanks in the languages of each of the countries that have inspired his winemaking journey: Japanese, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, and Ukrainian.

Safety Concerns

Major recovery efforts in the region, including topsoil removal, demolition of buildings and extensive cleaning, have reduced contamination. As a result, most evacuation orders have since been lifted, although only around 1,300 of Tomioka's 16,000 residents have returned.

Before moving to Tomioka, Hosokawa had some reservations. ‘Since this is an area affected by the nuclear accident, I was worried that radiation levels might be high. However, I was reassured when I checked the radiation monitors in town and saw that the levels were not high,’ he says.

‘Rather than dwelling on the past, I felt a stronger sense of anticipation about being involved in efforts to build the future.’

Endo knows that Tomioka's road to recovery is long. ‘The area still carries a negative image,’ says Endo.

‘But reconstruction is not only about infrastructure. Local people have to create excitement again, to build something others want to come and experience. I want Tomioka to be a place where people can think about what truly matters, and imagine what this region could become 100 years from now.’

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The eye traces the Loire from its mouth in Muscadet to Sancerre in the east. Pulled into Burgundy’s current, we’re soon adrift in Beaujolais, forgetting that France’s longest river bends sharply south to its origins in the volcanic heart of the Massif Central.

The Côtes du Forez lies on the slopes of this ancient landscape, almost off the map – yet nearest to where the river begins.

The smallest of the four appellations that make up the Loire Volcanique – a collective whose origins date back to a 2014 tasting entitled Ici Commence La Loire (‘Here the Loire Begins’) – Forez covers just 150ha of vines.

Its vineyards sit above the headwaters at elevations of 400m-600m, on granite and basalt soils derived from volcanic activity millions of years ago.

Narrow river-carved valleys – les gouttes – divide Forez into a patchwork of scattered hillside vineyards, mixed with pasture and forest.

Gamay is the sole grape permitted under the Forez AP, and the 11 domaines within the appellation mostly work with Gamay St Romain, a local biotype adapted to this upland terrain over centuries, producing wines of fine tannins, spiced red fruit, pepper and smoky minerality.

The Gamay connection invites associations with Beaujolais, but Forez’s higher elevation, shorter growing season and St Romain variant make for an edgier, more savoury expression.

Mostly unoaked, the wines manage to be dark yet light, mercifully registering around 12% alcohol.

Beyond Gamay, the vignerons of Forez bottle everything from volcanic Viognier and Chenin to Syrah under the IGP Urfé designation.

From the 1960s until the establishment of the Forez AP in 2000, virtually all local wine came from a single cooperative.

It was a long fall from grace: vines flourished here through the Middle Ages, and by 1883, there were more than 5,000ha under vine, fortifying the local mining industry and sending wine up the river.

Economically decimated by the phylloxera bug and two world wars, Forez was all but forgotten until a few local patriots brought it back from the edge.

Basalt crags and mountain Gamay

I arrived on a green-grey April morning with a cadre of curious Parisian sommeliers and wine merchants.

The vignerons greeted us at Château de Marcoux, perched on a basalt crag above the valley, and we tasted these mountain Gamays over a hearty lunch – charcuterie, Fourme de Montbrison cheese and a steaming pot of potatoes in cheese, cream and butter. I was grateful for the wines’ cleansing acidity and spicy profile.

Forez’s Gamays on granite, I found, tend toward richer, fruit-driven wines, whereas the basalt expressions are more mineral and ethereal.

Among the first to make wine outside the co-op were the Logel family. Today, cousins Maxime Verdier [Gillier] and Julie Logel carry the torch, having returned to Forez – Maxime from city life, Julie from development work in Cambodia.

I heard their colourful story – and those of fellow vignerons Stéphane Réal and Gilles Bonnefoy – over dinner at Château de Goutelas, where the menu was prepared chef Jacques Marcon of Michelin three-star Restaurant Régis & Jacques Marcon in St-Bonnet-le-Froid.

Famous for his use of wild mushrooms – gloriously in season at the time – Marcon served one of the finest meals I’ve had in France, and Forez’s volcanic Gamays rose to every course.

Pulsing with life

It’s easy to assume that places such as Forez – almost off the map – are provincial backwaters. But as I find time and again, there’s both natural beauty and cultural vibrance in forgotten France.

Medieval Château de Goutelas, part hotel, part progressive cultural centre, hosts artist residencies and music events – from raves to baroque ensembles. Perched in a forest among vines on the side of an extinct volcano, it pulses with life.

The Loire, like practically every river, has a hyporheic zone – an underground flow that extends far beyond its visible banks.

When we think we’re standing alongside a river, we are in fact often standing above it, unaware of what moves beneath.

Virginia Woolf, that most deliquescent of writers, put it best: ‘The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.’

The eye traces these glistening surfaces, but to go beneath, we must travel to the source.

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By the time the Continental Congress formally approved the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776, winemaking in North America already had a relatively long and uneven history.

The earliest attempts date back to the early decades of European settlement and involved experiments with native grape species.

Typically characterised by high acidity, lower sugar levels, and distinctive flavour profiles, these native grapes produced wines markedly different from their European counterparts, prompting repeated (and often unsuccessful) attempts to establish plantings of Vitis vinifera imported from the Old World.

One of the most notable of such attempts was undertaken by Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and passionate wine enthusiast, who planted European grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot at his Monticello estate in Virginia.

Despite more than three decades of stubborn experimentation, Jefferson never succeeded in producing a reliable vintage from these vines.

Vitis vinifera’s failures in North America were long attributed to factors such as unfavourable climate, soil conditions, or poor vineyard practices, but a far more significant element at play was likely the presence of phylloxera.

This microscopic root-feeding pest native to North America that would later decimate European vineyards once inadvertently introduced there in the 19th century.

More substantial viticultural progress came with the arrival of Franciscan missionaries in the American southwest, who cultivated the Mission grape, a variety imported from Spain – via Mexico – and later identified as Listán Prieto.

This grape became the foundation of California’s early wine industry, demonstrating the region’s capacity for sustained viticulture.

Indeed, while wine production expanded across the United States, it was California that laid the groundwork for what would become the epicentre of American winemaking, driven in large part by European immigrants bringing both technical expertise and commercial ambition.

Among them were Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian who established Buena Vista in Sonoma in 1857, and German immigrant Charles Krug who founded his namesake winery in Napa Valley in 1861.

Prohibition: Time for a reset

As Europe grappled with the devastation of phylloxera towards the end of the 19th century, the United States was laying the groundwork for a constitutional alcohol ban.

Nationwide prohibition officially began in January 1920. Its impact on American wine was immediate and severe.

Most commercial wineries ceased operations altogether, bringing what had so far been a growing and increasingly ambitious industry to an abrupt halt.

Wine production, however, did not disappear entirely. Wineries such as Beaulieu Vineyard and Beringer were able to survive the dry years by producing sacramental wine for religious institutions.

At the same time, a legal loophole created a parallel informal economy centred around domestic winemaking, particularly in immigrant-heavy urban areas like New York, Chicago, and Boston.

By the time Prohibition was repealed in December 1933, only a small fraction of America’s wineries were still operational.

The industry’s entire commercial infrastructure – vineyards, distribution networks, oenological expertise, and consumer culture – had to be rebuilt almost from scratch.

California Chablis, jug wine and post-Prohibition rebirth

For much of post-Prohibition America, wine was primarily an inexpensive intoxicant, often sweet, and produced in ‘Port’ or ‘Sherry’-style expressions that bore little resemblance to their Old World counterparts.

Yet, beneath these high mass-market volumes, some producers began investing seriously in quality and in the long-term potential of American wine.

One of the most transformative moments came in 1938 with the arrival of Russian-born winemaker André Tchelistcheff at Napa’s Beaulieu Vineyard.

Widely regarded as one of the founding architects of modern Californian wine, Tchelistcheff introduced a new level of scientific rigour and technical precision to viticulture and winemaking, drawing heavily on European high standards while adapting practices to Californian conditions.

Through direct mentorship and broader industry influence, Tchelistcheff helped shape a new generation of winemakers, including figures such as Robert Mondavi, Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, and Miljenko ‘Mike’ Grgich of Grgich Hills, who would play defining roles in the rise of modern American wine.

Robert Mondavi, in particular, proved instrumental in reshaping the narrative surrounding Californian wine.

Rather than relying on (then common) European-inspired names such as ‘California Chablis’ or ‘Napa Burgundy’, he championed varietal labelling, placing grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay front and centre.

Mondavi also promoted wine as part of a broader cultural lifestyle connected to gastronomy, music, art, and conviviality, helping (re)position it as an aspirational product rather than a merely functional one.

By the 1970s, the United States was producing wines capable of competing with the world’s finest.

British wine merchant Steven Spurrier was sufficiently convinced of such progress that, in 1976, he organised a blind tasting in Paris pitting leading Californian wines against some of France’s most prestigious labels.

The outcome of what would become known as the Judgment of Paris stunned the audience, the jury, and the industry as a whole: Californian wines triumphed in both the white and red categories, defeating celebrated Burgundies and Bordeaux.

The tasting marked a watershed moment for American wine, securing its place on the global fine wine map and fundamentally altering international perceptions of what the country was capable of bottling.

Napa Cab and The Critics

In the years that followed this landmark moment, Californian winemaking increasingly shifted towards a style defined by power, ripeness, and opulence, producing wines marked by intense fruit concentration, elevated alcohol levels, deep extraction, and generous use of new French oak.

This evolution was strongly shaped by the rise of influential critic Robert Parker Jr, who tended to favour this bold, ripe stylistic approach, rewarding it with higher marks in his influential 100-point scoring system.

This philosophy gradually spread beyond California, in a phenomenon referred to, sometimes critically, as Parkerisation.

From Bordeaux to Tuscany and Rioja, producers increasingly embraced riper fruit, softer tannins, later harvesting, and more assertive oak regimes.

They often sought input from influential international consultants such as Michel Rolland, in pursuit of the high critic scores they felt could elevate reputation, demand, and revenues almost overnight.

As the 20th century drew to a close, the United States had entered an entirely new phase of its wine history.

No longer a country merely striving to prove its legitimacy to the global wine establishment, it had become one of the principal forces shaping its direction, aesthetics, and economic dynamics.

A multi-layered landscape

Modern American wine is a remarkably nuanced landscape, one that mirrors the equally complex history of the country itself and the multitude of cultures, migrations, and traditions that shaped its social fabric.

California continues to dominate both production volume and the premium sector, but has become far more stylistically diverse than the blockbuster Cabernet stereotype often associated with it.

Powerful Napa Cab still occupies a central place in the state’s identity, yet California today produces an extraordinary range of styles, from refined coastal Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to Mediterranean varieties such as Grenache, Mourvèdre, Carignan, and Vermentino.

Zinfandel (arguably America’s most emblematic grape) is also being reinterpreted in more nuanced and site-specific ways.

Meanwhile, fellow West Coast states have, over the past few decades, firmly joined the race for quality wine production.

Oregon has established itself as a leading cool-climate region, particularly for elegant Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while Washington State has earned acclaim for structured Cabernet Sauvignon, Rhône varieties, and vibrant Riesling.

On the East Coast, New York’s Finger Lakes region has steadily built a reputation for refined, high-acid, cool-climate wines, particularly Riesling and Cabernet Franc.

Centuries after Thomas Jefferson’s failed experiments, Virginia has also finally found its winemaking identity, acclaimed for Cabernet Franc and Viognier, grapes well suited to the state’s humid continental climate (though producers are successfully working across a wide range of styles and varieties).

Beyond these, quality wine is produced in almost every American state, from the Mediterranean varieties of Texas to the cool, fresh, and unexpectedly refined whites of Michigan.

Across the country, winemakers now express a striking diversity of approaches and philosophies, with an increasing emphasis on regional identity over homogenised stylistic consistency.

The story of American wine may have begun as a matter of trial and – significant – error, but in the span of a semiquincentennial it has morphed into a deliberate, confident, and increasingly self-assured expression of place, as diverse and expansive as the country itself.

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When whisky meets orange wine...

The latest limited-edition release from Highland distillery Deanston, 17 Year Old Orange Wine Cask Finish (Alc 53.6%, £89.95-£95/70cl Spirited, The Whisky Exchange) is a single malt that has been matured for 15 years in ex-bourbon casks before a further two-year finish in casks previously used to make vino de naranja – a fortified wine from Andalucía made with bitter orange peel.

It’s bold and rich, with orange zest and orange oil aromas, honey, camomile and marmalade on toast, plus nuttiness and woody spice.

In the mouth, Deanston’s signature waxiness joins an intense bitter citrus character, with notes of blood orange, dried apricots, sultanas, honey, brown spice and malted milk biscuit.

Make a Colomba cocktail

From: Paper Plane, San Jose, California, USA

Words by: Vicki Denig

What is a Colomba cocktail?

This Italian twist on a summery Paloma cocktail was created by Ryan Ota, director of beverage operations for MO-Hospitality, which owns Paper Plane in downtown San Jose.

‘I’ve always loved bitter cocktails and liqueurs, and I look for any opportunity to share that preference with others,’ he says.

‘The Colomba is designed as an accessible Paloma riff; it features a full ounce of Campari but balances the bitterness with tropical passion fruit.

The name Colomba is the Italian word for dove, mirroring the meaning of the Spanish Paloma. The result is a refreshing cocktail that carries the pleasant, sharp bitterness of biting into a fresh grapefruit.’

Ota prefers to use Squirt grapefruit soda (£2.99/355ml Mexican Mama) and adds: ‘Be sure not to over-shake this cocktail; you want to leave enough room in the glass to top it off with the Squirt.’

Ingredients: What you'll need

• Glass: Highball
• Garnish: Orange twist
• 40ml blanco tequila
• 40ml Campari
• 30ml passion fruit syrup
• 30ml lemon juice
• 60ml grapefruit soda (to top)

Method

• Add all ingredients except the grapefruit soda to a shaker filled with ice and shake until your hands are cold.
• Strain into a highball glass filled with ice cubes.
• Top with soda and garnish.

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Top medals for English producers at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2026 show there has never been a better time to dive into the country’s rapidly developing vinous landscape, from vintage fizz to terroir-driven still wines.

Newly released results add a fresh chapter to UK winemakers’ blossoming success story. For the second consecutive year, a magnum of English sparkling featured in the top 50 Best in Show selection, which at DWWA 2026 represents just 0.3% of all wines tasted.

Meanwhile, still wines continue to assert themselves on the global stage. Chardonnay led the way at DWWA 2026, including via a coveted Platinum medal.

Simon Field MW, encouraged wine drinkers to ‘be adventurous’. DWWA’s rigorous judging process, involving many world-leading experts, means buyers can explore with the utmost confidence.

Top awarded English wines at DWWA 2026

Balfour, Blanc de Blancs, Kent, England 2018 (magnum)

Best in Show, 97 points
£120/magnum Balfour Winery
For the second year in a row, the sparkling wine that most impressed our GB & Ireland panel was one bottled in magnum. In contrast to last year’s Sussex blend, though, the 2026 laureate was a blanc de blancs wine from Kent. It was a much younger wine, too – a 2018 rather than last year’s 2009. A youthful style, then, with a see the of fine-beaded bubbles and incision to the fore in its sensual profile? Absolutely. But remember what a generous summer the UK enjoyed in 2018. The aromas of this pale sparkler sing: poised lemon cream, sourdough and cut stone tease and linger in the glass. While the palate is bracing, mouthwatering and impactful, that splendid season is evident in its length and resonance. The extra-dry style throws the spotlight on the wine’s fruit qualities (orchard fruits as well as lemony citrus) and the quality of its acidity (dominant, taut yet unquestionably ripe – as you can detect in the wine’s latent aromatics). This is an English wine magnum with a long future ahead if well stored. Alcohol 12%

Winding Wood, Rosé Brut, Berkshire, England 2022

Platinum, 97 points
£38 (ib)-£42.50 Carte Blanche Wines, Winding Wood Vineyard
Rose garden and strawberry aromatics with red apple notes. A plush, toasted brioche core. Beautifully fresh with a gentle mousse and a long finish. Alc 12%

Tidebrook, Staddle Stone Chardonnay, Sussex, England 2023

Platinum, 97 points
£34-£36 George Hill Grocers, Mousehall, The Whisky Exchange
Lush lemon curd and stone fruit underscored by the cool-climate tension of chalky minerals. Racy acidity ripples through a sheen of creamy oak complexity and garnishes the long finish. Alc 12.5%

Chapel Down, Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée Extra Brut, Kent, England 2016

Gold, 96 points
£120-£130 Chapel Down, Hedonism, The English Wine Collection, The Whisky Exchange
Deliciously evolving aromas of ripe apple, quince, caramel and bread fill out the plump structure and settled mousse, quenched by the tapering, lemon tonic acidity. Alc 12%

Hundred Hills, Hillside No3, Oxfordshire, England 2019

Gold, 96 points
£116.34/magnum Hundred Hills
In magnum. Vivid citrus, biscuit and chalky mineral elegance harmonise with the ample texture and plush, creamy mousse. Very complete, long and sizzling with energy. Alc 12%

Wiston, Blanc de Blancs Brut, South Downs, England 2018

Gold, 96 points
£54-£65 All About Wine, Hedonism, London End Wines, Must & Lees, Wiston Estate

Tropical fruit and floral aromas over frothy, mouthfilling bubbles. Subtle acidity brings the fine-tuning. Savoury, creamy notes gather at the end. Alc 12%

Bluestone, Premier Reserve Brut, England 2018

Gold, 95 points
Bluestone Vineyards
Smouldering smoky matchstick characters pair admirably with a fine veneer of lemon tart, brioche and apricot jam. A plush opulence cushions the pervading acidity. Exceptional. Alc 12%

Hambledon, Blanc de Blancs Brut, Hampshire, England NV

Gold, 95 points
£54-£62 Berry Bros & Rudd, Hambledon Vineyard, The Champagne Co, Vinvm
Exemplary English character: floral, green cow parsley and vanilla cream aromas fold into the exuberant lemon-pith mousse and racy acidity. Very long and compelling. Alc 12%

Hambledon, Classic Cuvée Brut, Hampshire, England NV

Gold, 95 points
£95/magnum Hambledon Vineyard
In magnum. Splendid golden apple, pear and zingy lemon fragrance softly draped over a backdrop of baked caramel biscuit. Poised and stirring, with silky bubbles and mineral length. Alc 12%

Sugrue South Downs, Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan Brut, Sussex, England NV

Gold, 95 points
£125-£135 Grape Britannia, Hennings, Indigo Wine
Layers of apple, citrus and floral notes grace the refined effervescence and gentle acidity. A delightful honeyed, bready character unfolds towards the end. Alc 12%

Wiston, Blanc de Noirs Brut, South Downs, England 2018

Gold, 95 points
£58-£68 All about wine, Drinks Direct, Fortnum & Mason, Hedonism, The Wine Engine, Wiston Estate
Dark berry and toffee apple notes weave into the generous texture and bright, elevating acidity. Well crafted and pure. Alc 12%

Coolhurst Vineyards, Lady Elizabeth Rosé, Sussex, England 2018

Gold, 95 points
£45 Coolhurst Vineyards
Attractively composed fresh strawberry, raspberry, cherry and red apple allied with sumptuous brioche and savoury saline charm. Weighty and structured with supple mousse. Alc 12%

Gusbourne, Boot Hill Vineyard Chardonnay, Kent, England 2022

Gold, 95 points
£55 Gusbourne
Assertive aromas of baked apple, pear and creamy oak sit regally over the luxuriant structure and ease gently towards a deceptively long finish. Perfectly expressed Chardonnay. Alc 13%

Harrow & Hope, No10 Reserve Brut, Buckinghamshire, England NV

Silver, 94 points
£33-£35 Abingdon Fine Wine, Grape Britannia, Jeroboams, Laithwaites, The English Wine Collection, The Oxford Wine Co
Toasted hazelnut, walnut and honeysuckle aromas. Concentrated lemon curd and pastry notes. Alc 12%

English Oak, San Gabriel Blanc de Blancs Chardonnay Brut, Dorset, England 2019

Silver, 93 points
£60 English Oak Vineyard
Nougat, fig and spice on the nose. Creamy pear and stewed apple flavours, bright acidity and hints of toffee apple. Alc 12%

Search all DWWA 2026 winners

It’s a season where most of us will have at least one bottle of white chilling in the fridge. But while summer always sees an expected surge in white wine sales, the category maintains a surprisingly significant market share year round.

Sales data tracked by online retailer vino.com shows white wine volume share peaking at an average of 32% of total wine sales in July/August, but holding strong at 20% even in January.

Red wine, in contrast, plummets from a 52% share in January to 24% in July.

According to OIV data reported by Decanter in December 2023, white wine consumption grew by 10% globally over two decades – driven largely by an increased demand for sparkling wine – yet global red wine consumption had declined by 15% since its peak in 2007.

It also found that the US is the world's largest consumer of white wine. US white wine consumption rose by as much as 65% between 2000 and 2021, a trajectory that spans all four seasons.

So how well do you know your white grape varieties beyond the usual suspects?

A handful of dominant grapes rule the supermarket shelves, but they represent a fraction of what’s out there. We know that Decanter readers enjoy embracing new grapes and styles, so test your knowledge with our 12-question white grape variety quiz, and do us proud!

Take Decanter's white grapes quiz

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I arrived in Burgundy for a two-month stint in late spring of 2024 with only a limited understanding of the region, and even less sense of how to navigate it.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks into living in Chalon-sur-Saône that I went to Beaune for the first time.

I soon realised that the key to enjoying Burgundy at its best was to think – and drink – like a local.

Burgundy is small enough, and its wine community close enough, that it doesn’t take long to notice how everyone is connected – winemakers, importers and friends-of-friends all circle back to the same handful of addresses.

Spend just a few evenings in Beaune’s wine bars and that web starts to reveal itself.

Get to the beating heart

The centre of that web is Beaune’s Saturday market – and more specifically, the Saint Romain Coffee cart in front of the giant panda statue.

Matt McClune, an artist from Boston, moved to France in 2004 with his wife, eventually landing in St-Romain, where he started a coffee roastery.

Saint Romain Coffee fuels the wine world in Burgundy and beyond. The coffees, which are all sourced from independent farms in Ethiopia, are carefully roasted in small batches at Matt’s shop, located in a cellar-like space on a steep hill just above a sea of vines.

The shop is open Mondays and Tuesdays, but it’s best to find Matt on Saturdays, pouring perfectly extracted espresso into ceramic mugs among a swarm of winemakers and market-goers.

It’s from this point that the world of Burgundy – its goings-on, its stories, its secrets – opens up.

Ease into local life

The market itself is one of the region’s best. Stalls of spices, cheese, fruit, bread, vegetables and cured meats roll into town before sunrise and take over every street, only to roll out again by midday.

Beaune’s narrow cobbled roads buzz with food and wine lovers.

Afterwards, with bags of Comté and produce in hand, locals retreat to Beaune’s brasseries for lunch. Crème Comptoir, an all-day café and wine bar on Rue Paradis, is a favourite – an easygoing spot, where bar seating wraps around an open kitchen.

Here Saturday afternoons reliably draw a crowd of local winemakers and wine professionals catching up over a bottle.

Listen in for long enough and you’ll pick up on the region’s rhythms. The Côte d’Or’s large expat community makes it an easy place to navigate without French, and postings for local wine and food fairs and concerts are usually pinned in the window.

In Burgundy, it’s nearly impossible to turn over every stone in a single visit – there is always another producer, another café, another thread to follow.

What remains constant is the promise of a region that opens itself up to those patient and curious enough to seek out its local community, not just its cellar doors.

Knowing where to begin is the hardest part – and that’s exactly what this guide, and the recommendations below, are designed to help with.

Many of the villages in Burgundy are accessible by train – the same line that carries you south to Lyon and north to Paris.

Having a car isn’t really necessary, but it’s helpful for organising vineyard visits and exploring the region beyond its towns.

Wineries to visit

The wineries listed here are a great start to discovering the wines of the region. Always try and book in advance, some wineries are open by appointment only.

Where to stay

Boutique hotels and guest houses are the perfect place to base yourself when travelling in Burgundy. Many of them marry historic touches and original features with contemporary decor and a sense of understated luxry.

Alfred Hotels, Beaune

A boutique hotel on the edge of Beaune that opened in early 2026, its 49 rooms are the perfect jumping off point for exploring the local town and the region beyond.

It seamlessly blends old and new, offering a comfortable stay while remaining enmeshed in Beaune’s historic landscape.

Maison du Colombier, Beaune

A historic guesthouse in Beaune’s city center with five independent apartments and a great wine bar that opens onto the iconic cobblestone streets.

Maison le Chevreuil, Meursault

Luxury 10-room inn and restaurant surrounded by the beautiful vineyards of Meursault.

Papotte, Bligny-sur-Ouche

A series of four design-forward homes and apartments located around a beautiful mill, offering longer-stay rentals. There is also a beautiful café.

Côté Park, Givry

An 18th-century château converted into four distinct guest rooms which overlook a quiet courtyard.

Ô Cœur de Chalon, Chalon-sur-Saône

There are some amazing homes for rent in downtown Chalon-Sur-Saône, and this is a great option for something central.

What to do

Where to eat and drink

Unsurprisingly good wine is not hard to come by in Burgundy, but the suggestions for restaurants and wine bars below offer something a cut above the rest; a well-measured combination of excellent wines, thoughtful and sensitive food and great atmosphere.

Crème Café, Beaune

All-day café and wine bar serving seasonal fare in a laid back setting.

La Dilettante, Beaune

Wine bar serving natural wine and French classics with a Japanese influence.

Caves Madeleine, Beaune

Often considered one of the best restaurants in Beaune for its hyper-local classic cuisine and amazing wine list. Make a reservation far in advance to get a seat.

The Publican, Beaune

Local evening haunt serving great local wine and beers on draft.

Le Soleil, Savigny-les-Beaune

A quaint inn and bistro set inside a gorgeous, sun-yellow home. Both the food and wine menus rotate daily – farm to table takes on a new meaning here, with deliveries being made by local farmers and winemakers at all hours of the day and night.

La Cave du Centre, Chagny

Opened in 2024 by wine writer Aaron Ayscough, it serves foremost as a wine shop offering unique and fan-favourite bottles alike, alongside a menu – written on the mirror of course – of classically French small bites.

Colette, Chassagne

Set among Chassagne’s beautiful vineyards, this is a wine bar, wine shop and coffee shop from Clément Colin-Morey – son of local legendary winemaker Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey – and his partner Emma.

Le Petit Chêne, Chassagne

One of the region’s best boulangeries and chocolate shops.

Le Soufflot, Meursault

Located in a former winegrower's house in one of Burgundy’s most iconic villages, the atmosphere here is relaxed and comfortable, but the food is refined and delicate, paired with an excellent wine list.

Haïka Coffee, Chalon-Sur-Saône

A great local roastery in the town center with a lovely terrace where you can catch the goings-on of the town while you sip.

La Maison Romane, Nuits-St-Georges

Restaurant, bakery, brewery and cellar, La Maison Romane is a true hub for community and connection in Burgundy, founded by Oronce de Beler, who decided to leave Paris in 2004 to learn winemaking.

Bruno, Dijon

An intimate wine bar helmed by Bruno himself, a local legend in Dijon, who has curated one of the most refined wine lists in Burgundy, serving charcuterie, cheese, anchovies and other great delicacies to regulars and tourists alike.

Cibo, Dijon

A new-wave bistrot serving refined seasonal fare inside of a stunning 17th-century stone building in downtown Dijon.

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Just south of medieval Chambéry in Savoie, in eastern France, Apremont takes its name from either the Latin asper montis (‘rough mountain’) or the French après mont (‘after the mountain’).

That mountain is Mont Granier, whose imposing limestone wall dominates the Combe de Savoie, a 40km valley that runs southwest to northeast across the centre of the Savoie region.

Granier’s story is one of catastrophe and renewal, and the alpine wines from its slopes express its layered history.

On the night of 24 November 1248, a massive section of Mont Granier’s limestone cliff face collapsed – one of Europe’s largest recorded landslides. Five villages were buried beneath millions of tonnes of rock, with one account from a travelling monk claiming 5,000 perished.

For centuries, the landscape remained a mostly barren pile of rubble. Eventually, Savoyard farmers found that grapes – especially the native white Jacquère – were the only crop that would take root in the stony soil.

Today, Apremont’s vineyards grow atop the remnants of the mountain and the villages buried beneath.

Jacquère, Savoie’s little-known white workhorse, is grown across the region but is the signature grape of Apremont, where it produces pale, crystalline whites with delicate floral notes, a whisper of gunflint minerality and bright citrus and lychee – all carried by an airy, saline freshness.

If you love Muscadet’s oyster-shell minerality or crisp Chablis, Apremont offers something similar but distinctly alpine.

The better expressions taste like melted snow scraped from a mountain crag, with a squeeze of lemon and a scattering of white flowers.

Pale green, they’re light but not watery, with a mineral texture and a clean, salivating finish. Like most Savoie wines, they naturally hover around 11% alcohol.

Time travel

I first fell for Apremont on a summer trip to lake Annecy, a jewel of the French Alps.

After days hiking above and swimming in the turquoise waters (it’s the cleanest lake in Europe), we enjoyed the local whites with Savoie’s signature cheeses: Reblochon, Beaufort and Tomme de Savoie.

I soon developed an affinity for Apremont’s minerally whites, which are very affordable, unpretentious and speak clearly of time and place.

The affinity grew when I returned to visit the hillside vineyards and villages, which feel like stepping back into both old France and geological time. Apremont is Savoie’s largest sub-regional designation, yet it remains little known beyond the region – or even within France.

But that’s changing as wine lovers seek lighter styles and indigenous varieties, with Savoie being touted as ‘the next Jura’.

These wines pair brilliantly with the region’s famous alpine dishes – fondue, raclette, lake fish – but they’re equally at home with oysters and grilled seafood, or simply as an aperitif.

The story of Apremont reminds us that beauty and renewal can emerge from disaster. It also reminds us how fragile everything is – how a mountain can fall, how quickly life can change.

Where catastrophe once struck, vines now thrive, producing some of France’s most delicate and distinctive whites.

Born on a fallen mountain, these are wines shaped by stone and best enjoyed with a feeling of gratitude.

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In general, fine wine prices have continued to stabilise in 2026. ‘Prices have stopped going down and in little niches they have gone up a bit,’ said Geraint Carter, of international merchant Bordeaux Index and the LiveTrade online trading platform.

Major indices at Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, were broadly flat in the four months to 30 April.

Its Fine Wine 50 index, tracking Bordeaux first growths, performed best, rising 0.7%. Miles Davis, market expert at Vinum Fine Wines, with offices in the UK and Asia, reported strong wealthy buyer interest in ‘high octane, rare’ wines, plus resurgent demand in China, despite a ‘dreary’ overall market.

Vinum also sold more Pontet-Canet 2025 than expected as Bordeaux en primeur got underway. Carter characterised the market as ‘challenging’ with bursts of activity.

Top sellers include five-star Bordeaux and middle-aged Champagne (see box, below).

Some LiveTrade bidders have found willing sellers below market prices, yet Bordeaux Index has also sold large format, ex-château stock at surprisingly high prices.

Global consultancy group Knight Frank highlighted a rising thirst for visually appealing, large-format bottles over the past decade.

‘The growing prevalence of glass-fronted wine rooms in prime homes is influencing what collectors buy,’ said its 2026 Wealth Report, citing Liv-ex as a data partner.

Some auction houses have been enjoying a purple patch. Nick Pegna, global head of wines and spirits at Sotheby’s, said: ‘We have really seen a change from September last year onwards. For the year so far globally, we’ve sold 96% of the lots that we’ve offered, which is stronger than we’ve seen for a number of years.’

Collectors are currently seeking out mature, ready-to-drink fine wines at a range of different price levels, he said.

‘There are people happy to buy a £150 bottle of mature Pichon Comtesse, as well as people spending 200,000 [US] dollars on 1870 Lafite, and everything in between.’

However, looking ahead, Pegna echoed other trade members in expressing caution regarding a turbulent geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.

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

First among equals?

Bordeaux’s relative decline in the fine wine market over the past 15-20 years has felt almost inexorable.

In 2010’s China-led buying frenzy, it formed close to 80% of our trade by value; today that figure is nearer 40%.

To traditionalists, this can seem faintly apostatic, but it simply reflects the habits of modern consumers.

The world of fine wine has broadened hugely. Burgundy, Champagne and Tuscany have all improved dramatically in quality, consistency and market prominence.

Consumers now have access to a far wider range of great wines than ever before, and Bordeaux’s dominance was never going to survive unchanged.

Ironically, Bordeaux itself has never been more technically accomplished; the region is producing more delicious and consistent wines across all price levels.

Yet modern tastes aren’t driven solely by quality. Long ageing windows, overt brand orientation and an overall air of seriousness can feel out of step in an age infatuated with immediacy, personality and narratives.

Still, Bordeaux retains unrivalled scale, liquidity and recognition, and a habit of producing extraordinary wines in great vintages. In many respects, it feels less like a fallen empire, more like a ‘first among equals’.

As en primeur rolls on with reduced traction, the challenge is less about reclaiming dominance than showing why the system still deserves consumers’ attention.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and ‘immortal’ Bordeaux lead auction scene

Celebrated composer and musical impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber has auctioned wine cellar treasures via Christie’s in London, raising £517,910 for musical instruments and tuition in schools.

Every lot sold, with a bottle of Château Margaux 1900 fetching £35,000, including buyer’s premium, outpacing a pre-sale high estimate of £7,000. Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti delivered the highest price in the sale, however.

A three-bottle lot of Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 2005 sold for £56,250, including buyer’s premium (high estimate: £45,000).

All hammer proceeds will go to the Andrew Lloyd Webber Programme, which is administered by the Music in Secondary Schools Trust.

It has been another busy period for high-profile auctions generally. In New York, a Sotheby’s auction of ‘immortal’ Bordeaux vintages also saw every lot find a buyer.

Total sales hit $2.1m (£1.55m), $800,000 above the pre-sale high estimate. Flagship lots included two magnums of Lafite Rothschild 1870, a hallowed vintage.

Both came from a well-preserved cellar at Scotland’s Glamis Castle more than 50 years ago. While the first magnum fetched $106,250, including buyer’s premium, the second sold for $200,000 – four times its pre-sale high estimate, Sotheby’s said.

In the UK, Dreweatts auctioned Lord Rothschild’s Stowell Park cellar and again, all lots sold.

A double magnum of Lafite Rothschild 1975 fetched £2,100 (hammer price; high e: £1,500). A six-litre imperial of d’Yquem 1994 fetched £1,250 (hammer price; high e: £800).

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Other than the island of Corsica, I barely knew where I was. A last-minute invite, a skimmed itinerary.

All I knew was: if you're invited to the Île de Beauté – in January or any time of year – you say yes.

Flying south, I left the torpor of a Paris winter and arrived in Bonifacio. It sounds Italian because Corsica was indeed part of Italy far longer than France.

At the airport I received a text from my brother in LA: ‘Just watch your back,’ with a link to some breaking news.

Earlier that day, a Corsican man was taken out by a sniper while attending his mother’s funeral at a village church.

A member of a rival mafia ring, he'd been living in exile in Nicaragua, and only travelled back for the funeral. The Île de Beauté is as edgy as it is beautiful.

Edges, after all, are where the drama of life happens. Where one thing ends and another begins, where exposure is total and forces intersect.

A landscape of rock and wind

On the island's southern tip, wind blasts this mountain in the sea from three sides.

At the Bouches de Bonifacio, the narrow strait separating Corsica from Sardinia, wind is not a passing weather event so much as a permanent condition.

Leaning into it atop the limestone cliffs that plunge into the azure sea, you sense the same elemental energy that flows through the wines of Corsica's wild edge.

Corsica is less an island than a granite rock emerging from the sea. The strait of Bonifacio is the windiest stretch of the Mediterranean, and the luminous island rivals anywhere in France for sunshine.

Almost a quarter of the island sits above 1,000m, with more than 20 peaks exceeding 2,000m.

This extreme juxtaposition means you could swim in the morning and ski in the afternoon.

Vines trace the valleys and steep slopes of granitic, schist and limestone soils, amid native cork oaks, olives and the dense, fragrant maquis – Corsica's version of southern France's garrigue.

Herds of handsome, bell-clanging Corsican goats roam the craggy hills, kept in check by magnificent local dogs called Cursinu.

Hawks and seabirds ride the currents of deliciously fresh, salt-laden air.

Although tired when I arrived, I was immediately energised by the bright sun, 20-degree mid-January temperature and almost unbearable beauty.

Part of it, too, was an oceanic atmosphere charged with negative ions.

The chemistry of the sea

Southern Corsica's constant sea breeze not only tempers the sun and heat exposure of the vines, the air circulation keeping them free of disease and allowing almost every vineyard to be organic, but also carries an abundance of negative ions – atoms or molecules with more electrons than protons – generated as the chemical bonds of water molecules are broken through the crashing of waves, the endless movement of the sea, and the dispersion of saltwater by the wind.

Similar to the refreshing sensation experienced near waterfalls, or even a good shower, coastal air is charged with these particles, which a substantial body of scientific research demonstrates has health benefits such as improved mood and increased energy levels.

A walk on the beach or dip in the sea is nature’s best anti-depressant.

More than terroir

In wine, we spend too much time looking down, limiting the discussion of terroir to what's underground.

In Corsica, the eye is inevitably drawn up and out.

Here, the landscape itself argues that airoir and méroir – the elemental forces of air and sea – deserve a place in the conversation alongside soil and sun.

Oceanic influences, arriving from three sides, are clearly imprinted on Corsica's three southern appellations – Corse Porto-Vecchio, Corse Figari and Corse Sartène. Here you don't find sun-baked Mediterranean wines, but those with edge.

The appellations of southern Corsica

In Corse Porto-Vecchio, Corsica's smallest appellation, vines cling to arid limestone and granite hillsides, facing the sea and battered by the winds.

At Domaine Torraccia, the flagship Oriu rouge – a blend of Niellucciu and Sciaccarellu – marries power and precision.

The Alligria Blanc – a barrel-fermented Vermentinu – nods toward white Burgundy yet speaks its own tongue.

Domaine de Granajolo's Le J cuvée takes a similar path – structured, textural Vermentinu built to last.

At Domaine de Solenzara, mother and daughter Fabienne and Victoria Lucchini make wonderfully salty, electric Vermentinu and rosé from granite hills that drop into the sea.

Moving south to the Corse Figari appellation, the landscape becomes more open and exposed, the cork oaks, olives, maquis and vines appearing as wind-sculpted bonsais.

Planted five centuries before Christ, it's Corsica’s oldest winescape, still home to forgotten varieties that thrive on limestone and granite despite the harsh conditions.

The quality level is extremely high across the nine producers in the appellation – Domaine de Tanella, Domaine de Peretti della Rocca and Domaine Nicolai among the standouts.

But Clos Canarelli is the revelation of the south – perhaps of all Corsica.

The crispy-crunchy grape

East of Figari, the star of the Corse Sartène appellation is the grape called Sciaccarellu, whose name means ‘crispy-crunchy between the teeth’.

These pale ruby reds display extraordinary aromatic intensity: concentrated red berries, white pepper, wild herbs.

Sartène's granite soils lend structure and depth to the grape’s natural silkiness, producing graceful, age-worthy island reds.

The rosés are equally compelling – vibrant, precise and beguilingly aromatic, made mostly from Sciaccarellu with occasional additions of native whites such as the rare Genovese or Biancu Gentile.

Standout producers include Domaine Castellu di Baricci and Domaine Saparale.

My Parisian neighbours told me 'everything the Corsicans touch turns to gold' – and the vineyards, wines, and wineries of the south speak to that.

As does the charcuterie they pride themselves on, and even the incredible oranges they serve as dessert.

With its own grapes, culture and conditions, Corsica isn’t trying to be Burgundy or Barolo – it’s not quite France, not quite Italy, but an island unto itself.

An island where wind sings through elemental wines from the wild edge of a mountain in the sea.

The producers to know in southern Corsica:

• Buzzo Bunifazziu
• Clos Canarelli
• Domaine Andriella
• Domaine Castellu di Baricci
• Domaine de Granajolo
• Domaine de Peretti della Rocca
• Domaine de Piscia Finidori
• Domaine de Solenzara
• Domaine de Tanella
• Domaine Nicolai
• Domaine Saparale
• Domaine Torraccia

11 wild Corsican wines to try

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Winemakers are trained to think in grapes and, almost always, only grapes. Most will spend their entire careers relentlessly working within that single medium, fully aware that the craft is both exciting and unforgiving.

‘In wine, you get one harvest a year. Maybe 50 in a lifetime if you’re lucky,’ says Nick Gislason, winemaker at Screaming Eagle in Napa Valley’s Oakville AVA, who has taken on beer as another pillar of his creative outlet.

The built-in limits of winemaking, including the once-a-year window to make decisions in the cellar that will define an entire vintage, don’t exist in the same way in other beverage crafts.

Beer, for example, operates on an ongoing production cycle rather than a single seasonal window, with far more room to adjust and repeat in real time.

‘[Beer] makes you better at fermentation, because we’re working with yeast every single day,’ says Gislason. Even if the grains are harvested seasonally, like grapes, beer doesn’t unfold in a single moment. One batch is fermenting while another is being brewed.

An advantage over wine, he recognises, but one that makes it a complementary craft. ‘You learn how to manage air, temperature and timing in a more dynamic way. That absolutely feeds back into winemaking.’

From grape to grain: Hanabi Lager Co

Gislason created Hanabi, a small lager-focused beer label, around 2015.

For him, beer is not a side project, but another way of thinking through the same questions: how to grow grains for flavour, how to work with fermentation, how far one is willing to push risk in pursuit of something truly high quality.

Hanabi is an absurdly serious label. Unlike most brewers, Gislason is also a farmer, and he applies the same seriousness in viticulture as to grains, farming each variety differently, paying growers regardless of yield, going as far as reintroducing an ancient, almost extinct barley used in the first-ever Pilsners as Hanabi's flagship.

'For us, flavour is number one – even if the grain costs four times more or yields less,’ he says.

The label found its first audience among wine drinkers and sommeliers – The French Laundry and Single Thread, both Michelin-starred restaurants in northern California, were early placements – where Gislason's wine background likely carried weight.

These days, however, most of its consumers (it is distributed in six different states in the US and exported to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Taiwan and China, about 25% of its total production) are serious beer drinkers who, as he notes, ‘often have no connection to wine’.

'Beer and wine, to me, are like different instruments. Like in music, you can play to people in a wider way if you use more than just one instrument.'

Reaching a wider audience

Dan Petroski of Massican, in Napa’s St Helena, also went on to play a whole new set of instruments to reach a wider audience.

Over the course of a decade, he explored making vermouth, beer and even gin alongside his wines, building by 2019 what he called 'world Massican': a universe he wanted to open to everybody, 'not just people who love white wine'.

The vermouth came to be almost as an accident, a result of wine barrels that didn't make the final blend: juice with nowhere to go. 'You cover the flaws. You aromatise it, sweeten it, fortify it,' Petroski says. His own version of ‘when life gives you lemons’…

'I then started to build this picture of myself as the guy who knew everything about aromatising alcohol beverages,' he says.

An earnest vision. But Petroski hadn't fully anticipated how separate the concert halls were. Wine, beer and spirits, it turns out, don't share the same road to the consumer.

At the time, managing three distribution networks proved one too many for a producer like Massican. The vermouth program ended in 2022. The beer and the gin did, too.

Since then, the brand has been acquired by Gallo (2023), and the infrastructure roadblock may no longer exist, so Petroski hasn't ruled out a return: 'I love the idea of doing it again,' he says – especially now, as 'the world is drinking slightly differently'.

Vermouth, however, remains very much alive at Matthiasson Wines in Napa Valley, where Steve and Jill Matthiasson have produced their farmhouse-style version since 2011 — now distributed across the US and exported to several countries, with Japan as its largest market.

While the couple had long been fascinated by apéritifs, their vermouth also began with a wine that fermented too far. Instead of discarding it, they transformed it using botanicals, fruit and bitters grown on their property.

In many ways, it feels connected to how they think about farming and wine — just another way of telling the same story.

Whiskey and wine

At Jackson Family Wines, which owns dozens of wineries and operates its own distribution channel, the infrastructure problem doesn't exist.

With Regal, one of California's largest wine distributors – an unusual position in a system designed to keep producers and distributors apart – the company operates on both tiers.

'Having the ability to represent high-quality spirits does serve a commercial or strategic purpose,' says Christopher Jackson of Stonestreet Wines in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, which produces Stonestreet Bourbon within the Jackson Family portfolio. 'I think it's smart to talk to the consumer across multiple different beverage platforms.'

The company released two bourbons in the past two years: Stonestreet, in 2024, which it sees as a more accessible whiskey, and Mt Brave in 2025: a cask-strength, vintage-dated expression made with collectors in mind.

For Mt Brave in Napa’s Mt Veeder, winemaker Chris Carpenter approaches whiskey blending the same way he does his wines.

‘A lot of the blending is layering flavours so none are lost, but they accentuate one another,’ Carpenter says.

‘When I'm matching different wine lots to the barrels, I’m thinking about how that barrel is going to contribute to the expression of wine. I'm thinking about those same things when I'm putting these whiskeys together.’

There's a longer game, by design, being played about how credibility travels in both directions here: a wine drinker who trusts Carpenter's palate has a reason to try the bourbon, while a bourbon drinker who respects the whiskey might feel compelled to try the wines.

Blurring boundaries

Tequila, too, has begun attracting the attention of prominent winemakers.

Bordelais consultant Philippe Melka recently released the first batch of a new tequila project, Felicente, in partnership with Vincent Garry, a veteran in the barrel business, after becoming fascinated by what he describes as a moment in the category that reminded him of California wine in the 1990s: smaller producers experimenting, challenging industrial styles, and trying to redefine quality.

Still in its early stages, the project focuses on organically farmed, high-elevation agave and uses winemaking techniques to produce three styles of tequila, currently distributed across Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and California, with plans to expand starting next year.

It’s another sign of how fluid the boundaries between premium beverage categories have become.

Learning curves

But not every beyond-wine project is driven by commercial strategy. In a more modest way, Jamie Kutch added a new line to his Kutch Wines portfolio to address a byproduct problem: wine lees that, if dumped carelessly, could poison rivers and streams.

'It clogs up and kills the fish,' he says. 'This is a sustainable way to use them.'

Kutch distills a brandy from Pinot Noir lees, aged five years in neutral Chardonnay barrels. He makes just 90 bottles a year, sold out each release, including for at least one customer who has never bought his wine.

Winemakers usually don't set out to be anything other than winemakers, and most consumers don't turn to a winery looking for anything other than wine either.

But when something else appears, it often carries the same level of care – sometimes more – than most standalone products across other beverage categories.

Winemaking standards don't end with grapes. And it turns out the exchange goes both ways. 'Every time I'm in a new project, I learn something that I bring back to my primary project,' says Chris Carpenter.

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The charming semi-sparkling wine of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, Lambrusco is considered the ideal wine to pair with local Emilia cuisine, from cured meats like Salame and Prosciutto di Parma to pastas like tortellini and local cheeses.

Often frizzante, or lightly sparkling, classic Lambrusco wines are dry or slightly off-dry with floral aromas, bright red fruit characters and refreshing acidity. The wines are light in tannins and have moderate alcohol.

Typically produced using the Charmat (tank) method, a small proportion is also made by the Traditional or Ancestrale methods. The best examples reflect the different varieties and distinct characteristics of the three main Lambrusco grapes including Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Salamino and Lambrusco Grasparossa.

Scroll down to discover six Lambrusco wines to try from DWWA 2026

A local favourite, the classic Lambrusco wine style, bottled with mushroom corks as opposed to the sweet, mass-produced Lambrusco wines bottled with screw-cap, is deservedly finding its way into international markets.

And catching the attention of the expert judges at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), six Lambrusco wines received Silver and Bronze medals (from 89 to 95 points), worth trying.

A region and wine style well worth exploring, below discover Emilia-Romagna’s top-scoring Lambrusco wines from the 2026 competition to celebrate World Lambrusco Day.

Search all award-winning wines from Emilia-Romagna at awards.decanter.com

World Lambrusco Day: Six award-winning styles to try

Ceci, Otello Ceci 1813 Nero di Lambrusco, Lambrusco dell'Emilia NV

Gold, 95 points
Bustling with strawberry, brambly fruit and leafy florals that infiltrate the elegant mousse and luscious texture. A fine line of orange zest of acidity cuts through. Alcohol 11%

Le Origini, S. Onofrio Brut, Lambrusco di Sorbara 2025

Silver, 93 points
Pretty aromatics of candied redcurrant and cherry; raspberry, orange, wild blackberry and a bright acidity on the palate. Alc 11%

Gualtieri, Il Ligabue, Lambrusco Reggiano NV

Silver, 92 points
Candied cherry, strawberry jam, cranberry sauce and orange zest nose; palate of sour cherry and bright raspberry. Alc 11%

Ceci, Terre Verdiane 1813 Amabile, Lambrusco dell'Emilia NV

Silver, 90 points
Sour cherry and candied redcurrant nose; palate of dark cherry, subtle herb, sweet red fruit and a tangy acidity. Alc 8.5%

Cantina Puianello, Contrada Borgoleto Semisecco, Lambrusco Reggiano 2025

Silver, 90 points
Inviting and aromatic with dark berry fruit and lifted floral notes leading to a palate of juicy bramble and blueberry preserve. Alc 9.5%

Ventiventi, Rouge De Noirs Brut, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce 2021

Bronze, 89 points
Tart red fruit and lifted floral notes on the nose; canned cherry, red berry fruit and crisp acidity on the palate. Alc 12%

See all DWWA 2026 results

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New-wave Calvados: Not just a digestif

The exceptional apple brandies of Normandy are too often typecast in a role that sees them trapped on the digestif trolley, where they certainly excel, but are overlooked in other moments.

Some modern Calvados distillers intend to change that. Produced within a defined area along France’s northern coast, according to its appellation d’origine, using specific varieties of apples and pears, and adhering to defined methods, Calvados has grand tradition behind it – but that doesn’t restrict it from going beyond the after-dinner occasion.

Expressing beautiful orchard fruit, tempered by time in oak, this is a spirit for any occasion, with untapped mixing potential.

Some contemporary producers recognise this. Environmentally conscious Avallen champions the spirit’s sustainable credentials, while Christian Drouin pushes boundaries with interesting cask finishes.

Calvados and cocktails: a perfect pairing

Organic producer Domaine de la Flaguerie encourages mixing of its versatile Calvados.

‘For too long, Calvados has been seen as a spirit for a certain generation, enjoyed in a certain way – after dinner, in a certain glass,’ says Flaguerie owner Jean-Olivier Petrich.

‘The new wave is about creating a product made to be consumed differently, pushed from its traditional context. Its move into cocktails feels completely natural once you taste them.’

Petrich sees Flaguerie’s younger, vibrant expressions served in highballs, perhaps on a sunny terrace, while those with more age are better suited to stirred-down classic cocktails.

Back to the future: Reviving the Trou Normand tradition

At Christian Drouin, in addition to its cask finishes and a new apple-based aperitif named ABC, the focus is on reviving forgotten ways of enjoying these spirits.

Among these is the Trou Normand, in which a scoop of apple sorbet is doused in Calvados and enjoyed between courses.

‘There are many delightful ways to enjoy Calvados, including a wide range of excellent cocktails,’ says third-generation owner Guillaume Drouin.

Clear thinking

Drouin has also revived a traditional Norman style, Blanche – essentially an unaged apple eau-de-vie that captures the essence of the fruit.

‘It’s often met with pleasant surprise,’ says Drouin. ‘It’s remarkably smooth, with distinctive, intense apple flavours.’

Flaguerie, too, produces a Blanche. ‘It’s leading the cocktail conversation – think premium gin or blanco tequila, but with a crisp, green-apple soul,’ says Petrich.

‘Bartenders are loving it. We’re seeing it in everything from Martinis to Margaritas.

One to try

Domaine de la Flaguerie 2 Year Old Organic Calvados, Normandy, France

£37.50-£39/70cl Master of Malt, The Whisky Exchange

A lively, youthful expression from an organic orchard, with juicy red apple in abundance and some cinnamon spice, together evoking freshly baked apple pie. Ideal for long serves with a mixer, or for adding pure apple notes to a cocktail. Alcohol 40%

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Why the Rhône is ideal for camping

One of my earliest memories is of my dad putting up a tent on holiday in France. I can’t remember where exactly, but I remember the warm sand underfoot and the resinous smell of pine trees.

I don’t think I was much help. Now it’s my turn to hammer in the tent pegs while the kids leaf through comics. Camping in France is a rite of passage for the English: it’s the closest sunny place to our rainy island.

The Rhône is the perfect region to pitch up. It’s reliably warm and dry from April to August, there’s a wealth of fabulous produce to enjoy, and there are endless affordable wines of all kinds to discover.

If you’re planning a trip, here are some ideas of where to base yourself, places to stay and some practical tips for wine lovers.

What kind of camping do you want?

Camping, glamping and yurts

If you own a mobile home, or a tent and all the gear, then you can just book a pitch and turn up.

If not, don’t let that stop you – there are many other options depending on your budget and the kind of experience you prefer.

Many campsites have permanent and semi-permanent structures for hire, including wood-and-canvas constructions, yurts and cottages. Some even offer treehouses or repurposed wine barrels to sleep in.

Some people relish the idea of getting back to basics, with minimal creature comforts. But if you don’t like the idea of shared shower blocks, there are plenty of places with private bathrooms and kitchen areas.

Either way, you’ll get to spend your days surrounded by nature. Whether you’re six years old or 60, there’s something magical about falling asleep under the stars listening to the hooting of owls.

There’s also the social element to enjoy – campsites have a friendly, festive atmosphere that you’ll never find in a hotel.

The only downside about the natural setting is the mosquitos – just pack some insect repellent.

Where to stay: Area guide to camping in the Rhône

No car? You still have options

If you don’t have access to a car, your choices are restricted, but you still have options.

Take the TGV (fast train) to Avignon, then either a local train, bus or taxi to nearby campsites such as Camping Fontisson in Châteauneuf-de-Gadagne or Camping de Coucourelle in Pernes-les-Fontaines.

But the Rhône valley is big enough to offer all kinds of landscape: gorges, mountains, coastal sites... if you have access to your own transport, then all of these open up. Stay near towns and villages or choose more secluded spots – vineyards and wineries are never far away.

Northern Vaucluse

If wine is your priority, it makes sense to be in the middle of the action on the east side of the main river. Position yourself somewhere near Vacqueyras or Châteauneuf-du-Pape and all of the major crus of the southern Rhône are just a short drive away.

The only difficulty will be deciding which wineries to visit! A few to consider include:

• Domaine de Beaurenard (Châteauneuf)
• Domaine de la Solitude (Châteauneuf)
• Domaine du Grapillon d’Or (Gigondas)
• Domaine des Bosquets (Gigondas)
• Domaine la Monardière (Vacqueyras)
• Domaine Montirius (Vacqueyras)

You’ll be surrounded by wonderful places to eat, such as L’Oustalet in Gigondas, Coteaux et Fourchettes near Cairanne and Le Café de France in Caderousse.

Another benefit is the proximity to Avignon, with its wealth of wine-focused restaurants (Le 46, Pollen), wine shops (Cave Liquid, Le Vin Devant Soi) and cultural attractions.

Campsites to consider are Les Rives de L’Aygues, an environmentally friendly site with access to the gentle Aygues river.

I’m also told that Domaine des Favards, an organic wine estate with its own campsite near Violès, is worth a visit.

Southern Ardèche

If you want to fill your days with outdoor action, the southern Ardèche is the place to be.

Many of the companies that offer activities such as caving, canyoning, canoeing and climbing are situated close to Vallon Pont d’Arc, so it makes sense to base yourself nearby.

But not too close; the village can be extremely busy in summer and there’s not much by way of wine fun there. For that, you can visit Mas de Libian, Domaine Saladin and Domaine Gallety.

There are two branches of Huttopia nearby: Sud Ardèche and Le Moulin.

This company has 152 campsites worldwide, including five in the Rhône valley. They’re notable for their cleanliness, friendly staff and packed programme of activities for kids and adults alike.

There are many other campsites to consider; if you want something smaller, wilder and more remote, try Camping Mille Etoiles.

The Luberon

In the southeast of the Rhône valley, bordering the winelands of Provence, is the Luberon – one of the most beautiful and unspoiled parts of France.

There are endless ancient villages to explore (don’t miss Bonnieux, Gordes and Lourmarin) and some equally picturesque wineries to visit, such as Château la Canorgue, Château la Verrerie and filmmaker Ridley Scott’s Mas des Infermières.

If you like music festivals, then make sure to visit during the first weekend in June. Lourmarin, just north of the D973Y road, is home to Festival Yeah!, co-founded by Laurent Garnier, one of France’s greatest DJs and music producers.

Camping Les Hautes Prairies, just down the road, is on my list to try in 2027. If you’re looking for a quieter day out, take a wander around the colourful ochre quarries in the village of Roussillon, north of the D900.

The northern Rhône

The northern Rhône isn’t as geared up for visitors, but this can be a blessing – the southern Rhône is a more established tourist destination, so the north is less busy.

It’s also not as hot during summer, which can be a good thing if you’re camping. And if you’re a fan of Syrah, you’ll be in paradise.

For something a bit different, spend the night at the Safari Peaugres in the heart of St-Joseph. It’s an 80ha site with about 1,300 animals from more than 120 species.

There are also 20 treehouses for hire above the wolf and bear enclosures from which you can watch them roam below. Don’t worry, the structures are solidly built!

Another option is to base yourself near Tournon-sur-Rhône, which has several good restaurants, an excellent Saturday market and a footbridge to Hermitage.

All of the northern crus are within easy reach (though Condrieu and Côte-Rôtie are a 45-minute drive). Camping Ferme de Simondon in Plats (restaurant-gite-camping-simondon.fr), a 20-minute drive southwest from Tournon-sur- Rhône, has a lazy, pastoral vibe and stunning views over the valley.

It’s also just 15 minutes from Mauves, home to Rhône royalty Domaine Coursodon, Domaine Bernard Gripa and Domaine Marsanne.

Other areas to explore

Out to the east of the region, beyond Valréas and Vinsobres, the Baronnies Provençales regional nature park is great for walking and exploring local villages at a relaxed pace.

A little south of this extensive, 1,800km2 area, the slopes of Mont Ventoux (well known to cycling fans as the demanding mountain climb stage of the Tour de France) have countless craggy stone villages to explore, such as Caromb, Méthamis, Venasque and Le Barroux.

North of the Baronnies, the Diois region has a distinctly alpine feel compared to the rest of the Rhône valley; the cooler weather here is a draw for many.

By contrast, for proximity to the sea, consider the Camargue – where the Rhône runs into the Mediterranean – with its famous wild horses and pink flamingos, and some great Costières de Nîmes wineries.

For ideas of where to stay and visit in each, check out the tourism section of Vins Vignobles de la Vallée du Rhône.

Practical camping tips for wine lovers

Accommodation

When booking your accommodation, it’s worth asking whether sheets and towels are provided, as this can vary.

You might also want to enquire about options for bike hire – it’s the most wine-friendly way to explore your surroundings.

Cooking

Having the option to cook for yourself is a big advantage. On arrival, ask which nearby villages have the best food markets and on which days they’re held.

Some sites have shared barbecue pits, and many larger cabins will have their own gas-fired grills. Find out what’s available. Take a sharp knife (or a knife sharpener) with you as those provided are often quite blunt.

Wine glasses

If you don’t want to drink out of thick tumblers, take your own glasses. Stemless ones, such as Riedel’s The O Wine Tumbler collection (from £32.50 per pair, Riedel), are a practical choice.

A chillable bottle cooler sleeve is invaluable for picnics. And don’t forget a corkscrew.

Where to store your wine

When it comes to camping, there is one problem for wine lovers. No doubt you’ll want to buy some wine on your travels, but where do you store it?

Leaving it to slowly cook in the tent or car is unwise. There are two options: either you book accommodation with air conditioning and leave it running all day – not exactly environmentally friendly – or you hire a fridge, a service offered in many campsites.

It will be small, so if you can, hire two: one for food, one for wine.

Camping with children

Finally, a word about children. Campsites are brilliant places for kids, offering them an element of freedom and autonomy to explore and make friends – which has the added benefit of offering a degree of rest and relaxation for parents.

But they can find winery visits boring, and working cellars can be potentially hazardous. So keep them close – for the winemaker’s peace of mind as much as yours – pack games, books and entertainment for the little ones and offer gratuitous bribes for good behaviour.

Matt Walls is a Contributing Editor to Decanter and the DWWA Regional Chair for Rhône. His latest book, The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide to the Rhône Valley, is available from Académie du Vin Library (£12.99)

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DWWA quiz: 10 questions to test your knowledge

Move over Fifa World Cup, the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2026 is here to bring you a glittering array of superb wines from across the globe to seek out.

To mark the release of full DWWA 2026 results on 17 June, we've compiled a short multiple-choice quiz on the world's biggest wine competition.

From its rigorous judging process underpinned by leading experts to medal tiers, 'firsts' and sustainability, the 10-question quiz below offers a window into the DWWA universe, which welcomed nearly 17,000 entries for its 2026 edition.

Take our DWWA quiz

Get first access to DWWA 2026 results on 17 June: Sign up here to receive our newsletter alerts

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It’s not every winery visit that begins in a 13th-century church. In early February, Chiesa San Donato provides a welcome refuge from the chilly winds that wrap their way around the hilltop village of Lamole.

At this time of the year, there’s no one to be seen; a stray cat soaks up a shaft of sunlight on an old stone wall, but the road is quiet.

It's a stark contrast to the summer months, when Chiantigiana tourists flock to the hamlet’s lone restaurant, ‘Il Ristoro di Lamole’, to enjoy authentic Tuscan fare against a backdrop of magnificent views.

But for now, the small hilltop borgo is deserted, and winemaker Andrea Daldin and I have the ancient frescoes to ourselves.

Daldin explains that as recently as 1945, Lamole was a beating heart with 1,000 inhabitants. Today, in contrast, the number sits closer to 100.

Yet, the preservation of the little church and its 14th century altarpiece is remarkable; in the long summer evenings, the doors are flung open to host a throng of tourists for summer concerts.

Chianti Classico’s high altitude frontier

To reach this quiet haven, situated between Siena and Florence, you must take the road from the famed town of Greve, climbing to over 650 metres above sea level.

Lamole is both the smallest and one of the coolest UGAs (Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive) in Chianti Classico, sitting at the upper limit for growing Sangiovese in Tuscany.

Increasingly, this extreme geography is highly coveted. As summers get ever hotter, forward-thinking wineries are aggressively scouting for cooler sites.

Lamole’s altitude offers a welcome freshness that translates directly into the wines; at this elevation, vines benefit from cool evenings, excellent ventilation, and long sunlight hours.

Consequently, land prices here have soared to become among the highest in all of Chianti Classico.

A Venetian legacy

The driving force behind Lamole’s modern preservation is the entrepreneurial Marzotto family, whose wine group is currently managed by its eighth generation.

With ancestral origins as philanthropic Venetian textile merchants, the family has invested heavily in the village.

Their work includes financing the restoration of San Donato, driven by a philosophy that a good wine must also be 'good' in financial, environmental, and social terms.

This continues a wine legacy that first began in 1935, when Count Gaetano Marzotto established the Santa Margherita winery in the eastern Veneto, transforming reclaimed marshland and establishing schools, housing, and medical care for his workers.

Today, the group’s properties span from Alto Adige to Sardinia, and further afield in Oregon – but here, their Lamole di Lamole estate remains the area's largest, spanning 288 hectares with 37ha under vine.

Stones and coins

The very identity of the region is etched into its geology. The village takes its name from lame (meaning 'blades') – the mineral-rich natural terraces that cut into the steep slopes.

This viticultural landscape traces its lineage back to Roman times, and ancient cart tracks are still used to navigate the vineyards today.

It was in these soils that Daldin once unearthed a Roman coin; a token he has kept in his pocket ever since as a talisman and a reminder of the area's rich past.

Even the flora nods to antiquity. The distinctive Florentine iris, or gaggiolo, has grown among the vines since the Roman era, its bloom reflected in Florence's symbolic fleur-de-lys.

Highly prized by perfumiers for its orris root, this flower serves as the inspiration for the estate’s floral ‘Maggiolo’ Chianti Classico, named for its May (maggio) flowering.

Preserving this vertical landscape requires constant effort. The vineyards are situated on terraces supported by dry stone walls made from traditional Tuscan sandstone (macigno), an ancient structural craft recognised by UNESCO in 2018.

Lamole di Lamole has undertaken extensive restorations of these walls around its Campolungo vineyard, which yields the grapes for one of its flagship Gran Selezione wines.

Carbon

Managing the delicate balance between past and future falls to Daldin. Originally from Trentino, the winemaker moved to Siena to study oenology and has spent the last 30 years at Lamole di Lamole.

In this time he has overseen the conversion to organic farming, employing a meticulous, vine-by-vine approach utilising natural treatments based on aloe, algae, and propolis, alongside careful water management.

This ecological focus reached a milestone when Lamole di Lamole became the first Italian winery to be certified carbon neutral, backed by a dedicated full-time sustainability manager within the HERITA Marzotto Wine Estates group.

Pruning is not only a case of building the essential structure of the plant, but a way of helping develop the next generation of viticulturalists.

As Daldin explains, specialised pruning courses are hosted in these vineyards to preserve the alberello lamolese – a traditional bush-training method perfectly adapted to these steep slopes.

Testament to this, the estate boasts a historic plot of old vines planted in 1945, showcasing 30 different clones of Sangiovese trained using the alberello lamolese method, standing as a living museum of the town's heritage.

A taste of Lamole di Lamole

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Happily for us wine shoppers, the supermarket 25% off wine promotions come along with increasing regularity. It used to be that you’d only see them in advance of national holidays – Easter and Christmas, for instance – but now they seem to be running as often as they’re not running! And 25% is a significant saving, so it makes sense to take advantage and pick out six bottles to enjoy.

You might imagine that a Decanter editor would have no need to buy wine, but in fact I regularly pick up a few bottles while I’m grocery shopping. Not at the Express outlets, where the wine selection is extremely limited and invariably uninspiring – and the prices inflated – but at the larger branches where there’s room to stock more than lowest common denominator wines.

Spoiled for choice

The choice on offer at my local Tesco Extra is impressive – and probably overwhelming to some. So how do I, as the editor of a wine magazine for the last 25 years, whittle down my choice to six wines? How do I bring my expert knowledge to bear?

The last time I took advantage of the promotion was in mid-May. I was specifically looking for whites and / or rosés to enjoy during the warmer weather that I knew was on the way. (And indeed temperatures rose to 35˚C.)

I was looking for everyday-drinking wines, at the lower end price wise, but wines that would offer maximum bang for buck – let’s say at around the £10 to £15-a-bottle mark. You’re not going to find any great complexity at this level, but I wanted to avoid the kind of commodity wines that are typically found on the lower shelves, often with noticeable residual sugar, and lacking in any kind of regional character.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for Amy's six picks

Supermarket wine guides on Decanter.com

The first step – a step that any Tesco shopper can take – was to consult Decanter.com, naturally. Decanter’s in-house tasting team reviews the UK supermarket wine ranges at least twice yearly, and it’s a great shortcut to some interesting bottles, if you’re in a hurry.

Even with my expert knowledge, it’s useful to see the wines that my colleague Natalie Earl picked out for her regular ‘best of Tesco’ round-up. Any wine rated at 89 or 90 points and above would warrant my consideration. You’ll only be able read full tasting notes if you’re a Decanter Premium subscriber (great value at only £99/yr!), but even non-subscribers can see the wine names and scores.

Three of my six purchases were recommended by Natalie in her current selection: the Nepenthe Gruner Veltliner, the 2 banks winery Assyrtiko/Malagousia blend (singled out as her value white of the bunch) and the Finest Viñas del Rey Albariño.

I have tasted the Albariño before and we regularly recommend it on Decanter.com. Tesco’s Finest range is typically a safe bet if you’re looking for well-made and good-value wines, and this particular wine is a consistent performer from vintage to vintage – so a safe choice. Plus a strong 91-point score.

Nepenthe is a well-respected Aussie name, and I liked the idea of trying a cool-climate (Adelaide Hills) New World Gruner. A screwcap closure on this style of wine is another plus point for me, not so much because I fear faults with wines under cork – cork is a far more reliable closure these days than it used to be – but because it helps to keep youthful, aromatic styles of wine vibrant and singing.

Lastly, I adore Greek wine (hence two in my final selection) and so the Assyrtiko/Malagousia blend, again under screwcap, was an easy pick. It’s smartly packaged and the blend of those two grapes can work very well, the Malagousia being all about fruit and aromatics, while Asssyrtiko adds more weight, structure and sometimes minerality.

Sauvignon Blanc decisions

Moving on to the wines I chose beyond Natalie’s recommendations, the first wine I looked for was a New World Sauvignon Blanc. I went through a long phase of never buying or choosing to drink Sauvignon Blanc, but have recently come back to it from time to time, especially in warmer seasons when I’m often not looking for rich and buttery whites. Tesco has some very good Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs at higher price points – the Smith & Sheth Cru, for instance, but I wasn’t looking to spend £20 on a single bottle.

At the value price point, I often turn to cooler-climate Chile over Marlborough. It’s a generalisation, but Marlborough Sauvignons are often more pungent and tropical in style (with the exception of wines from Awatere, maybe), and more inclined to have noticeable residual sugar at lower price points, which is exactly what I don’t want from this crisp and refreshing style. I always avoid Sauvignon Blanc from Chile’s Central Valley, as it’s a warmer region and I’d rather go for a marginal, cooler-climate area. So my attention naturally turns to Aconcagua, in the north of Chile, the centre of cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc.

Chile's cool side

There’s a good choice at Tesco. Its own Finest Valle de Leyda Sauvignon Blanc is a good buy at £9, and the Luis Felipe Edwards (LFE) Gran Reserva Sauvignon Blanc (£10) is another well-made pick from Leyda (a sub-region of Aconcagua). In fact Luis Felipe Edwards makes the Tesco Finest wine, so there’s not much to choose between them.

In the end though, I plumped for Errazuriz’s Reserva Estate Sauvignon Blanc, also from Aconcagua. It was on offer when I bought it, and offer prices apply in addition to the 25% off, taking this wine down to around £7.50 – a steal at that price. I visited Errazuriz many years ago, and walked among its cool-climate vineyards. Its president and owner Eduardo Chadwick won Decanter’s Hall of Fame Award back in 2018, and it is a quality-driven operation, at all price levels.

Next I wanted to pick up a bottle of rosé. So what am I looking for in a value rosé? Not necessarily the palest colour – paler doesn’t equal better, and actually I often really enjoy rosés of a deeper hue with exuberant and juicy fruit flavours (like some of the Navarra rosés, for instance).

The Arbousset Tavel rosé (£13) is one of its darkest in the Tesco line-up, and is always a good buy, but I wanted to try something new. So I couldn’t resist picking out the Dianthos rosé, made from one of my all-time favourite grape varieties, Xinomavro. It’s a grape that displays delicious strawberry character and often a hint of tomato in red wines, so I was curious to discover this rosé expression.

Viognier dilemma

So we’re up to five bottles. One left to qualify for the 25% off. I reached for a Paul Mas Viognier from the south of France, as I’ve enjoyed Paul Mas whites in the past – the Grenache Blanc-based whites in particular. But then I spotted next to it a wine I wasn’t familiar with, the Tesco Finest Viognier – £1 cheaper, also French. Which to go for? I stood there for at least five minutes examining the labels, trying to make my mind up.

The Finest wines are usually good, and this one was made by a talented winemaker, Julie Rouffignac (she also makes the Tavel rosé mentioned above). Not much in the price difference, both from the south of France, and both the same alcohol, 13%. It was the Paul Mas that ended up in my trolley, primarily because it is a single-vineyard wine, which usually indicates a level of quality.

Out of curiosity, I later requested a sample of the Finest Viognier from Tesco’s PR company and tasted the two wines side by side. Both are decent wines, but I felt satisfied that I had made the right choice – the Paul Mas was riper and slightly richer, with more of the textural weight that I look for in Viognier.

The final selection

I hope it’s reassuring that even those of us with wine knowledge still take their time in the wine aisles – and that it’s possible to buy six perfectly enjoyable bottles for everyday drinking for just over £50.

Lastly, a note on vintages: in general, when shopping for crisp, fresh whites and rosés at the value end for immediate consumption, I’ll look for the youngest possible vintage. All these wines, with the exception of the Greek white, were from 2025. Sometimes these styles will gain in interest over a couple of years, but these are not wines designed for cellaring and will often lose some of their vibrancy as they age.

The six picks: five whites and a rosé for summer

Tasting notes and scores from Amy Wislocki and other Decanter Editors. Prices shown are full RRPs, before any discount is applied

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Deep in the Laurent-Perrier cellars, oenologist Constance Delaire stands in front of a row of eerily smooth, flawless tanks installed by Michel Fauconnet, the long-serving predecessor of new cellar master Olivier Vigneron.

‘There are no seams in the steel,’ she says, the tanks glowing like perfect mirrors in the dim light. ‘Michel was so afraid of oxidation that he had them made this way.’

Vigneron strolls in, looking like a man on a mission. ‘Sorry to miss the start, but I have been in the United States for three weeks and the wines require my attention.’

I remember this interaction eight months later, as Vigneron and I sit down in London to mark the release of the latest iteration of Laurent Perrier’s utterly distinct prestige cuvée Grand Siècle.

His admission as we settle in that he is a ‘chef de cave des caves’ – a cellar master of the cellars, as opposed to the media rooms and airport lounges – rings true.

The new release – Itération 27 – marks a year since Vigneron took charge at the family-run house.

Laurent-Perrier’s modern success is built on the legacy of Vigneron’s mentor, Fauconnet, a man very much in the same mould.

‘Every house has a different culture – some cellar masters are more communicator than technician,’ Vigneron says.

‘But here the job is about keeping the idea of what Laurent-Perrier is, to guard the history of the maison as I was trained by Michel, and to keep freshness and elegance – this is my work.’

Kept in reserve

Work, it must be said, is already familiar to Vigneron, who was appointed to the house in 2004 after four years as a winemaking assistant within Laurent-Perrier’s sister house De Castellane, just three years after completing his studies in Reims.

Hailing from Bergères-les-Vertus in the Côte des Blancs, where Vigneron’s wife grows and produces Champagne Perrot-Batteux, Vigneron is the definition of a continuity candidate.

Continuity may be the order of the day, but that doesn’t translate to standing still.

Today’s Champagne winemakers have to deliver consistency in extremes of climate arguably never seen before, relying ever more on their greatest asset – their store of reserve wines, whose varied attributes can complement whatever nature throws up.

‘Knowledge of the reserves is critical to the job,’ says Vigneron, whose cellar after a harvest is made up not just of 700 tanks of that year’s wine, but also a remarkable 300 of reserve wines from previous harvests. All of these must be tasted, assessed and directed to blends or further storage.

For anyone wanting to taste a snapshot of this work, in 2024 Laurent-Perrier released the Héritage cuvée (£65-£80), a wine with a makeup not normally seen in Champagne: 100% reserve wines, with no young base year in the blend.

‘In being all about the reserves, it keeps the spirit of Grand Siècle,’ Vigneron says, although there is ‘more freedom’ to make Héritage than there is with the multi-vintage Grand Siècle that tops the portfolio, which must be a blend of only three vintages.

Two years on from the Héritage release, it has developed beautifully.

‘We’re really seeing the effects of double maturation, first in the reserve tanks and then in the bottles,’ says Vigneron.

The art of the blend

It’s in the Grand Siècle itself, though, that Vigneron’s art reaches its pinnacle. ‘The aim is to recreate the perfect year,’ Vigneron says of the concept that has been in place since 1959, ‘not just to blend together three consecutive vintages.’

In theory only vintages bottled individually as Laurent-Perrier Millésime can be used as ingredients for Grand Siècle (although hawk-eyed fans may spot an outlier in the current release), but even these are kept back as separate components, presenting Vigneron with a highly complex blending task when the decision is made to create an iteration.

Itération 27 contains 65% of the generally sunny and very hot 2015 vintage.

‘Chardonnay had a lot of generosity and needed balancing with vintages of vivacity and tension,’ Vigneron says.

The vintages that make up the blend, 2013 and 2012, seem to elevate the wine far beyond where most 2015 vintages alone can reach. ‘It’s a work of great precision – we can’t force it.’

While the Millésime Brut 2018 bottling (£72-£80), which has also just been released to the market, seems likely to feature in future Grand Siècle iterations, it’s worth noting that Laurent-Perrier didn’t make vintage Champagnes from 2016, 2014, 2013, 2010 or 2009, all of which were widely released by other houses.

It’s a restraint that has served this discreet maison well.

‘The family ownership means there are no obligations,’ Vigneron points out. ‘The wines can lead us.’

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Verdejo has cemented its status as Spain’s most popular white wine after winning legions of admirers. Wine lovers enjoy its zesty acidity, citrus flavours and distinctive herbal notes. It makes an ideal aperitif, but Verdejo also pairs beautifully with a wide array of foods, from salad and seafood to guacamole and Asian dishes.

Most Verdejo is produced in Rueda, which is located in the heart of Spain’s Castilla y León region. In 2012, the Designation of Origin (DO) Rueda reported 11.3% annual sales growth, driven by the soaring popularity of Verdejo.

However, 85% of sales were made within Spain, while only 15% went to export markets. That inspired the DO Rueda to create World Verdejo Day in 2013.

The rise of World Verdejo Day

World Verdejo Day started out as a small celebration in a handful of US cities, but it expanded rapidly in the ensuing years. By 2018, it had become a global event, with promotional activities across the US, Mexico, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and beyond. The event takes place on the second Friday of June each year.

Exports have also increased at a brisk pace. In 2025, DO Rueda exported 17,481,944 bottles, with Verdejo accounting for 88% of sales. The UK has developed a particular fondness for Verdejo, with sales exceeding 1.3 million bottles in 2025 alone.

A millennium in the making

Verdejo has been grown in Castilla y León for more than 1,000 years. For most of that time, it was used to make oxidative, sherry-style wines. The grape was almost wiped out by the phylloxera epidemic in the early 20th century, and for decades afterwards it was used for producing simple, often forgettable whites.

Verdejo was then reborn in the 1970s, when celebrated Rioja producers identified Rueda as the ideal place to make serious white wine in Spain. The DO Rueda was established in 1980, and the grape has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Today, Rueda still accounts for the vast majority of Verdejo plantings. The grape thrives in the region’s stony soils and high-altitude vineyards, which are often 700 to 900 metres above sea level. Those altitudes produce dramatic day-night temperature swings that preserve acidity and aromatic intensity.

However, Verdejo has now started to expand out of its Spanish heartland. Pioneering producers in Argentina, Australia, the US and further afield are starting to produce high-quality Verdejo, pointing to a bright future for this popular grape. The second Friday in June is the perfect time to celebrate its rise by enjoying a glass of Verdejo with friends.

Scroll down to see award-winning Spanish Verdejo wines from DWWA 2025

DWWA 2025: Award-winning Spanish Verdejo wines

Fortified

De Alberto Gutiérrez, De Alberto Palido, Rueda NV
Gold, 95 points
A beguiling austerity of smoky saline and iodine aroma that fuses with the mouth-watering limpidity of braised celery and fennel seed that enhances the creamy texture. Alcohol 15%

Still whites

Bodegas Rodríguez Y Sanzo, Palo Norte Verdejo, Rueda 2020
Gold, 95 points
Intricately laced with dried chamomile, dried herbs and mace on the nose, with a flourish of delectable lemon peel acidity and a long nutty finish. Alc 13.5%

Cuatro Rayas, Vendimia Nocturna Verdejo, Rueda 2024
Silver, 94 points
The nose has a character of ripe peaches, lemon oil, chamomile, lemongrass and lilac flowers. Chalky on the palate. Alc 13.5%

Viñas Murillo, Chapirete Seleccion Verdejo, Rueda 2024
Silver, 94 points
Beautiful nose, displaying delicate aromas of orange blossom, lemon zest and marmalade. Tangy and bright, with a delicate saline character. Alc 13.5%

Marqués De Riscal, Finca Montico Organic Verdejo, Rueda 2023
Silver, 94 points
Lovely bright floral notes with nuances of tobacco leaf, tarragon, ripe peaches, guava and dragon fruit. Harmonious, with a long finish. Alc 12.8%

Valdecuevas, Cuvèe Verdejo, Rueda 2023
Silver, 94 points
Limey nose with floral tones of lilac, violets and honeydew melon. Rounded acidity, very refreshing, with a pithy finish. Alc 13.5%

Bodegas Campo Eliseo, Rueda 2022
Silver, 93 points
Nutty nuances with hints of vanilla, smoke and peaches. Citrusy on the palate, with a very long and fresh finish. Alc 13.5%

Javier Ruiz, Verdejo, Rueda 2024
Silver, 92 points
Subtle and perfumed, with apples, passion fruit, roses and a touch of pickles on the nose. Vibrant acidity, great mouthfeel. Alc 13.5%

Bodega Cuatro Rayas, Amador Diez Verdejo, Rueda 2020
Silver, 92 points
The nose shows aromas of mulberry, mistletoe, white fruits and dried herbs. Elegant on the palate, very well made. Alc 13.3%

Bodegas R&G, Parcela 23, Rueda 2022
Silver, 92 points
Lifted aromas of flowers, ripe fruits and some saline edge on the nose. Textural palate, with a long pithy finish. Alc 13%

Pedro Escudero, Bestia Parda, Castilla y Léon 2020
Silver, 92 points
Complex aromas of custard cream, lime, lemon and green tea leaf with some toasty and floral undertones. Succulent and creamy. Alc 13%

Finca Tresolmos, Classic Verdejo, Rueda 2024
Silver, 91 points
Restrained on the nose, showing fresh and pure aromas of lemon and fennel. Creamy texture and pleasant acidity. Really appealing. Alc 13%

Coming soon: Decanter World Wine Awards 2026 results

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The Marlborough: 'Few hotels come with an origin story like this...'

Location: Blenheim, New Zealand

Drive Rapaura Road and the Marlborough wine region reveals itself in full: vines stretching to the horizon, the tawny Wither Hills rising in the distance, the bustle of a working wine landscape on either side.

What you don't expect to find at the end of a quiet driveway is a former convent turned into an elegant hotel, replete with stately Victorian verandas and a small Gothic chapel.

Few hotels come with an origin story quite like this one: a convent designed in 1901 by noted New Zealand architect Thomas Turnbull for the Sisters of Mercy, constructed from native timbers — Matai, Rimu and Kauri — including a carved staircase that remains a centrepiece today.

The building was relocated in five pieces to its current site in 1994 and reopened in 2017 as The Marlborough Boutique Hotel & Vineyard after a full refurbishment.

A 1911 chapel, relocated from a nearby town, now serves as the Chapel Bar.

Heritage bones, contemporary character

Ten individually designed guest rooms occupy the two floors of the historic main house across Premium, Deluxe and Queen categories, each unique in shape and décor.

Owner Angela Dillon took the lead on the interiors. Her vision: the warmth of a friend's grand country home, with a distinct New Zealand identity.

She achieved this with works by local artists, restored vintage pieces alongside contemporary additions, and the preservation of original hand-blown glass windows.

While each guest room is distinct, many feature bold wallpapers, statement headboards, marble ensuites with freestanding soaking tubs, and balconies with views across the landscape.

Common spaces accentuate the building's Victorian character, from a small library with a fireplace, a light-filled orangery and the intimate Chapel Bar where guests gather before dinner.

From there, the evening naturally drifts outside to a monumental stone fireplace crafted from local Wairau River rock, where wool throws and wicker chairs invite lingering past dark.

The surrounding gardens and grounds unfold across 16 acres, encompassing over 400 native and exotic trees and shrubs. Birdsong from tui, bellbirds, and darting fantails fills the grounds from dawn to dusk.

A one-acre organic garden supplies the kitchen while a five-acre working vineyard planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Merlot, and Malbec stocks the cellar.

Bottles of estate wine feature in every room's minibar, a welcome introduction to the property’s range.

Harvest restaurant and the Secret Shack

Harvest restaurant forms the heart of the dining experience. The kitchen, helmed by Executive Chef Wieland Matzig, has held a Cuisine New Zealand Hat Award for three consecutive years.

Menus highlight the seasons and the region, drawing from the on-site garden and nearby farmers and fishermen.

A Mibrasa charcoal oven anchors the kitchen, turning out local wagyu steaks, spiced charred chicken thighs, and free-range lamb from Lumina, widely regarded as the country’s top producer.

Seafood comes from the waters of the Sounds, often hand-speared, while Havelock’s green mussels arrive under a gratinated crust.

As for the wine list, it naturally focuses on Marlborough and broader New Zealand.

Guests keen for a deeper wine experience can join the estate's sommelier for a one-hour wine appreciation session that moves from the tasting room to the vineyard.

For a more private evening, reserve the Secret Shack, a secluded spot beside the crystal-clear waters of Spring Creek.

There, a private chef prepares a bespoke three-course dinner for two to four guests, paired with your choice of wines.

Beyond the vines

The Marlborough Sounds are easily overlooked with so many cellar doors beckoning, yet the journey 20 minutes north rewards handsomely, with its ancient drowned valleys, bush-covered hills and the liquid song of the bellbird echoing across the water at dawn.

The Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, home to Sir Peter Jackson's thrilling collection of Great War aircraft, is worth an afternoon.

Then again, the grounds make a persuasive argument for staying put with a game of pétanque on the lawn and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in hand by the outdoor heated pool.

Address: The Marlborough, 776 Rapaura Road, Rapaura

Good to know: Rates include full breakfast, a welcome drink on arrival and hosted evening cocktails and canapés.

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It wasn’t the lure of fine bottles that first brought me to the Dordogne almost two decades ago.

This corner of southwest France promises medieval bastides, honey-coloured villages, culinary delicacies such as truffles and foie gras, and even vineyards, but as I mapped out my wine stops before my first trip to the region, it was Bordeaux – its famed neighbour to the west – that occupied most of my attention.

With the exception of Monbazillac, known for its noble sweet wines, Bergerac was hardly on my radar.

Little did I know I would end up falling for a region punching well above its weight. Bergerac offers remarkable value for money with excellent bottles for a fraction of what you’d pay for Bordeaux.

And things continue to improve as producers embrace fresher, more approachable styles while maintaining a commitment to quality and sustainability (roughly 35% of the vineyards are certified organic).

Bergerac: Rich in history

Spanning 10,500ha, Bergerac’s history dates back to Gallo-Roman times. Thanks to its prime position on the banks of the Dordogne river, wine trade flourished in the 13th century.

The region now counts seven sub-zones (Bergerac, Monbazillac, Côtes de Duras, Pécharmant, Montravel, Rosette and Saussignac) covering 10 APs, with everything from zesty whites to handsome reds.

Though predominantly planted with Bordeaux grape varieties, each appellation has its unique character and terroir.

Authentic and worth discovering

In and around the town of Bergerac, the pursuit of the French art de vivre is palpable, especially in summer when festivals and events spotlighting local producers are in full swing.

Whether you’re watching the sun set over Château de Monbazillac or revelling in enchanting landscapes as you cycle past vine-covered hillsides and pretty villages, there’s plenty to prove that this once-overlooked corner of France is an attractive wine destination in its own right.

Top experiences

Quai Cyrano

No better place to hit the ground running than at Quai Cyrano, which is equal parts wine shop, tourist office and wine bar, housed in an attractive building on the banks of the Dordogne in the centre of Bergerac town.

Come here to sample 140 wines (paired with cheese or charcuterie boards) from the different appellations, either on the panoramic riverfront terrace or in the peaceful 17th-century Récollets cloister.

Don’t miss the Rosé Party at the cloister on 10 July and the Rosette Night on the old port on 15 August.

Château de Monbazillac

Before sampling Monbazillac’s silky liquoreux (sweet) wines (perfect when served chilled as an aperitif or paired with a foie gras terrine), step back in time with a visit to the 16th-century castle where you can discover how the region’s golden nectar is made.

Just 15 minutes south of Bergerac, this remarkable historic monument also hosts art exhibitions and the much-anticipated Soirées Paradizillac.

Held every Thursday between 16 July and 13 August, these open-air concerts are a feast for the senses, with wine tastings, Monbazillac-based cocktails, charcuterie boards and spectacular sunsets.

Tickets should be booked in advance via the website.

Hop on a bike

The Monbazillac route is an easy loop through vineyards and small villages. Gentle hills make it a relaxed and scenic ride, ideal for casual cycling and sightseeing (approximately 24km, 2.5 hours).

A little more challenging, the six-hour (82km) Pays des Bastides route is well worth the effort.

You’ll pass by historic villages such as Beaumont, Cadouin, Belves and Monpazier.

Bikes can be rented through MBS Mobility Bike Solution, while Quai Cyrano can provide detailed information and assistance in mapping out the ultimate route.

Discover Duras

The welcoming village of Duras (about 40km southwest of Bergerac town) is well worth a visit.

Spend an afternoon strolling through the charming streets and exploring its 12th-century château before settling in for an aperitif at Chai et Rasade, known for excellent charcuterie and a cellar of more than 200 wines and spirits, including a small selection of Duras wines by the glass.

On Thursday evenings in summer, the village comes alive with its convivial night market, where you can enjoy regional food, wine, live music and dancing.

Must-visit wineries

Domaine du Haut-Pécharmant

If it’s age-worthy, structured reds you’re after, Pécharmant in the northeast has little to envy neighbouring Pomerol.

The south-facing slopes, with soils of gravel, sand and iron-rich clay, benefit from warmer, drier conditions, ideal for producing full-bodied wines with lots of elegance.

The Haut-Pécharmant Prestige cuvée (a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec) stands out for its complexity, concentrated fruit and supple, well-integrated tannins.

A natural partner for the region’s robust duck dishes, this wine can easily be kept for up to 15 years.

Château le Tap

In Saussignac, just west of Monbazillac and also known for excellent sweet wines, most winegrowers have rejected chemical farming.

Among them are Olivier and Mireille Roches of Château le Tap, a 15ha estate that has been fully organic since 2007.

Their Bergerac rosé, with aromas of succulent strawberries, delicate floral notes and a lingering minerality, is one to pour alongside duck charcuterie or a goat’s cheese tartine topped with macerated strawberries.

Château Puy-Servain

Montravel, in the far west of the region, on the right bank of the Dordogne, is home to some of the region’s finest whites, and Château Puy-Servain’s Marjolaine is a prime example of how expressive these wines can be.

Made from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon planted on clay-limestone soils, this elegant cuvée is the brainchild of the spirited Daniel Hecquet (named Winemaker of the Year 2026 by the French publication Guide Hachette des Vins).

It merges freshness and citrus notes with floral aromas and a subtly textured mouthfeel thanks to five months in French oak.

Eating and drinking

Les Fresques

Located in Monestier, about 25 minutes from Bergerac, the Michelin one-star Les Fresques is part of a hotel set within the 16th-century Château des Vigiers. Chef Didier Casaguana’s artful dishes are matched by an extensive wine list with roughly 20 regional selections.

Try the signature oyster and caviar with Château Haut Bernasse’s Arcane cuvée. Made with a touch of Chenin, it opens with notes of white flowers, citrus and green apple.

Its creamy texture and subtle barrel-derived richness beautifully complement the fromage blanc sorbet, while its vibrant edge enhances the oyster’s salinity.

La Tour des Vents

Book a table on the terrace at Michelin one-star La Tour des Vents and order the three-course ‘Gourmand’ menu (€75) – with wine pairings (€53) if you’re feeling indulgent – while taking in sweeping views over the lush countryside.

A standout dish is the roast pigeon supreme, served with crispy leg, truffled Jerusalem artichoke purée, Brussels sprout leaves and reduction jus.

Pair it with Domaine Albert de Conti’s Côtes de Bergerac Chez Paul, a structured Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of violets, black fruits and fine, dusty tannins.

Le Chamoine

For something a little more budget-friendly, Le Chamoine (a two-minute walk from Quai Cyrano) serves classic Périgord cuisine, including magret and other duck dishes, alongside African-inspired specials such as a hearty Senegalese poulet mafé and even excellent fish and chips.

There’s also a small but thoughtfully curated selection of Bergerac wines.

L’Anthonnoir

Owner, sommelier and Bergerac native Anthony Guire offers more than 130 wines by the glass (including a good selection of Bergerac wines) served with cheese and charcuterie platters.

Where to stay

Les Gabarres apartment

You’ll feel like a local when you rent this bright apartment right in the centre of town.

It’s a treat to cook with fresh local produce from the Wednesday or Saturday morning market in the spacious kitchen, complete with a large island where you can sip wine while taking in the gorgeous views of the Dordogne.

Château les Merles

Tucked between the vineyards and just a 15-minute drive from Bergerac’s centre, this four-star hotel also offers apartments, villas and even a golf course.

At the gastronomic restaurant, chef Bas Holten cooks dishes with organic produce from his vegetable garden.

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English Heritage gins

Wiltshire Distilling Co has partnered with English Heritage to create a collection of gins inspired by historic estates, each distilled with a mix of botanicals intended to capture the sites’ character.

Blackberry & Rosehip (Alc 40%) is inspired by Audley End House in Essex, with its parkland designed by Capability Brown. English hedgerow botanicals including sloe, rosehip and elderflower give a fruity, brambly taste that’s well suited to a Negroni.

Wrest Park in Bedfordshire inspired a zesty Pomelo & Grapefruit (Alc 40%). My favourite of the trio, it makes a refreshing G&T garnished with a slice of pink grapefruit and is great in a Bee’s Knees.

Finally London Dry (Alc 40%) is a classic juniper-forward style that celebrates Osborne, Queen Victoria’s seaside retreat on the Isle of Wight.

‘English Heritage exists to share stories of England’s history, and developing products that represent those stories with partners who are experts in their field is a brilliant way to do so,’ said Alexandra Bovey of English Heritage.

‘It’s wonderful to see how Wiltshire Distilling Co has taken those stories and executed them through careful botanical selection.’

All £40/70cl at English Heritage retail stores.

What to drink now

Introducing the Drunken Crane cocktail

From: Next Door by Wegmans, New York City, US

Words by Vicki Denig

The classic Martini is having its moment in the sun, as are modern riffs on the beloved drink. Enter the Drunken Crane, a savoury iteration served at Next Door by Wegmans. Created by Cello Ritondo, the restaurant’s lead bartender, this flavour-packed cocktail promises to satisfy fans of spirit-forward libations, as well as fans of ginger.

‘The Drunken Crane was inspired by the traditional Vesper, as well as my love for Japanese cuisine,’ says Ritondo, who used pickled ginger brine from the restaurant’s sushi counter to bring more complexity to the drink.

He notes that throwing in a pinch of salt balances the vodka, making its naturally high 40% abv more palatable.

‘This cocktail is unique in that it makes a traditional Martini approachable, as well as opening up the palate for dinner,’ he adds, noting that the drink pairs impeccably with fresh sashimi and maki rolls.

How to make a Drunken Crane cocktail

Ingredients

• Glass: Nick & Nora
• 45ml Tito’s Handmade Vodka
• 5ml Lillet Blanc
• 15ml pickled ginger brine
• pinch of salt
• Optional garnish: mini origami crane

Method

• Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass.
• Add ice and stir for about 20 seconds, then strain into a Nick & Nora glass.
• Atomise a lemon peel above the drink, ensuring that the oils coat the rim of the glass before discarding.
• Garnish with a mini origami crane perched on the rim of the glass.

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It's the time of year at Decanter’s London HQ when we are watching the skies for an opportunity to enjoy a glass of chilled rosé in the sunshine at the end of our working day! See how well you know your pink wines in our 12-question quiz, below.

The rosé boom continues apace, with wine lovers turning to pinks of all shades and from all corners of the wine world – and not just in summer.

Though Provence retains its reputation as the benchmark style for many estates, winemakers and wine lovers are getting the message that a paler hue doesn’t automatically equate to higher quality, leading to an explosion in new styles.

Whatever your preferred shade of pink, it pays to keep a keen eye on the rosé category at your favourite retailer.

Use our rosé quiz to help identify the gaps in your knowledge, and make it your resolution to experiment more widely this summer!

Take our rosé wine quiz

More quizzes

US winemakers demonstrated their strength in depth at the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) in 2025, with a host of top medals for delicious styles produced in a wide range of growing areas.

California led the way with 143 medals, including two coveted Best in Show accolades (below) – for Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon wines respectively.

While the Golden State’s winemakers again demonstrated their prowess – nearly 50 years after the famous 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting – DWWA 2025 also saw strong performances across the US.

Washington state and Oregon increased their total medal hauls year-on-year, led by mouth-watering Platinum and Gold winners.

Other states continued their rise to prominence, too. Virginia followed a first-ever Gold medal at DWWA 2024 with another Gold in 2025, for a Petit Manseng white wine (see opposite).

DWWA’s rigorous judging process, underpinned by leading experts, helps ensure wine lovers can explore the dynamic US wine landscape with confidence.

Best in Show

Clos du Val, Estate Cabernet Franc, Stags Leap District, California 2022

Best in Show, 97 points
US$130 closduval.com
Here’s the second pure Cabernet Franc wine in this year’s Top 50 Best in Show. The lesson is the same from both: this variety can enchant and inspire, but only if its tendency to dryness in warmer climates is seen off, and its fruit qualities express both ample ripeness while retaining poised and perfumed flesh. This Napa example is a show-stopper: opaque black in colour, with a carnival of scent in which spice, flowers and damsons mingle with carefully schooled abandon. On the palate, the wine has splendid depth and width, just as its Cabernet Sauvignon offspring so often does in Napa; the difference is a lightness of touch here, an aerial grace, and a lithe ease of line to the tannins; the acidity remains tenderly supportive. Rarely does a wine from Stag’s Leap leap so gracefully; the result is memorably drinkable. Alcohol 15%

Kenwood, Six Ridges Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley, California 2021

Best in Show, 97 points
US$17-$25 Widely available
We’re thrilled to see a wine from Alexander Valley join the nine California red-wine peers that have already featured in our Best in Show selection. This distinctive zone clearly offers Cabernet of significantly different style to Napa: amply fleshed, yes, but with a savoury, mountain wildness to that flesh, and with a different acid emphasis. The blend here, with its seasoning of Petite Syrah, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, surely also plays a role in lending this wine its intriguing complexities. It’s black-red in colour, with open, affably fruity aromas lent depth by a dry-forest warmth; on the palate the wine has both breadth and depth as well as a compelling inner sweetness. The acidity is low but soft, while plump tannins with that distinctive savoury nuance bring the wine resolution and balance. Alc 14.5%

California

Cupere, Faces, Sonoma Coast 2022

Platinum, 97 points
US$65 Grand Cru Custom Crush
Rich, ripe aromas of yellow pear and apple, charry oak. Gorgeously creamy, sleek, oozing panache and charm. Utterly delicious, with bright acidity, a finely tuned texture and a candied citrus finish that lasts and lasts. Alc 13.2%

Maple & Ash, Chardonnay, Central Valley 2023

Gold, 95 points
@mapleashwines
Full of white nectarine, apricot, yellow apple and pear fruits with flinty inflections. Ample creamy oak, counterbalancing limey acidity and a cleansing, mineral finish. Alc 13.5%

Exprimere, Mia Pinot Noir, Sta Rita Hills 2022

Gold, 95 points
US$74 exprimere.wine
Sparky red berry fruit with a sweet overlay of cherry vanilla aromatics. Robust and expressive, with glossy tannins and focused acidity. Finishes long and savoury. Alc 14.2%

New Clairvaux Vineyard, Petite Sirah, Tehama County 2022

Gold, 95 points
newclairvauxvineyard.com
Captivating, inky blue fruit, sweet tobacco and violet are joined on the palate by wonderful chocolate oak flavours. Structured and full, with fine-grained tannins and brisk acidity. Alc 14.1%

Washington state

Echolands, Blue Mountain Vineyard Cabernet Franc, Walla Walla Valley 2022

Platinum, 97 points
US$50-$60 Elliott Bay Distributing Co, Medium Plus
Black cherry, berry and plum with an earthy, herbaceous tone. Appetising, with lustrous tannins, juicy acidity and a smoky finish. Alc 13.8%

L’Ecole No41, Cabernet Sauvignon, Walla Walla Valley 2022

Gold, 95 points
US$35-$54 Widely available
A sophisticated display of blackcurrant, cedar and graphite fragrance, with an array of sleek tannins, a silky texture and delectable spicy lift on the finish. Alc 14.5%

Samā Cellars, Bhūmi Syrah, Walla Walla Valley 2022

Gold, 95 points
US$62 samacellars.com
Ample plum, blackberry and raspberry with herbaceous and violet nuances, coupled with tobacco notes, vibrant acidity and fine tannins. Textured and meaty, long and harmonious. Alc 13.6%

Spring Valley Vineyard, Uriah Red Wine, Walla Walla Valley 2022

Gold, 95 points
US$65 springvalleyvineyard.com, Total Wine & More
Plush blackberry, violet and notes of graphite and tobacco flow liberally across the nose and palate, encased in a refined tannic structure. Long and savoury. Alc 14.5%

Oregon

Domaine Serene, Yamhill Cuvée Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley 2022

Platinum, 97 points
US$60-$85 Widely available
Crunchy red cherry and raspberry fruit with generous, sweet, oaky spice that unfurls and weaves around the supple tannins and texture. Bristling acidity and a lengthy finish. Alc 13.8%

Ambar Estate, Lustral Chardonnay, Dundee Hills 2022

Gold, 95 points
US$230/magnum ambarestate.com
Distinctive custard apple, ripe pear and peach fruit is joined by a dusting of creamy hazelnut oak. Smooth acidity and luxuriously lasting length. Alc 13%

Watermill, Hallowed Stones Syrah, Rocks District, Walla Walla Valley 2021

Gold, 95 points
US$50-$55 Medium Plus, watermillwinery.com
Violet florals, ripe blueberry and plum engage seamlessly with a smoked meat and black olive core. Generous and open. A peppery finish. Alc 13.9%

Virginia

Early Mountain, Petit Manseng 2022

Gold, 95 points
earlymountain.com
Richly flavoured and gastronomically textured. Honeyed ripe apple, fresh peach and perfumed herbal notes enlivened by zingy acidity and a bright mineral finish. Fabulous. Alc 13.9%

Search all DWWA 2025 winners

As botanically flavoured spirits go, gin is undoubtedly the most ubiquitous of recent times. But another is nipping at its heels: botanical vodka.

Botanical vodkas are flavoured via distillation with plant-based botanicals including fruits, herbs, flowers and spices. These could be distilled with the spirit itself, or used to create botanical essences that are blended with it.

It’s important to note the distinction between botanical vodkas and the broader category of flavoured vodkas; the latter are generally flavoured after distillation through maceration, infusion, or by adding extracts and sweeteners.

While botanical vodkas are very similar to gin, one crucial requirement separates them: gin must have a primary flavour of juniper. Without this stipulation, botanical vodka producers can spotlight other elements, be it locally sourced ingredients or delicate flavours that would struggle against juniper’s piney might.

Freedom of expression

William Lowe MW, a Master Distiller and co-founder of Cambridge Distillery, says its Meadow Mist botanical vodkas provide a ‘different framework for expression’ compared with its gins. ‘Without juniper as the structural backbone, it allows a single ingredient or idea to sit completely at the forefront.’

Sloemotion’s Hedgerow Botanical Vodka is designed as an expression of the Yorkshire countryside that surrounds the distillery. Founder Joff Curtoys (below) sought a ‘purer taste of the hedgerows’, using botanicals including crab apple, elderflower, rosehip and nettle leaf.

Finding flavour

For Hugh Lambert at Shanty Spirit, the style offered a blank canvas for the coastally inspired vodka he wanted to produce. His Seaweed Botanical Vodka contains five native varieties of its namesake plant. ‘The flavour we wanted [was] crisp and fresh, like jumping in the sea,’ he says.

Hepple Spirits also heroes one botanical in its Douglas Fir Vodka, but uses three methods to capture its aromatic character. There’s traditional pot distillation; a lower-temperature rotary evaporator; and a supercritical fluid extractor, a machine normally found in perfume houses.

A conscious choice

While botanical vodka doesn’t command the public profile of gin, it is gaining traction amid the trend toward more conscious consumption. Sebastian Bunford-Jones, global marketing manager at The Glasgow Distillery Co, believes both drinkers and bartenders are becoming more receptive to spirits that ‘prioritise provenance, natural ingredients and production transparency’. Those values sit at the heart of the distillery’s G52 Botanical Vodkas.

Gemma Standeven, founder and director at Gattertop Drinks Company, which makes Gattertop No7 Botanical Vodka, feels they are a natural next step for gin drinkers. ‘Gin has educated consumers to expect botanical complexity, and some drinkers want that flavour but in a smoother, less juniper-forward format,’ she says.

How to drink botanical vodkas

The nature and flavours of botanical vodkas make them ideal for mixing. For a simpler serve, pair with tonic or soda water or stir down in a Martini.

When using in more highly flavoured cocktails, let the botanicals guide your choice. Use a more savoury vodka for a Bloody Mary, a citrussy spirit for a Cosmopolitan, or a richer one for an Espresso Martini.

Silver Circle’s Black Garlic Vodka was developed with a particular cocktail in mind. ‘As Bloody Mary fans, we were excited to explore a botanical vodka which would complement tomato juice and spice,’ explains distillery co-founder Nina Howden. ‘The black garlic deepens the drink, adding richness and savoury sweetness.’

Whatever your preference, there’s sure to be a botanical vodka that ticks the right flavour boxes.

Botanical vodkas: 10 to try

Assaranca Vodka

Made by Sliabh Liag Distillers in Donegal, Ireland using native botanicals gorse flower and rowan berry. Creamy cereal aromas alongside gentle grassiness and citrussy herbs. Plump mouthfeel, with additional red berry flavours. Its gentleness wants a minimal serve: with soda or in a Martini. Alcohiol 41%

Blackwoods Botanical Vodka

Heroes botanicals that reflect its home in Inverkip, Scotland, including sea buckthorn, sea mint and kelp. Sweet cereal, citrus peel and washed mint aromas lead to a balanced citrussy, sweet and herbal palate. Try it in a Cosmopolitan for added zing. Alc 40%

Cambridge Distillery Meadow Mist Verbena Vodka

Produced via vacuum distillation to preserve the delicate flavours of its hero botanical, lemon verbena. Tart, citrussy aroma with accompanying sweet cereal notes. Superbly round texture. The botanical profile crescendoes into the finish, clear and crisp. One for a Martini. Alc 40%

Dunnet Bay Distillers Holy Grass Vodka

Distilled with native holy grass, which has a vanilla-like aroma, alongside cinnamon and Scottish apple juice. Aromas and flavours of crisp raw apple, creamy vanilla and powdered cinnamon, with gentle grassy notes. Serve long with apple juice or ginger ale. Alc 41.5%

Gattertop No7 Botanical Vodka

An English vodka created with a concentrated distillate of elderflower, rosemary, nettle, basil, damson leaves, apple blossom and coriander. Fragrant and softly herbaceous with citrussy coriander, plummy fruits and sweet florals. Keep the serve classic with a Martini or Vodka Tonic. Alc 38%

G52 Fresh Citrus Botanical Vodka

Distilled with fresh lemons, limes, ginger and lemongrass, alongside vapour-infused orange and pink grapefruit. Big, bright citrussy character – the flesh, juice and oils – accompanied by notes of fresh ginger and creamy sweetness on the palate. Mix long with soda or tonic. Alc 40%

Hepple Douglas Fir Vodka

Three distillation methods are used to capture the flavour of its lead botanical, Douglas fir shoots. Refreshing aroma with pine needles, lemon peel and saline hints. Oily palate with citrus and herbaceous notes. Made for Martinis, however you have them. Alc 41%

Shanty Seaweed Botanical Vodka

The botanicals include five hand-foraged British seaweeds alongside galangal, wasabi, yuzu and bergamot. Balanced maritime aroma combining oily, herbaceous, citrus and vegetal notes. Mouthfilling, with sweet salinity and herbal flavours. Mix long in a Mule, or use it to supercharge a Dirty Martini. Alc 40%

Sloemotion Hedgerow Botanical Vodka

Featuring botanicals from its Yorkshire home including rosehip, nettle leaf and elderflower. Sweet, concentrated hedgerow fruit aromas with rosy florals and underlying spice. Herbaceous nettles on the palate with elderflower sweetness and lingering rose. Try it in a Martini or Vodka Tonic. Alc 40%

Silver Circle Black Garlic Vodka

Featuring Isle of Wight black garlic, toasted bread and lapsang souchong tea. Potent garlicky aromas, from deep umami to sweet cooked cloves, with gentle smokiness. Silky palate with underlying sweetness and spice. A savoury serve calls: maybe a Bloody Mary or Dirty Martini. Alc 40%

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Rewind nine years to May 2017, when the world mourned the 22 killed in the Manchester Arena bombing.

Earlier that month Emmanuel Macron won France’s presidential election, Canadian rapper Drake took home 13 gongs from the Billboard Music Awards, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman premiered at the cinema, and Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-1 in the FA Cup final.

And wine lovers were enjoying Volume 42 issue no8 of Decanter magazine, priced at £4.50.

A deep blue twilight sky, with ancient ruins by a coastline, is the image background for our ‘Best of Italy’ main coverline.

The bottle of Morella’s La Signore Primitivo from Puglia references the secondary headline of ‘10 stunning discoveries’, alongside Masseto – ‘The Petrus of Italy’.

Inside, these were five things that piqued our interest from the May 2017 issue.

Archive dive in five

1: Southern stars

Master of Wine Susan Hulme introduced us to the 10 producers in Italy’s south ‘who have impressed me most in the past 18 months’.

On a journey readers could follow on the illustrated map, she travelled from Campania to Puglia via Basilicata, then down to Sicily (Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, missed out),

Hulme admitted ‘there's so much going on’ that it was difficult to pick just 10, so she focused on both new and established names that remain ‘relatively undiscovered’.

Southern Italy’s warm autumns, high-elevation sites, distinctive soils and the ‘abundance of riches’ in its late-ripening, heat-resistant grapes, results in ‘a heady and intoxicating mix’ in the hands of ‘daring, passionate winemakers’, she enthused, creating ‘an explosion of vivid, delicious wines that are full of personality’.

2: 'The new Old World'

Not all that long ago, it used to be acceptable to split the wine world into Old World and New World, said Simon Woolf in introduction to this feature (also see below).

‘Life isn't so simple in the 21st century,’ he added, explaining that the ‘resurgence’ of wine nations around the Mediterranean and Caucasus had created what he diplomatically suggested was best termed ‘the new Old World’.

Woolf, who has been joint Regional Chair for Balkans, Central & Eastern Europe and Caucasus at the Decanter World Wine Awards since 2023, introduced this ‘sprinkling’ of countries with ‘rich histories of wine production and consumption dating back millennia’, before he and other Decanter experts highlighted the best regions, grape varieties, producers and wine styles in Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Lebanon and Israel.

3: A natural evolution

Simon Woolf was kept busy this month (see above) also chairing a ‘first-of-its-kind tasting’ blind panel tasting of 122 natural wines – ‘a small but significant niche; the agitator that keeps the wine world on its toes’.

He agreed the category could be hugely variable, but ‘in a world full of homogeneity and blandness, there is surely no better antidote’ – a host of wines ‘as diverse, irrepressible and idiosyncratic as the growers who produce them’.

He went on to ask how we should define natural wine – or whether the category even needed defining – ultimately deciding ‘they must be judged on their own terms’.

He (with advice from other industry experts) came up with a Decanter charter of quality used as the criteria of entry for this tasting.

4: Letters: plus ça change…

‘Letter of the month’ was from regular correspondent Paul Davis from Wimbledon in London, who implored wine lovers to ignore vintage charts and ratings and enjoy wine for the drink that it is ‘crafted by artisans, drunk with friends, explored for a lifetime’.

Brian Rauder from Guelph in Ontario, Canada, vented the disappointment of sharing one of his most-prized wines – Mastroberardino’s Radici Taurasi Riserva 1996, which he’d gone to great effort to source directly from the winery itself – with unappreciative dinner guests. ‘I have learned the hard way to be more discriminating about what I serve to whom’.

Other letters extolled stemless wine glasses at picnics and encouraged Decanter experts to recommend more affordable wines. Sound familiar?

5: Guess who?

A fun franchise that kept Patrick Grabham, Decanter’s veteran art editor (who has been with the magazine since 2006) amused for many years was the ‘Say what you see’ rebus.

He picked a winery or wine producer featured in that issue and then came up with some word and picture clues to help readers solve the riddle.

Can you guess what this one is?

Is there an issue from the past 50 years you'd like us to look back on? Drop us a line at editor@decanter.com

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The buzz for Napa Valley’s 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon wines began circulating during the 2025 Premiere Napa Valley Barrel Auction.

I recall several producers belting the phrase ‘over the moon ecstatic,’ and gushing over the ‘plentiful tannins’ and ‘bright, grippy acidity’ that seemed to mark the wines in their early maturing phase.

Hardly anyone I spoke to had harvested Cabernet grapes in September—certainly unusual if we look back over historical picking dates from the last decade.

In 2023, most began harvesting in October and continued well into November.

Early on, the Napa Valley Vintners promoted 2023 as ‘the Vintage of a Lifetime.’

My own verdict, after tasting more than 600 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons from the year, is that the phrase, while catchy, may not quite capture the deeper truth of the season.

A more accurate description might be that 2023 represents the ideal Napa Valley vintage: a year when the vines had everything they needed – including time itself, without the pressure of damaging heat or rain.

Heavy winter rains replenished soils depleted by several drought years, placing vines in a strong physiological position as the growing season began.

Soils rich in moisture and microbial life provided vines with the resources to produce healthy canopies and excellent fruit set.

Once the season began, Napa Valley experienced something increasingly rare – stability in the weather, with moderate temperatures throughout spring and summer, and well into harvest time.

As Michael Scholz, Vice President of Winemaking and Vineyards of St. Supéry, observed, these moderate conditions allowed flavour and phenolic development to progress together, yielding wines with, ‘great flavours, ripe tannins, and above all vibrancy and freshness'.

The finished wines possess deep crimson colours, yet striking luminosity, layered fruit purity, and silky, finely structured tannins supported by vibrant acids and graphite-tinged minerality.

Managing yields

If there is any criticism of Mother Nature in 2023, it is that September might have benefited from a handful of warmer days.

A brief stretch of additional heat could have accelerated ripening by roughly a week or ten days and pushed the vintage into truly historic territory.

Even so, growers across the valley widely described the year as a dream scenario.

Nickel & Nickel winemaker Joe Harden called it ‘a dream for winemakers,’ noting that careful canopy management yielded polished, silky tannins and remarkable elegance in the finished wines.

Of course, a great growing season does not guarantee great wine. What winemakers do with the fruit ultimately determines whether a vintage lives up to its potential.

In 2023, vineyard management was critical. The abundant water and healthy canopies led to generous yields, meaning producers who failed to thin crops risked dilution in the finished wines.

As I tasted through hundreds of wines, only a small percentage showed signs of that kind of lightness.

The overwhelming majority displayed the structure, freshness, and depth expected of a great Napa year.

What is perhaps most exciting is how 2023 will sit alongside the extraordinary 2021 vintage.

A compelling duo

The wines of 2021 are dense, inky, and powerfully structured – born of a shorter growing season with reduced yields and vines combating hydric stress.

By contrast, the 2023s lean towards a brighter, fresher profile, are almost relaxed, yet framed by equally powerful tannins that are so extremely fine-grained they are already seamlessly integrated, making for incredibly easy enjoyment.

For collectors and traders of high-end Napa Cabernet, that pairing is particularly intriguing.

The muscular grandeur of 2021 and the poised elegance of 2023 will likely age on parallel trajectories for decades.

If the wines evolve as expected, the coming years may see these two vintages spoken of together as defining benchmarks of the modern Napa Valley era.

Together, they may form one of Napa Valley’s most compelling back-to-back collector vintages.

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Most people who travel to Sydney hit the beaches for the most quintessential Aussie itinerary. Bondi is iconic, Byron is a must and Crescent Head is for surfers who want to catch a gnarly wave.

But jump in a car and head south from Sydney and you’ll find some of the most pristine beaches in the country, with more than 100km of coastline featuring protected coves, inlets and lagoons. The area known as the south coast of New South Wales is so untouched and miles away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney that there are even chances of spotting whales and dolphins.

On the wine trail

The small but mighty Shoalhaven Coast Wine Trail takes you from Kiama down to Bawley Point. The region is blessed with a unique maritime climate and cool coastal winds give Shoalhaven wines freshness, subtle elegance and complexity.

The main varietal here is Chambourcin, a versatile red French-American hybrid grape that’s highly resistant to the strong winds and fluctuating temperatures. However Chardonnay is also popular among winemakers, as is Cabernet Sauvignon, made in a lighter style thanks to the coastal climate.

‘What makes Shoalhaven special is that it’s still a relatively young wine region in New South Wales, and it’s largely made up of independent, family-run businesses,’ says Libby Cupitt, second generation winemaker at Cupitt’s Estate. ‘There’s a real sense that everyone is shaping it in their own way, often tied closely to the lifestyle here. Here you can finish work and then head for a swim, a surf or a snorkel,’ she adds.

Heading inland

I stuck to the coastline during my south coast wine tour, but if you go further inland, you will hit Yarrawa which overlooks Kangaroo Valley; Lyrebird (between Kangaroo Valley and Nowra); and Cambewarra Estate at the foothills of the Cambewarra Mountain.

Husband-and-wife Mark and Sue Foster founded the intimate Yarrawa winery in 1998. Chardonnay aged in new French oak barrels and a sustainably grown, peppery Chambourcin are on offer here. But it’s hard to beat the fresh and velvety Sierra Rosé, also made from Chambourcin.

Directly on the Princes Freeway is Silos Estate. Since 1984, the small vineyard just outside of Berry has been a destination for art-lovers, families and gourmets. The estate has sculpture by Elyssa Sykes-Smith, alpacas for kids to cuddle and a fine-dining restaurant. Much like all the boutique wineries in the region, sustainability is high on the agenda here.

The estate has been self-sustaining since 2010 with all the energy for the winery, accommodation and cellar door generated from solar or wind power. Alongside the award-winning Chardonnay and dessert wines such as Shiraz-based Sticky Wicket, you’ll also find charging stations for vehicles.

Coastal wineries

Off the Princes Highway and close to the beach on Shoalhaven Heads, you’ll find three more wineries worth a visit: Two Figs Vineyard, Coolangatta Estate and Mountain Ridge. All estates offer a tempting array of wines to taste from Chamboucin to Semillon – and there’s even a gin at Two Figs.

But if there’s just one winery to visit in the region, head further south to Cupitt’s Estate in Ulladulla. Originally a working dairy farm, the estate is now owned by entrepreneurs Rosie and Griff Cupitt, who wanted to bring a European flavour to the south coast of New South Wales. So rather than your regular Semillon and Shiraz, the Cupitts make wines with Italian varietals. Single-vineyard expressions include Vermentino, Arneis, Fiano and Montepulciano – all sourced from growers in the cool-climate Hilltops region of southern New South Wales.

‘We’ve spent a lot of time travelling through Italy and what has stayed with us is how much the Italians prioritise joy, food, friends and family. That really resonates with how we live here,’ says Rosie. ‘Varieties like Fiano, Vermentino, Arneis and Sangiovese just fit our coastal lifestyle. They also make sense from a growing perspective. We need varieties that can handle dry conditions, but also cope when we get high rainfall. Mediterranean grapes are well suited to that, which feels important as the climate continues to shift.’

Where to stay

Bangalay Villas

Sitting on Seven Miles Beach, there are 16 private luxury suites with kitchenettes and a large lounge area overlooking a private golf course.

Bannisters By The Sea

A beachside resort perched high on a hill with panoramas of the sea. Treat yourself to a stay in the penthouse, styled by Aussie designer, Collette Dinnigan.

The Oaks Ranch

A bit of Palm Springs in the heart of country New South Wales – why not? A delightful family-run boutique retreat in Mossy Point with a private golf course and top-notch restaurant.

Where to eat

Arlo

Enjoy kangaroos hopping in the countryside as you relax in the award-winning restaurant at The Oaks Ranch, sipping local wines and eating wagyu beef sourced from nearby farms.

Cupitt’s Estate Dining Room

The seasonal farm-to-table menu pays homage to local producers with a slight European twist.

Rick Stein at Bannisters

A local seafood-focused restaurant by celebrity chef Rick Stein, with dishes such as stir-fried Jervis Bay mussels and grilled Ulladulla snapper.

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Standout success for China and Japan at the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2025 showcases rich opportunities for discovery in both countries.

Two Chinese red wines from different regions won coveted Best in Show medals, marking China’s first appearance in DWWA’s Top 50 list since 2011. In a strong year for Asia, DWWA 2025 also saw eye-catching Gold medals for Chinese white wines and several top medals for Japan.

‘The 2025 results testify to significant leaps in quality in winemaking in both mainland China and Japan,’ said Dr Edward Ragg MW, judge at DWWA 2025 and Regional Chair for Asia at DWWA 2026 and co-founder of Dragon Phoenix.

‘Japan’s refinement of the Koshu variety is also compelling, with wines showing great purity of fruit, with or without lees influence.’ He noted the rise of ‘vibrant perfumed reds’, too.

DWWA’s rigorous judging process, underpinned by leading experts, offers a perfect route into these dynamic winemaking scenes.

See a selection of top DWWA 2025 medal winners below.

Best in Show

Changyu, Noble Dragon N188, Yantai, Shandong, China (mainland) 2022

Best in Show, 97 points
changyu.com.cn
This successful blend of 75% Cabernet Gernischt (Carmenère) and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon is from the very particular coastal environment of the Shandong peninsula in eastern China. It confirms that China is capable of making not just fruity red wines (which many locations in the wine world do well), but structured reds in which rich tannins provide the bone structure that gives beguiling fruit flesh an inner seriousness of purpose. This is dark and searching, with plum-blackberry fruits. Depth and textural finesse on the palate are supported by tannins that play a key role in lending the fruit its dignity and gastronomic force. Alcohol 13.5%

Dongfang Yuxing, Geruihong Yeguangbei, Helan Mountain East, Ningxia, China 2022

Best in Show, 97 points
Though China is a relative newcomer to the world of wine, in many other respects its civilisation pre-dates that of Mediterranean Europe – and the Chinese made mixed alcoholic beverages even earlier than the Georgians made wine. This Ningxia wine is a cunning blend that few in Europe would have thought of: Cabernet Sauvignon with 9% of freshening Dornfelder and 6% of Cabernet Gernischt (Carmenère). It works well. Fresh and alluring scents of blackcurrant and wild plum, then a seductive plunge of fruit and spice, settling on something more akin to dark chocolate but – and this is key – with the authority and detaining discipline only carefully extracted tannins can bring. It’s a revelation. Alc 15.6%

China (mainland)

Ningxia

Li’s Estate, Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Helan Mountain East 2022

Platinum, 97 points
wineningxia.com
Aromas of blackberry compote and prunes, with touches of cedar, black pepper spice and herbs. Enveloping tannins and a lick of warming tar to finish. Alc 15.5%

Domaine Pu Shang, Marselan, Helan Mountain East 2022

Gold, 96 points
Waves of damson and blueberry fruit, earthy balsamic tones and an intoxicating violet fragrance. Bold and structured, with broad tannins and herbaceous acidity. Alc 15.5%

MountainWave Vinery, Mountain Wave Malbec, Helan Mountain East 2021

Gold, 96 points
Hugely concentrated damson florals, black cherry and plum with a bewitching clove and vanilla aspect. Stylish and plush, with silky tannins and a lofty, lingering acidity. Superb. Alc 14%

Dongfang Yuxing, Geruihong Marselan, Helan Mountain East 2024

Value Gold, 95 points
Deep and inky, cassis and peppery spice flowing from nose onto the palate. Juicy structure and silky tannins. A wine that shows both ageing potential and youthful appeal. Alc 13.2%

Pernod Ricard Ningxia, Helan Mountain Xiao Feng Cabernet Sauvignon, Helan Mountain East 2020

Gold, 95 points
helanmountain.com
Morello cherry, blackcurrant and plum, framed by tightly packed tannins, elevating acidity and violet, enhanced by spicy toast characters from the oak. Alc 14.8%

Shandong

Mystic Island, Yihu Qiushan Reserve Chardonnay, Penglai 2022

Gold, 96 points
mysticwinery.hk
Floral charm of jasmine, white blossom and honeysuckle aromas leads into a mouthwatering lemony freshness, flowing with a wonderful smoky mineral quality. Alc 13%

Longting, Sea Breeze Reserve Chardonnay, Penglai 2020

Gold, 95 points
longtingvineyard.com
Beguiling white blossom, melon and peach perfumes brought together by invigorating citrus peel acidity and a mineral undertow, with an intriguing bitter almond twist at the end. Alc 12.5%

Japan

Chubu

Chateraise Belle Foret, Katsunuma Koshu, Yamanashi 2023

Gold, 95 points
koshuvalley.com
Layers of white peach, pear, cherry blossom and lemon zest with a stony mineral infusion. Crunchy and crisp with a playful minty green tea finish. Alc 12%

Shirayuri Winery, L’Orient Vigne de Nakagawa Koshu, Yamanashi 2024

Gold, 95 points
koshuvalley.com
Rose petal and lily scents, green apple and lime bring a sense of brightness and vitality. Lifted texture and a vibrant bite of acidity. Fresh and sustained. Alc 12%

Hokkaido

Grande Polaire, Zweigeltrebe, Yoichi 2022

Platinum, 97 points
sapporobeer.jp
Cherry, plum, prune and violet with a vibrant, minty undercurrent. Plush, velvety texture. Intense and engaging, with spicy interludes. Nicely rounded through to the finish. Alc 12.5%

Niki Hills, Chardonnay, Niki 2023

Gold, 96 points
Sublime yellow plum, pineapple and fresh flower aromas shot through with a subtle vein of vanilla oak. A crushed rock mineral character on the palate and a zesty finish. Alc 13%

Kyushu

Tsuno Wine, Makiuchi Private Reserve Koshu, Miyazaki 2024

Gold, 95 points
Pink-tinged and impeccably flavoured with rose petal florals, peach and pear fruits, and a sumptuous bite of almond nuttiness. Glowing with crisp apple acidity. Vivacious and pure. Alc 11%

DWWA 2026 results announced 17 June 2026.

Discover more at awards.decanter.com

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The first time I tried Gamay, I was 22 and on the cusp of some awakening that would eventually lead me to a career in wine.

Up until that point, my experience drinking wine – and especially red wine – was probably a familiar one to many: full-bodied expressions of Cabernet Sauvignon opened regardless of the season.

Dinners paired, however inappropriately, with bottles from Rioja and Bordeaux and the occasional Chianti, inspired by a trip I took with my family to Tuscany when I was a kid.

So to experience a wine that was delicate and bursting with fruit, whose tannins and acidity worked in perfect harmony, was to open an entire world I didn’t know existed.

Wine professionals and enthusiasts alike often talk about their ‘gateway bottles’ – the first wine they ever enjoyed which revealed with stark clarity the possibilities of what wine could be.

A Beaujolais 2020 from Domaine de la Prébende was my first experience drinking a lighter-bodied, bright and juicy red, and it set me down a path of looking for wines that ignited this same sense of wonder.

The juicy holy grail

Nothing has delivered quite like the elusive, though increasingly popular, Pineau d’Aunis, whose exciting renaissance has not only deepened my enjoyment of wine, but kindled a sense of curiosity for its craft and history.

Pineau d’Aunis, a red grape thought to be native to the Loire, was once very popular across this region, especially during the 13th century when it was purportedly a favourite of England’s King Henry III, who had the wines shipped across the Channel.

But like most European grape varieties, Pineau d’Aunis was heavily impacted by the phylloxera outbreak that swept through France and across Europe in the late 19th century.

Finicky and susceptible to some diseases, it was gradually replaced by the more celebrated (and easier to handle) Cabernet Franc.

Though never entirely lost, Pineau d’Aunis plantings dwindled significantly over the 20th century, reaching their lowest point in the 1970s before the start of its recent revival.

Pineau ascendent

Leading this renaissance were producers like Jean-Pierre Robinot (Les Vignes de l'Ange Vin), Thierry Puzelat (Clos du Tue-Boeuf) and Eric Nicolas (Domaine de Bellivière).

Nicolas has worked with massal cuttings from 100-year-old vines to repopulate Pineau d’Aunis across his vineyard, which he uses in one of the domaine’s signature cuvées, Hommage à Louis Derré, a personal favourite of mine.

Louis Dressner, one of the largest importers of natural wine in the US, has been working with these producers, and more, over the last 20 years, playing an influential role in the rise of Pineau d’Aunis in bars and on shelves across the country. (That being said, it’s one of few grapes on their website which doesn’t have its own designated sorting feature).

Jules Dressner, of the company’s second generation, credits this with the increasing demand for Loire wines generally.

‘There used to be a time when this was an underdog grape in an underdog region,’ he says, ‘but the Loire has legitimised itself as a very important place in France, and so you have more people paying more attention to the region generally and therefore the indigenous varieties it gives us.’

The problem with Pineau d’Aunis, he argues, is that it’s often overlooked and even somewhat polarising. ‘It's much more than a light-drinking red grape.

It's rustic, but charming and complex. The kind of grape that you can turn your brain either on or off too, that can really make you think – if you let it,’ he says.

A moveable feast

And it’s true, each bottle of Pineau d’Aunis I’ve tried has given me something new to chew on: bright and juicy expressions of red fruits like strawberries, raspberries and sour cherries, grounded in an earthy savouriness with notes of white pepper and brine, that balance out its brighter elements.

As the seasons change, I find myself once again turning to wines that are not only fresh and light, but that mark some greater awakening which spring always seems to set in motion.

The following wines capture just that.

Six wines to make you fall in love with Pineau d'Aunis:

Domaine de Bellivière, Hommage à Louis Derré, Coteaux du Loir

One of the domaine’s most elusive cuvées made from its signature variety, this comes from 1ha of 90-110-year-old Pineau d'Aunis grown on heavy clay and silex soils over limestone, across eight tiny parcels.

Sour plum, blackberry and redcurrant aromas are intricately woven with undertones of warm spice like anise and peppercorn and an earthy quality of wet moss and leaves.

Perfectly structured, its tannins are notable yet refined, covering a silky palate that gives the wine fabulous length and elegance.

Clos du Tue-Boeuf, Pineau d’Aunis, Vin de France

One of the earliest bottles of Pineau d’Aunis I tried, this is the kind of wine that lingers well beyond the last sip. In the glass it’s ruby-hued and translucent when held up to the light.

Clos du Tue-Boeuf was established by Thierry Puzelat, who has worked with Pineau d’Aunis for a long time.

This cuvée, however, was first released in 2015 with fruit sourced in small quantities from his neighbouring grower, Valérie Forgues, who organically tends and hand harvests 100-year-old vines.

Aged for six months in old barrels and bottled with zero added sulphur, this wine has a lip-smacking acidity reminiscent of blood orange or cranberry juice, finishing with notes of Castelvetrano olive and a peppery bite like fresh rocket.

Jean-Pierre Robinot, Les Vignes de l'Ange Vin Le Regard, Vin de France

Quintessential Loire freshness and unmistakably Robinot, this wine is zippy, bright and expressive, with a slight effervescence.

Whole-bunch fermentation for three weeks and 15 months of maturation in barrel gives the wine delicate tannins without sacrificing its brightness or high acidity.

Vibrant notes of cranberry and pomegranate on the palate work in harmony with salty and faintly grassy aromas on the nose.

It has a metallic, iron-rich finish, a touch of white pepper and an uncompromising savouriness which begs to be thoughtfully considered.

Domaine de la Roche Bleue, La Belle d'Aunis, Vin de France

Described by winemaker Sébastien Cornille as ‘a thinker, a ponderer, a brilliant wine,’ this cuvée reaches depths Pineau d’Aunis is seldom thought to achieve.

The grapes are harvested from vines that are over 50 years old, planted in the clay-rich soils of Marçon and Chahaignes.

After two to three weeks of semi-carbonic maceration in foudres, depending on the vintage, the wine is gently pressed, then aged for 12 months in barrel.

The result preserves the delicacy and purity of the fruit – think blackcurrant liqueur and raspberry preserve – while layering in warm spice notes of coriander seed and star anise.

Surprisingly robust, it pairs beautifully with a range of dishes like lamb and spring vegetables.

La Grapperie, Adonis Pineau d'Aunis, Vin de France

La Grapperie makes wine from just two varieties: Chenin Blanc and Pineau d'Aunis.

This cuvée, made purely of the latter, uses grapes from a blend of young and old vines planted across the Coteaux du Loir – one of the region’s overlooked terroirs.

But winemaker Renaud Guettier is helping to breathe new life into the area and creating new excitement around the grape.

Here, he balances the natural character of Pineau d’Aunis with the limestone-rich slopes he farms.

The wine shows a harmony of soft earth and spicy minerality, with notes of red raspberry, wild strawberry and cracked pepper.

Striking a balance between brightness and structure, it’s a wine that speaks for itself, but is just as at home shared over a table of meats and cheeses.

Domaine le Briseau, Patapon, Vin de France

Produced within the Coteaux du Loir appellation, this cuvée has been intentionally declassified as Vin de France by the winemaker, self-prescribed as 'unconforming'.

The medium-bodied palate defies expectations for a grape often assumed to be simply light and juicy.

The nose is heavily perfumed with aromas of strawberry compote, violets and red cherries, as well as subtle hints of black pepper and damp earth.

On the palate, it’s juicy with mouthwatering acidity, soft tannins, and flavours of tart red fruit, a touch of chocolate and a mineral-driven finish.

The clown on the label serves as both a warning and an invitation: this is a mischievous wine, youthfully spirited.

But hiding behind that veil is something much bolder, more serious, and more thoughtful.

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Chardonnay is firmly established as the world’s most popular white wine, but it faced an existential crisis in the 2000s.

First, wine lovers started to revolt against the heavily oaked, buttery, high-alcohol Chardonnay that was coming out of Australia and California. The ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) backlash gathered pace, and many drinkers switched to Italian Pinot Grigio or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis, which ravaged the global economy. Wine consumption fell sharply, leaving Chardonnay producers facing an uncertain future.

That’s when Rick Bakas, a social media pioneer within the wine trade, created International Chardonnay Day. The idea was to boost sales and to push back against the ABC trend.

Why is International Chardonnay Day in May?

Bakas chose to host the annual celebration on the Thursday before Memorial Day, which is the unofficial start of the American summer. It’s a public holiday in the US, so International Chardonnay Day coincides with a long weekend, which often features outdoor parties.

The event proved remarkably successful. It paved the way for #CabernetDay later that year, and the format has been widely copied ever since.

Scroll down to discover 15 top-scoring Chardonnays

Chardonnay's spiritual home

Chardonnay is now back in fashion, and it’s easily the world’s bestselling white wine. A new generation of producers in Australia, California and South Africa has embraced restraint, creating leaner wines that display greater elegance and balance.

Yet Burgundy remains Chardonnay’s spiritual home. The grape takes its name from a tiny village in the Mâconnais region of southern Burgundy, where it originated.

Burgundy produces everything from the lean, steely whites of Chablis to the rich wines of the Côte de Beaune, including Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. These are widely regarded as the world’s finest white wines, but some New World producers give their Burgundian counterparts a run for their money.

Chardonnay is also one of the three grapes permitted in Champagne, along with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. It’s the only grape used in Blanc de Blancs Champagne, producing some of the most elegant sparkling wines in the world.

Whether you prefer a bold, oaky white from California, a crisp glass of Chablis or a Blanc de Blancs Champagne, International Chardonnay Day is the perfect opportunity to celebrate this iconic grape.

Must-try Chardonnays: 15 top international picks from DWWA 2025

Argentina

Bemberg Estate Wines, El Tomillo Estate La Linterna, Gualtallary, Tupungato, Mendoza 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Exhibiting striking Gualtallary character with luminous pear, apple and lime fruit which cascades bounteously over a flinty, wet stone mineral core. Alert and intense with a fine bead of succulent acidity and a very long, stylish finish. Alcohol 13.5%

Australia

Wirra Wirra, The 12th Man Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, South Australia 2024
Best in Show, 97 points
Adelaide Hills Chardonnay has made five appearances in our Best in Show selection, one more than Western Australia’s Margaret River has notched up; these are clearly landmark regions not just in national but also global terms for Chardonnay-lovers. The struck-match note so prized in Australia is apparent here – but subtly so; look out for a sweetly leafy charm, too, and a soft creaminess from finely judged barrel-fermentation. It hasn’t had long in bottle yet, so its aromatic harmony and seamlessness was another factor in seducing our panels. You could call it mouthfilling in terms of texture and flavour expression but relatively delicate and light on its feet, by contrast, in terms of weight and alcohol charge. These vineyards are indeed ‘up in the Hills’, remember, where ripeness is neither assured nor rapid. The wine’s grain and finesse reflect a full season on the vine – and its producer’s careful harvesting and handling techniques. Alc 12.5%

Brokenwood, Indigo Vineyard Chardonnay, Beechworth, Victoria 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Extraordinary layers of salted lime curd, peanut brittle and green apples brim under the nose and weave into the fresh, buttery texture. Pristine and focused with rippling herbs and flinty notes that glide towards the finish line. Alc 12.5%

Deep Woods Estate, Reserve Chardonnay, Margaret River, Western Australia 2023
Platinum, 97 points
The epitome of style and finesse, tremoring with white blossom, lemon sherbet, red apple and gently toasted oak and chiselled by a flinty mineral backbone and zesty seam of bright acidity. Very long and precise. Alc 13%

France

Jean-Marc Brocard, Bougros, Chablis Grand Cru, Burgundy 2023
Best in Show, 97 points
Our third outing for a Chablis Grand Cru in our Best in Show selection, but it’s the first for a vintage in the 2020s, and the first for a Bougros, too (our previous picks have come from Valmur and Les Clos). The Co-Chairs remarked on the relative generosity of style of this 2023 example, but that’s almost a truism for the Grands Crus today; what marked this wine out from its peers was the fact that the beloved ‘sour’ note to the fruit (praised by Hugh Johnson fifty years ago) is still clearly apparent here, as is the textural depth and interest that marks out all the best Chablis, whether from Premier or Grand Cru sites. A classic, then – but also a welcoming Grand Cru Chablis, one with a wide smile. It has as much deliciousness as it does finesse, and this is a vintage best enjoyed before too long rather than stowed away for your children. Alc 13%

Château De La Crée, Les Gravières, Santenay 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Heavenly butterscotch on toast amplified by a swell of delectable ripe stone fruit and graceful white flowers. Generous and structured with a supple texture and nourishing acidity which flows through to the long, savoury finish. Alc 13%

Domaine Prieur-Brunet, La Maladière, Santenay 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Platinum, 97 points
A luxurious array of plump stone fruit, juicy pear and a scattering of salt flakes diffuses over the plush vanilla oak core and radiates through the delightful lime peel acidity. Brimming with charisma and fervour. Alc 13%

Boyer Martenot, En L'ormeau, Meursault, Burgundy 2022
Gold 96, points
Distinguished layers of cedar, hazelnut and white plum flesh lavish the palate and melt into the ethereal freshness of acidity. Savoury and moreish on the finish. Alc 13%

Domaine Du Chardonnay, Paradis, Chablis, Burgundy 2021
Gold, 96 points
Glowing with ripe lemon fruit with an underscore of briny purity which sails across the vivid vein of acidity and onto the mouth-filling, creamy yoghurt texture. Alc 12.5%

Maison Champy, Pernand Vergelesses En Caradeux, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru, Burgundy 2022
Gold, 96 points
Gorgeous melon and peach, honey and toast aromas with a decadence of crushed stones and lemon peel to enliven. Rich and generous with a crunchy green apple acidity. Alc 13.5%

Anne De Joyeuse, Very Chardonnay, IGP Haute Vallée de l'Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon 2024
Gold, 95 points
Scrumptious notes of peach, pear and candied lemon bond with the vanilla pastry creaminess that unfolds over the palate. Long and splendid with a verbena finish. Alc 13%

Italy

Cantina Kurtatsch, Freienfeld Chardonnay, Alto Adige / Südtirol Riserva, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Spectacular nutmeg, vanilla and Crème Brûlée characters pervaded with flashes of zesty citrus peel and fresh cut grass. Honeyed and rich on the palate with an intense mineral backbone and lithe acidity. Oozing poise and charisma. Alc 14%

South Africa

De Grendel, Op Die Berg Chardonnay Ceres Plateau 2024
Gold, 96 points
Vibrant crushed rocks, flint and chalk pierce through fresh citrus, apple and apricot flavours, with a nervy acidity and appetising texture to lift the finish. Alc 13.5%

Thamnus Wines, Chardonnay, Overberg 2022
Gold, 96 points
A banquet of sumptuous fruit: mangoes, melons, peaches, nectarines and citrus ripple over the mouth-wateringly juicy texture, invigorated by a flinty, mineral grip. Seamless and effortless. Alc 13.5%

United States

Cupere, Faces, Sonoma Coast, California 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Stand-out charry oak, rich ripe yellow pear and apple fruit bedeck this gorgeously creamy, sleek Chardonnay which oozes panache and charm. Utterly delicious with its youthful bright acidity, finely-tuned texture and candied citrus finish which lasts and lasts. Alc 13.2%

Search all DWWA 2025 results

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San Francisco is a relatively small city, fondly referred to as ‘7x7’ for its roughly 49 square miles (127 square kilometres). Yet for such a small area, the City by the Bay is big on wine.

It makes sense, being the closest urban zone to much of California’s most famous wine regions.

A visit brings the opportunity to taste varied wine offerings, inevitably focused on local producers, as well as the chance to investigate the exciting, boundary-pushing culinary landscape that has steadily kept San Francisco in focus.

Here are 10 super spots to savour.

Fresh faces

Palm City

4055 Irving Street

A respite from the bustling central city, Palm City is in the quiet Outer Sunset neighbourhood, sister spot to Bar Jabroni in the Lower Haight.

The open-beamed, one-room space is simple, with chunky, round wooden tables under large, woven basket pendant lampshades and a dark, L-shaped counter.

A vintage photo booth sits in the corner and several bright yellow tables are set outside. Shelves of wine to go (or you can enjoy there for a $15 corkage fee) are priced from a $23 Txakoli up to almost $300.

The by-the-glass list, with three or four selections of each category, skews natural, mostly from France and Spain, plus a handful of local wines, like the 2024 Picpoul-Chenin Vini Jabroni collab with the Les Lunes Wines label based nearby, their house wine.

By far the most popular things to eat are the giant hoagies, especially the Italian American with nduja sauce. Al Green on the stereo on a Wednesday at noon made for a chill lunchtime.

DON'T MISS: Any of the hoagie sandwiches.

Gigi’s

299 Divisadero Street

Far from standard, Gigi’s is a new wine bar and bottle shop in the fun Divisadero neighbourhood, featuring chef Tu David Phu’s food, lovingly inflected with his Vietnamese-American heritage.

The space is small and intimate, but with diverse seating options, including a communal table, numerous window-side stools, cosy burgundy banquettes and a row of chairs at the main bar.

Dark burgundy walls, plants and wood accents add a sultry vibe. The small by-the-glass selections change three to four times per week, allowing for constant exploration and discovery.

The wine list is designed to be playful and accessibly priced, with most bottles offered at $50-$100. The Made in the USA section has some stars, such as the 2023 Ruth Lewandowski, Naomi Grenache Gris.

And of course, all of the wines selected by general manager Madison Michael are intended to pair beautifully with the food’s Asian flavours.

The signature dish at Gigi’s, and the one you’ll see all over the internet, is the wagyu hot dog. It’s cheeky, and it’s meant to be – an homage to the Costco hot dog that was a childhood treat for the chef.

DON’T MISS: Anything in the menu’s seafood section, or the Happy Hour ‘Bump and a Shot’ of sparkling wine and a spoonful of Tsar Nicoulai Baerii caviar.

Bar Gemini

2845 18th Street

This Mission District wine bar pulls you in like a hug. The space, while small, is lovely and glowing, with round light fixtures, flickering lamps and booths with honey-toned wood bench seats.

Dark green walls and a long, L-shaped bar with leather seats add to the cozy atmosphere. It also smells good, like butter browning, thanks to the small team of cooks crafting bar bites.

The food has been curated by chef Brandon Rice from nearby Ernest, a sophisticated New American restaurant that’s much harder to get into than this place. Nibble on the wide selection of tinned seafood and dippy things, all served in ceramic bowls, while sipping on something from the thorough natural wine list (one of the co-owners also heads up local wine label Subject to Change).

The owners also run Gemini Bottle Co (now being rebranded Gemini Bottle & Market), a wine shop a few blocks away, in case you’d like to grab a bottle of any of the interesting selections on offer, such as Stagiaire’s Don’t Tell Mom sparkling red.

DON’T MISS: Sweet, smoky curried spiced nuts or a grilled cheese sandwich.

Key Klub

850 Bush Street

Opened by the folks behind the beloved Bodega SF, Key Klub is a party. Located in Nob Hill, the moody red-lit ‘drinkery’ fills two levels with booming music and piñatas.

Huge paper-lantern lampshades hang from the ceiling above a copper bar with a view of the 15 wall taps of mostly local beer.

But natural wine is certainly a draw, too, with cool selections by the glass and extremely fun tasting notes. ‘All gas, no brakes, side show’ describes the Weingut Fritz Haag Riesling.

Equally fun is to do a few Key Bumps of rotating vermouth for $6 – maybe buy one for the bar staff, too. The food menu consists of robust dishes such as crab cake arancini and mushroom poutine fries.

DON’T MISS: Oozing, spicy eggplant parmesan sticks with San Marzano dip; French toast with duck liver mousse.

Get schooled

Ungrafted

2419 3rd Street

For an added educational layer to your wine enjoyment, head to Ungrafted in the quiet area known as Dogpatch.

This neighbourhood is seeing more and more culinary enhancements spring up, with a large concentration of wine-leaning spots for such a small zone. In fact, you could make Dogpatch a wine destination if you wanted, with visits to the Domaine SF wine shop, La Fromagerie cheese shop and an outpost of the popular Souvla chain, which features a Greek-centric wine bar.

But Ungrafted has been here since 2018, opened by husband and wife Master Sommeliers Chris Gaither and Rebecca Fineman, with the goal of creating a community space and wine education centre. It’s a wine bar, restaurant, wine shop and wine club, with bi-weekly classes, workshops and weekly blind tastings.

The all-sommelier staff will guide you through the diverse, global wine list (plus a big bottle list of around 600) with multiple by-the-glass options, plus sake and beer.

Cocktails with vermouth, Sherry or wine as the base are also available, such as a classic Champagne cocktail with bitters.

The large, warehouse-type space has a copper-topped bar, French bistro tablescapes and white walls with golden vine trunk murals.

DON’T MISS: A fried chicken sandwich or the mixed mushroom toast with whipped cheese and pickled daikon radish.

Bin 415

950 Mason Street

While San Francisco is chock full of places to enjoy wine, it’s also close to several notable California wine regions, so if time allows during your trip, you could enjoy a full vineyard immersion less than two hours from the city.

Bin 415 – a tasting room and tour operator located within the historic Fairmont Hotel on top of Nob Hill – is the answer. They offer special tastings of wines from nearby Napa and Sonoma, the bottles sourced directly from the wineries based on longstanding relationships with founder Michael Lagau.

Entry-level, walk-in tastings are just $25, with pours of the newest selections in the shop. From there, a variety of alternate tastings are available, or you can arrange full excursions to wine country.

The tasting room is an alluring space nestled among the boutiques and art galleries in the lobby level of the hotel.

Furthermore, the iconic Fairmont itself is an ideal place to stay when visiting the city. Historic black and white photos adorn the halls, majestic marble columns tower in the lobby and the basement-level Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar is the place for tiki drinks (rum-forward tropical cocktails) when you’ve maxed out your wine palate.

DON’T MISS: A curated, guided tasting experience or an excursion to Sonoma wineries.

San Francisco Champagne Society

1097 Howard Street

Bill Marci, owner of the San Francisco Champagne Society, is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a true Champagne lover.

Spend five minutes with him and you’ll quickly understand that his dedication to discovering and showcasing grower producers and family-owned vineyards is personal for him – a real hobby turned career.

So for a deep dive, head to this reservation-only Champagne lounge in SoMa (South of Market), which offers a few tiers of tastings, featuring unique selections sourced through Marci’s personal relationships and allocations from small producer lists.

Several add-ons are available, as well as a very informative comparative glassware tasting. Marci calls his glassware his ‘tools’ and is very specific about what he serves in which glass. Some of his own comprehensive education occurred during the Covid lockdown, when he tasted 100 bottles of Champagne in 100 days.

DON’T MISS: The ‘Champagne face mask’ experience from a wide, open-mouthed wine glass; the French cheese pairing add-on.

Food first: San Francisco restaurants

Saison

178 Townsend Street

Saison is a restaurant for wine lovers. With two Michelin stars under chef Richard Lee, the openhearth cooking is, of course, unforgettable. But the wine pairings are more than just notable, too, with an extremely thorough cellar and special attention to Burgundy.

There’s not much signage or fanfare upon arrival at this SoMa (South of Market) location, with a subtle entrance in a red-brick building, but stepping inside, you’re enveloped in a wood smoke-scented, lodge-like atmosphere, especially in the barside salon area, which is loungy, with brick walls, leather stools and booths adorned with furry pillows.

Two astounding tasting menus are on offer and the entire restaurant bustles with the energy of culinary purpose.

Also worth visiting is the new Saison Cellar & Wine Bar, just a short walk away, which was opened by Saison Hospitality co-founder and winemaker Mark Bright in 2024.

DON’T MISS: The full tasting menu with the matched wine flight.

Verjus

550 Washington Street

A popular bistro, opened by acclaimed chef couple Michael and Lindsay Tusk in 2019 (then closed for four years, with a new iteration opening in late 2024), Verjus is inspired by the lively atmosphere of Parisian cave à mangers (wine shop restaurants) and skews French in every way.

The lengthy, mainly French wine list features very thorough Champagne and Burgundy sections, priced as high as $1,800 for a 2015 Kenjiro Kagami Sonorite du Vent Chardonnay.

There are also a handful of cocktails on offer, courtesy of Thad Vogler of Bar Agricole. Try the Bijou with Nebbiolo vermouth.

The menu is posted on a back-lit cinema marquee-style board above the open kitchen that reflects off the high-gloss red lacquered ceiling. It’s partly in French, so be sure to get your translations ready.

Wall shelves are full of bottles and a long communal table set in the middle of the space is always packed.

DON’T MISS: Rolled omelette au Boursin and the custardy, bruleed Pain Purdue with vanilla gelato. Lunch on Saturdays.

Bar Brucato

275 South Van Ness Avenue

While technically more spirit-forward than wine-forward, Bar Brucato is worthy of a mention on this list. Founded by Sierra and James Clark in 2021, Brucato Spirits is centred around producing California amari (Italian herbal liqueurs), using local ingredients and promoting a sense of place.

Their amari, gin and kumquat liquors are all distilled onsite in their Mission District distillery, with the new Bar Brucato situated upstairs, featuring drinks crafted from their products and memorable food, made with similar intentions.

The cocktail program is directed by Leila Malikyar, who has put together an approachable menu for all, even non-drinkers.

The effervescent section, which will appeal to those seeking lighter, more wine-centric beverages, features the Angel Island, with blood orange aperitif and Lambrusco, and the Treasure Island, with Cava – bright and tart, akin to an Aperol spritz.

The tight wine list, with nothing above $90, is mostly California selections, with a few Italian sparklers.

DON’T MISS: Baked-to-order piada bread with house-cultured cacio e pepe butter; spicy lamb meatballs with almond anchovy sauce.

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What shall we do with the drunken sailor? In the early 1800s, the answer would have been to keep him sailing to whichever far-flung destination the British Empire was attempting to expand into. One such destination was Van Diemen’s Land – now Tasmania – where a penal colony was established in 1803, marking the beginning of the long history of the Tasmanian spirits industry.

In the early days, coins were scarce and booze plentiful, leading to spirits playing an essential role in trade and payment for goods and services. Distilling was legalised in Tasmania 1822, and Australia’s first legal distillery, Sorell Distillery, was established by Thomas Haigh Midwood in Hobart. In fact, Sorell Distillery produced Tasmanian whisky a full two years before Scotland's first legal distillery, Glenlivet.

Over a dozen distilleries followed suit, but not for long. Tasmania’s whisky industry was halted in 1839 with the introduction of the Distillation Prohibition Act, introduced by Governor John Franklin. His teetotaling wife famously declared: ‘I would prefer barley be fed to pigs than it be used to turn men into swine.’

A new era

It would take another 154 years until the distilling industry was rebooted and there’s one name we have to thank for the modern Tasmanian whisky industry: Bill Lark. It was Lark’s lobbying (along with his wife, Lyn) that resulted in legislative change in 1990 to legalise small-scale craft distilling in Tasmania.

The pair launched Lark Distillery in 1992, distilling from the family home in the suburb of Kingston, just south of Hobart. ‘I grew up with the still outside my bedroom door,’ shares Kristy Lark-Booth, Jack and Lyn’s daughter, who is now owner and distiller of Killara Distillery, as well as president of the Tasmanian Whisky and Spirits Association. ‘That's where the name Killara comes from. It’s the name of the street where we lived.’

Shortly after Lark’s inception, in 1994, Tasmania Distillery was founded by Robert Hosken in Sullivans Cove, changing its name to the latter with new ownership in 1999. Patrick Maguire, a friend of Bill Lark, then purchased Sullivans Cove with several investors in 2004. It was under his management that the distillery transformed the trajectory of Tasmania’s whisky industry.

Making history

In 2014, the distillery was the first outside of Scotland and Japan to win the World’s Best Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards with its French Oak Cask expression. The distillery has since gone on to take home the title of Best Single Cask Single Malt three times: in 2018, 2019 and 2026.

The 2014 accolade inspired a swath of new producers, and the figure has continued growing. ‘Killara was about the 16th licensed distillery in 2016. So it was roughly 25 years between the first distillery and the 16th,’ says Lark-Booth. ‘And now we’ve got about 80 or so distilleries in Tasmania.’

It’s difficult to establish the exact figure in terms of whisky producers, as distilling licences don’t differentiate the type of spirit distilled. However she estimates that around 60 distillers produce whisky throughout the island state.

A sense of place

Distilleries are dotted throughout the island, all benefiting from its diverse microclimates, fresh air, pure water, and high-quality barley. Tasmania sits between 40-44° latitude south; Scotland between 55–59° degrees north.

‘There’s not much between Antarctica and us,’ says Lark-Booth. ‘We get huge pressure systems from the south, creating a perfect environment: warm days, cool evenings, but not too hot or too cold. Whisky interacts with the cask through those pressure changes,’ she adds.

‘In Scotland's stone warehouses, the temperature is very even year-round, so maturation takes much longer, also because they use larger vessels than the ones most people here use,’ she adds. This, alongside the industry’s youth, is why age statements are not the norm for Tasmanian whisky.

Quicker maturation

The Tasmanian climate and greater temperature fluctuation are responsible for another unique difference in the cask ageing process. At most Tasmanian distilleries, the angel’s share (the portion of whisky that naturally evaporates through the porous wood of the cask as the spirit ages) is at least double the amount in Scotch production, consisting of higher amounts of water evaporation versus alcohol evaporation.

‘In Scotland, casks are generally laid down at 63.5% and lose 1-2% volume annually to evaporation, primarily alcohol, as alcohol has a lower evaporation point than water. Colder, humid conditions mean whisky slowly drops in strength,’ Ashley Pryor of Sullivans Cove explains.

‘In Tasmania, warmer and drier conditions mean losses of 4-5% annually, but what evaporates is primarily water. Tasmanian whisky gets stronger in the cask, concentrating inside the barrel with the temperature fluctuating around 20 times a day, driving exacerbated interaction with the wood. In short, it matures at roughly double the pace of Scotch.’

A Tassie signature

Tasmanian whisky is spelled without an ‘e’, reflecting a style and production method closer to Scottish than American or Irish whiskey. But several hallmarks set it apart from Scotch and other global whiskies. Predominantly, you’ll find single malts, not blended expressions, and many distillers produce single cask releases.

Distillers take pride in local ingredients: locally grown and malted barley, Australian fortified casks, Tasmanian Pinot Noir casks, Tasmanian peat, and local coopers and still-makers. Tasmanian peat differs from UK peat, shaped by local botanicals such as gum trees, pepperberry and more, giving it a distinct character that carries through to the spirit.

‘The formula for Tasmanian whisky is making sure you care about each part of the process,’ shares Rob Polmear, co-founder and head distiller at Waubs Harbour. ‘Brew it yourself, using Tassie barley and water, things that make it provenance-based, but also because the barley here is great; it’s a brewer's barley meant for high flavour,’ he adds.

‘Then distilling involves using stills like Bill Lark chose in those early days. Pure copper, short-necked stills, which are hallmarks a lot of distilleries share, pushing for big, oily whiskeys,’ says Polmear. Finally there’s maturation. ‘A lot of Tasmanian whiskeys use tawny, and all three of our core lines have it. As you go up in price, you see more. That’s a hallmark of Tasmanian style.’

Tasmanian whisky: five to try

Killara KD91 ex Tawny Whisky Abbey 2025 Release – Bonnie ‘Breath of Fire’

A single cask, small-batch release, matured in a 100-litre tawny Port cask and offering up caramelised malt, Christmas cake, sea spray and salted caramel. Fruity and smooth on the palate with a creamy, spiced custard apple finish. Also available at cask strength. Alcohol 52%

Lark Fire Trail No 151

From Tasmania’s founding and largest distillery, which is now a publicly traded company. Single malt aged in Port and Sherry casks, then finished in ex-bourbon and American oak wine casks. Vanilla bean toast, orange blossom, creamed honey and subtle smokiness. A smooth, balanced, easy-drinking whisky with a generous finish. Alc 41.5%

Overeem Port Cask Matured Distiller Strength

From the fourth distillery in Tasmania, founded in 2005 by Casey Overeem and now run by his daughter Jane Overeem and her husband Mark Sawford. The Port Cask is their flagship, always a single-cask release, yet with a consistent house style. Mid-caramel toast, a lick of sea salt, white gum honey and creamed pear. Smooth and approachable. Alc 43%

Sullivans Cove TD0348 14 Year Old Single Cask American Oak Second-Fill

This single-cask, small-batch distillery placed Tasmanian whisky on the map with global accolades. The core range is centred on American oak, French oak and a double cask blend. An emerging Tassie category, second-fill casks allow the spirit to shine without the influence of a fortified predecessor. Bright citrus and orchard fruits, crème caramel, a dusting of dried sage and an impressive finish. Alc 48%

Waubs Harbour Founder’s Reserve Batch 11

A maritime distillery located in Waubs Harbour and founded in 2018 by head distiller Rob Polmear (ex-Lark and Overeem), and his brother and sister-in-law, Tim and Bec Polmer. Matured in older tawny Port casks and offering up layered spice, molasses, lamb fat umami and deep complexity. Rich and oily, a cask-strength cigar malt style. Alc 62%

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Seeking reverse gear?

We’ve all seen the headlines blaming health fears and Gen Z sobriety for the fall in global alcohol consumption, not least including wine.

But the reality may be more nuanced. I don’t believe that wine itself is being rejected, but industrial wines.

In this article, I use ‘industrial’ to describe wines that rely heavily on technological and chemical interventions, much like ultra-processed foods.

Some of the high-volume, globally distributed, familiar brands typically found on the lower supermarket shelves have come to define this industrial wine style.

While all wine is, by definition, processed from the moment the grapes begin fermenting, there’s a meaningful distinction between wines shaped by careful, moderate intervention and those engineered for volume, conformity and shelf-life.

I’m firmly of the view that the latter should be clearly distinguished from low-intervention wines (organic, biodynamic, natural, Haute Valeur Environnementale, and so on) and from traditional appellation wines across both the Old and New Worlds.

Based on recent data from the OIV (International Organisation of Vine and Wine), the decline in consumption disproportionately affects industrial wines.

Thirty years ago, when I was editing a wine magazine in Paris, I watched these early ‘gateway’ wines arrive.

Driven by the expansion of North American markets and the rise of New World producers, they were initially welcomed, even in France, as a means of attracting new drinkers.

Today, however, the same types of wine risk turning away new consumers.

If someone’s first encounter with wine is a high-yield, high-alcohol, heavily adjusted style, you could hardly blame them if it were their last.

Might this be determining whether younger drinkers engage with wine long-term?

Global phenomenon

These industrial wines now dominate the global market.

This is easily observable; however, proving it with precision is difficult as the wine trade doesn’t measure what would make it trackable.

There’s no system yet to categorise wine by its degree of processing: only by price (entry-level/premium/fine wine), origin and format (bulk vs bottled).

I would argue that a defined wine category such as ‘ultra-processed’ could be helpful.

It’s a term modelled, in part, on the four-group Nova classification system, developed by a public health unit at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, in which ‘Group 4’ foods are defined by the cumulative use of industrial techniques and inputs to standardise flavour, texture and shelf stability at scale.

The analogy in wine isn’t exact, but it is instructive. We label a bottle as ‘organic’, but not as ‘ultra-processed’.

Certified organic vineyards represent a little above 6% of global plantings, according to OIV’s 2021 The World Organic Vineyard report (across 63 countries, as measured in 2019), placing this category firmly in the minority, while traditional appellation wines make up, at most, a further 20%-25%.

High volume, low price dominance

For a revealing glimpse at the other end, Richard Hemming MW has stated that ‘96% of the wine sold in the UK retails for less than £9 per bottle’ (jancisrobinson.com, March 2018), citing a WSET research paper by Tim Jackson MW (recent comparables are hard to come by, but such price point statistics tend to be fairly static in UK retail, especially in the context of the declining market in general in the period since).

In addition, a 2025 Vinetur report found that eight major wine groups account for 10%-12% of the global market.

E&J Gallo’s high-volume brands alone are estimated to produce around 3% (the Modesto, California-based company does also have premium wines in its portfolio).

There are many more than those eight, not to mention the layer of private-label, bulk and contract-produced wines.

The industry may not measure industrial wine directly, but by any reasonable reading of the data, it dominates the global market, accounting for some 70%-80%.

Health considerations

Can it be said that industrial wines are less healthful? Yes.

Peer-reviewed evidence suggests that some techniques commonly used in winemaking, such as fining, maceration with the skins, chaptalisation and acidification (which can all be termed ‘processing’) have been shown to alter mineral and micronutrient content, in some cases ‘significantly’ (source: Shimizu et al, 2020, ‘Variation in the mineral composition of wine produced using different winemaking techniques’).

And a 2025 report by Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN) found widespread contamination of European wines with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a toxic ‘forever chemical’ byproduct of PFAS pesticides.

The report notes that mass-produced wines are often loaded with up to eight different synthetic pesticide residues.

As wine production becomes more industrial, there is a greater reliance on vineyard chemicals – including pesticides and other treatments (to control mildew and vine diseases, for example), which can leave residues – and cellar additives, including colour adjustment, flavour modification, stabilisation, added sugars and higher sulphur-dioxide levels.

Dr Laura Catena (pictured, above) is a Harvard- and Stanford-trained biologist and physician, the managing director of Argentina’s Bodega Catena Zapata and founder of the Catena Institute of Wine.

She notes that large-scale production makes it difficult to tailor the inputs that contribute to a wine’s composition and health profile.

So, if more intervention introduces more inputs, the inverse also holds: wines made with fewer inputs will tend to offer a cleaner, more considered choice.

This isn’t medical advice, but it is an evidence-informed perspective drawn from decades in wine alongside contemporary research.

Pros and cons

Is the global decline in wine sales a marker of healthier living?

Today, daily contradictions assail us. Wine is praised for its potential benefits one moment and condemned the next.

Having scoured dozens of studies, I can say the common denominator is that most ignore context, from the French Paradox theory that suggests certain populations in France have historically exhibited low rates of heart disease despite their regular consumption of wine and cheese, to the world’s seven so-called Blue Zones – regions of apparent exceptional human longevity, where wine is consumed in moderation.

There is criticism of Blue Zones research that has centred largely on the reliability of age records and demographic data, rather than on the lifestyle patterns themselves.

This distinction is important: while the numbers may be debated, the observed behaviours such as diet, social connection and daily activity all continue to shape discussions around longevity.

Most of the literature focuses on ethanol as the sole driver of risk.

Yes, alcohol carries risk. Wine quality and context don’t erase this, but I firmly contend that they mitigate it.

Wine quality shapes how people drink; it contextualises it. And, as 16th-century physician, alchemist and theologian Paracelsus notably observed (originally in Latin), ‘the dose makes the poison’.

Catena concurs: ‘As a physician, I do believe that wine in moderation can be part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, as demonstrated by hundreds of studies showing that people who drink wine in moderation have lower mortality and fewer heart attacks, and those who follow a Mediterranean diet, which often includes light-to-moderate wine, have lower rates of heart disease and cancer.

Generation Z and a return to intentional drinking?

The relationship that Generation Z (generally seen as those born 1997-2012) has with wine is complex, shaped by social habits, economics and evolving tastes and health concerns.

Industry analysis from IWSR shows that they favour wines ‘aligned with values such as sustainability and authenticity’.

Though the traditional wine terminology and packaging formats often feel outdated to them, moderation trends are also evident.

I have a front-row seat to this shift.

My surfing, weight-training Gen Z sons spend their holidays taking cooking classes with girlfriends in Greece or attending wine tastings on Lake Garda.

I’m not sure they would have survived my gloriously wine-soaked, debauched youth in 1980s Paris.

Still, is it his generation’s more mindful, lifestyle-influenced drinking choices that are to blame for waning global wine sales? Or is it the much-changed wines?

So how did we get here?

Since Roman vintners burned sulphur candles in their barrels and amphorae to keep them sanitised, wine has never been untouched by human hands; it has always existed in a subtle partnership between nature and human intervention.

But the French wine of the early 1800s was a different animal compared to what it is today.

Before phylloxera (the vine root louse that arose in the late 19th century) and pre-chemical, there was no glyphosate – that was invented as a weedkiller in 1970 by Monsanto.

Chaptalisation (the addition of sugar to increase potential alcohol), other additives and sulphur were known and used, but not heavily.

But then we hit the phylloxera era, with its initial peak in the 1860s-1880s – European vineyards were devastated.

As recovery from the crisis began, choices made during replanting using the new, resistant American rootstocks led to high yields, as industrial-scale irrigation and fertiliser use produced vast quantities of cheap wine.

By the early 1900s, the wine industry was in a similar position to what it is today.

How did it respond? With irrigation bans and the introduction of appellation laws, which started in France with laws such as the 1905 regulations on fraud, falsification and geographical origin, and the subsequent 1919 extension bringing additional protections for producers within a given appellation.

The real explosion in chemical inputs occurred after World War II, when agriculture and food production became industrialised through the dismantling by the Allied powers of the vast German chemical conglomerate IG Farben.

This post-war expansion of industrial agricultural inputs fed directly into the wider mid-20th century transformation known as the Green Revolution, which, from the 1940s through the 1970s, combined high-yield crop varieties, synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides, irrigation and mechanisation to dramatically increase global food production.

Wine didn’t escape this – these events pushed it into the centre of an incoming imperfect storm and into a new alchemy.

'Parkerisation'

The rapid expansion of supermarket empires, from the 1930s in the US and 1950s in the UK, demanded vintage reliability, consistent flavour profiles, huge volumes and low price points.

The traditional wines from picturesque villages with their mosaics of small plots and local generational knowledge didn’t fit this new landscape.

This new demand favoured New World producers, which weren’t subject to the same wine-production rules and limitations, and in this environment, technology took hold, allowing producers to ‘engineer’ consistent flavour profiles, even from lower-quality grapes.

Irrigation allowed the expansion of vineyards into marginal areas (such as California’s Central Valley) by unlocking deserts and plains, coaxing vines to yield far more fruit than the old dry-farmed hillsides ever could.

Meanwhile, the ‘Parkerisation effect’ arrived.

Wine critics such as Robert M Parker Jr (most prominent in the late 1980s-2000s) elevated lush, fruit-forward, heavily oaked, high-alcohol, ripe Napa Valley styles.

We also saw the large corporations consolidate control and begin to market wine like any other fast-moving consumer product, offering the same taste year after year.

Consistency and consolidation have reshaped the industry into what it is today.

In contrast, the smaller, terroir-driven wines have continued to be marginalised by the convenient and stereotypical narrative that they are unaffordable, unapproachable or complicated.

Connecting the dots: reclaiming wine and wellness

The proliferation of industrial wines and their dependence on irrigation, the declining consumption of the mass-market sector, and Gen Z turning away from wine – these are all part of the same conversation.

Wines that once enticed new consumers with cheap abundance are now driving them away. Wine was never meant to be a generic beverage – its value has always come from ‘place’.

Wine has morphed from a locally produced agricultural product to a mass-consumer product.

This has contributed to the weakening of its cultural meaning and, as in many other sectors, has instigated a reaction against industrialisation.

The historical arc I’ve presented here matters because the pivot being made by the Gen Z demographic toward moderation, sustainability and authenticity raises a profound question: was the mid-20th-century industrial phase a necessary, perhaps inevitable, but temporary deviation in wine’s history?

Are market forces now encouraging a return to lower-input, place-driven practices? Wouldn’t it be nice if this new generation inadvertently brought us full circle? I love this line of thought.

With all the bad news in the wine world at the moment, perhaps we’re creating a happy ending.

Wine, like food, has been swept up in the tide of industrialisation, where tradition is overshadowed by scale and cost, and distanced from its rituals, its terroir and its role in human wellbeing.

Wines made with regard for nature, not against it, will always have a place at my table.

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Drinking a cocktail in your favourite bar is one of life’s undeniable pleasures. But nothing beats the sense of satisfaction to be found in crafting your own perfect drink at home.

It’s entirely possible to make good cocktails without any specialist equipment – a jam jar makes a serviceable shaker – but you’ll get better results, have more fun and look the part if you invest in some proper cocktail-making kit.

Made to measure…

First you need something to measure your ingredients accurately. ‘The one essential piece of home cocktail kit is a jigger,’ says Pietro Collina of Viajante87 in Notting Hill, London. ‘You can improvise with other household items and mix drinks in different vessels, but without a jigger there’s really no point. It’s the key tool for accurate measurements.’

Nip-waisted stainless steel jiggers are perfect for measuring single (25ml/1oz) and double (50ml/2oz) shots in a G&T, for example. But most cocktail recipes call for more nuanced measures – 5ml, 10ml or 15ml – so look for a jigger with internal markings in 5ml increments.

Try the Mezclar Preciso Multi Measure Jigger (£11.50, Drinkstuff). Or buy the excellent Easy Jigger, designed by industry veteran and publisher Simon Difford, which measures from 1.25ml to 60ml (£7.75, Difford’s Guide).

Mix it up

Now that you’ve measured your ingredients, what about mixing? Options are a two-piece Boston shaker – either glass-and-tin type or tin-on-tin – and a three-piece cobbler shaker, which has a built-in strainer. Both have benefits for home mixologists.

‘I’d actually lean towards the cobbler for home use,’ says Jack Sotti, bar director at Archive & Myth in London’s Leicester Square. ‘It’s designed for single serves, has a built-in strainer and looks great sitting on a bar cart. The only thing to know is how to use it properly so the cap doesn’t seize up when it gets cold.’ The trick is to press the cap on lightly rather than forcing it down, and remove it the second you finish shaking.

On the other hand, Emilio Giovanazzi, head bartender at The American Bar at Gleneagles in Perthshire, Scotland, believes a Boston shaker is the best place to start if you’re new to mixology. ‘A Boston shaker is the ideal tool for a home bartender. It chills, aerates and can also double as a mixing glass, so realistically, not much else is necessary,’ he explains. ‘It’s the tool most bartenders use; simple to clean, durable and versatile, making it ideal for learning proper cocktail technique at home.’

Personally, I use a Boston-style shaker from the Japanese brand Koriko at home (£25, Cocktail Kingdom). ‘Their weighted tins are perfect for shaking and they are extremely durable,’ says Giovanazzi.

Take the strain

If you do choose a Boston, you’ll need a hawthorne strainer (£8.50, Urban Bar). Shaped like a table tennis bat, this sits over the top of the tin to hold back the ice when you pour. ‘A hawthorne handles most drinks,’ advises Giovanazzi.

‘Add a fine-mesh strainer for double-straining to remove small ice shards and pulp, giving cocktails a smoother finish and helping control dilution after serving.’ Sotti recommends Gorky – ‘the best fine strainers on the market’ – designed by top bartender Gorkem Harp (£3.30, Concept Cuisine).

Stir it up

For drinks that are stirred, not shaken – think Martini, Negroni, Old Fashioned – a long-handled bar spoon is a handy tool – though it’s not essential. ‘It’s useful to have a long-handled bar spoon because it allows you to reach the bottom of the mixing glass, making sure all ingredients are incorporated,’ says Kris Bazys of Scarfes Bar at Rosewood London.

‘It also helps with measuring small amounts of any liquid and can even muddle light ingredients,’ he says. Choose a spoon with a flat end if you want to use it as a muddler too, such as the 10-inch (26cm) Yunai twisted bar spoon (£3.99, Amazon).

Sotti adds a word of advice: ‘On the measurement side, bar spoons are technically meant to represent a standard volume, but they vary quite a bit between brands. It’s worth weighing out one bar spoon of water when you first get one so you know exactly how many millilitres yours holds.’

And now you’ve got all the kit, it’s time to start your cocktail-making adventures…

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Authentic Bordeaux travel: See the region through a local's eyes with our new expert guide

Bordeaux is often portrayed through its most famous names: classified growths, grand châteaux and bottles that command eye-watering prices.

But that image tells only part of the story. Beyond the prestige labels lies a living city where wine is part of daily routine rather than ceremony – poured in neighbourhood bars, opened at the market and shared over lunch without formality.

This article focuses on that more approachable side of Bordeaux. The places where you can taste excellent wines without spending a fortune, eat well in unpretentious settings, stay in characterful accommodation and experience the region in a way that feels grounded in everyday life.

From vineyard picnics and creative châteaux visits to lively markets, good-value restaurants and distinctive places to stay, here is where to find an authentic Bordeaux experience.

At the Châteaux

Let’s start with Bordeaux’s main attraction: the wineries.

While the region is often associated with prestigious labels, classified growths and grand architecture, the everyday reality of wine tourism in Bordeaux is far more accessible.

Across the region, a wide network of family-run estates and historic châteaux welcome visitors with relaxed, informative and reasonably priced experiences, making vineyard discovery open to a much broader audience than many travellers expect.

Over the years, I have visited dozens of properties throughout Bordeaux, from the limestone slopes of St-Emilion on the Right Bank to the gravel terraces of the Médoc on the Left, and some of the most memorable experiences were also the simplest: a tasting led by someone from the estate, a casual lunch overlooking the vines, or a slow afternoon wandering through the gardens with a glass in hand.

These quieter moments often leave a stronger impression than the most polished tasting rooms. Several estates combine wine visits with dining in the vineyards, allowing visitors to turn a tasting into a longer, more immersive experience.

Dining in the vineyards

In St-Emilion, Château de Candale’s Atelier de Candale restaurant offers a relaxed setting overlooking the rolling slopes, where regional dishes are served with the estate’s wines and views stretch across the surrounding vineyards and medieval village.

On the Left Bank in the heart of Margaux, Château Marquis de Terme places a strong emphasis on food and wine pairing, with a chef-led restaurant menu built around seasonal produce and designed to complement the estate’s wines. It offers a way to experience Left Bank wines at the table rather than only in the tasting room.

Picnic at a château

If there is one experience many locals genuinely enjoy in the region, it is picnicking at a château. Several estates prepare picnic baskets that visitors can enjoy in their gardens after a tour.

The formula is uncomplicated: bread, local charcuterie, cheese and a bottle of wine, consumed slowly among the vines.

Château Soutard (St-Emilion, a 10-minute walk northeast of the town centre) and Château de Cérons (Cérons, in the Graves region, along the river Garonne south of the city) both offer excellent picnic options in beautiful surroundings.

Within the town of St-Emilion itself, the Couvent des Cordeliers offers another easy option, where visitors can assemble a picnic on-site and enjoy it in the cloister courtyard.

Cook it yourself

For those looking for more hands-on experiences, Château Malartic-Lagravière (in the Pessac-Léognan appellation, just south of the city) organises cooking workshops that combine food preparation with wine pairing.

Château 'escape' games

Companies such as Oenanim host oenological escape games inside working estates such as Château Pas de l’Ane and Château Balestard la Tonnelle (both in St-Emilion).

Cycling in the vineyards

Cycling is another enjoyable way to explore the vineyards. E-bikes make vineyard exploration much more accessible, less strenuous and eco-friendly, often with free or low-cost rentals from estates – it’s always worth enquiring.

In Sauternes, a little further down the river from Cérons, Château Guiraud provides bikes as part of its vineyard tours, allowing guests to ride through the appellation, while across the Garonne, north of Libourne, the Prieuré Marquet estate offers cycling and carriage tours across its property.

Winery tours for art lovers

Several Bordeaux estates place art and aesthetics at the centre of their identity, offering visitors an experience that goes beyond wine alone.

St-Emilion Grand Cru Classé estate Château de Ferrand – owned since 1978 by the Bich family (of Bic pen fame) – integrates contemporary art throughout the property.

Highlights include a strikingly designed tasting room (Salon Bic, featuring a mural created with Bic pens by artist Alexandre Doucin) and rotating exhibitions from the family’s Bic Contemporary Art Collection, blending wine heritage with creative storytelling.

In the Médoc’s Margaux appellation, Château d’Arsac is well known for its outdoor sculpture park, where modern artworks punctuate the vineyard landscape.

Back in Pessac-Léognan, Château Smith Haut Lafitte is renowned for its established art collection. Visitors can also discover the Forest of the Senses, a walking trail combining art installations and nature.

Meanwhile, Château Malromé, located near St-André-du-Bois in the Entre-deux-Mers region, connects wine with fine art history as the former family home of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The château now houses a museum dedicated to his life and work.

Where to eat and drink in Bordeaux city

Bordeaux is synonymous with wine, but it is equally compelling as a food city. Beyond its numerous Michelin-starred restaurants, the city offers a wide range of informal, good-value places where visitors can experience regional cooking in relaxed settings.

Bordeaux wine bars to visit

One of the easiest ways to experience everyday Bordeaux life is through its wine bars.

Wine bars here are not only about wine; they function as casual neighbourhood venues where people share plates, open bottles and often end up staying for dinner.

Wine More Time

Wine More Time is a good example, offering small sharing plates built around high-quality locally produced charcuterie, cheeses and seasonal ingredients, paired with a strong by-the-glass selection that includes many organic and small-producer wines.

On warmer days, sitting at one of the outdoor tables on Rue St-James, in sight of the Grosse Cloche (one of Bordeaux’s oldest medieval bell towers), is an experience that’s hard to beat.

ComplanTerra

Nearby in Rue Ste-Colombe, ComplanTerra focuses largely on organic, biodynamic and natural wines, with a food offering centred on simple, well-sourced products.

The atmosphere is relaxed and slightly alternative, and the occasional oyster evenings are a nice reminder of Bordeaux’s close ties to the Atlantic coast.

L’Officine

L’Officine in St-Seurin, a residential neighbourhood just to the northwest of the historic centre, is a place where friends meet after work or gather to celebrate.

It offers a carefully chosen wine list alongside tartines, charcuterie and small plates, in a setting that feels cosy, lively and very local.

Traditional restaurants: Bouillon revival

For travellers looking for traditional French cooking at reasonable prices, Bordeaux has embraced the bouillon revival.

The city now has three bouillon-style restaurants – establishments that serve classic dishes such as steak frites, beef tartare, oeufs mayonnaise or leeks vinaigrette, in generous portions and without ceremony.

These are located near Gare St-Jean, in the historic St-Pierre district and close to Place des Quinconces, a short walk north of the Grand Théâtre building on Place de la Comédie.

Bordeaux bistros with a local vibe

Bistros remain another essential part of Bordeaux’s dining culture, and are one of the easiest ways to eat well without heading into fine-dining territory.

Bo-Tannique

Bo-Tannique in Rue Tustal, east of the impressive St-André cathedral, is my go-to place whenever I have guests who are visiting Bordeaux for the first time.

The menu changes regularly, always based on seasonal produce, with dishes that feel creative but never overworked, and a wine list that makes it easy to explore interesting bottles without overspending.

Le Bouchon Bordelais

Le Bouchon Bordelais, tucked away down the cobbled Rue Courbin, leans more towards a modern take on regional cuisine from southwest France.

The menu changes every month according to what is in season, with dishes inspired by local traditions but presented in a lighter, more contemporary way.

It is a good place to understand how classic flavours of the region are being reinterpreted without losing their roots.

Oysters at Marché des Capucins

If there is one place that captures everyday Bordeaux at its most authentic, it is the Marché des Capucins, between the historic centre and Gare St-Jean, which is often referred to as ‘the belly of the city’.

Unlike many French markets where visitors mainly come to shop, Capucins also functions as one of Bordeaux’s gastronomic centres, with numerous counters and small eateries.

Here, many people come primarily to eat. You will find Basque influences alongside classic French dishes. The main attraction, however, is oysters.

At Chez Jean-Mi, locals gather for plates of number ‘3’ or ‘4’ oysters served with lemon, bread and butter and accompanied by a glass of dry white Bordeaux.

Although Arcachon Bay, on the coast to the west, remains the historic heart of oyster farming, enjoying oysters at Capucins is one of the simplest and most representative food experiences the city offers.

For visitors seeking authenticity and value, this everyday food culture offers a far clearer picture of Bordeaux than its most exclusive tables.

Beyond the vineyards

Bordeaux is a lively city with a strong cultural scene, and many of its most enjoyable experiences come from exploring at an easy pace.

One of the most enjoyable ways to see Bordeaux is from the Garonne river. Short sightseeing or aperitif cruises offer views of the city’s 18th-century facades, bridges and riverfront while enjoying a glass of wine or a light snack, giving a simple introduction to Bordeaux’s port heritage.

Beyond wine, Bordeaux is also home to other forms of local craftsmanship that are worth discovering. In the city’s imposing former World War II submarine base, Moon Harbour produces French single malt whisky within one of the site’s massive concrete bunkers.

It is the only whisky distillery in Bordeaux itself, and visits include an introduction to the distillation and ageing process followed by a tasting, offering a refreshing and unexpected counterpoint to Bordeaux’s wine-focused identity.

Next-door, Bassins des Lumières transforms the enormous chambers of the submarine base into immersive digital art exhibitions dedicated to major artists and contemporary creations.

For a more informal experience, renting a bike is one of the best ways to explore Bordeaux. Bike rental stations are spread across the city, and one of the most popular routes is the loop from Pont de Pierre to Pont Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

This ride allows visitors to see several faces of Bordeaux in one outing: the historic centre, the former port and warehouse district around Bacalan, and La Bastide, the greener, more residential neighbourhood over the river on the Right Bank.

On the Right Bank

The Right Bank, in particular, feels more local and less touristic. It is where many Bordelais spend their weekends, especially around places such as Chez Alriq for live music and riverside drinks, or Darwin Ecosystem, a former military barracks turned into a creative hub with street art, cafes, workshops and an alternative, community-driven atmosphere. Both can be found in La Bastide.

Many visitors also find that some of their most enjoyable moments in Bordeaux come from simply wandering: walking between neighbourhoods, stopping for coffee or a glass of wine, browsing small shops and lingering in public squares.

Where to stay in Bordeaux

In the city

Travellers do not need luxury hotels to enjoy a comfortable and well-located stay in Bordeaux.

The city centre offers a wide choice of small guesthouses and boutique-style properties that provide a more personal experience than large international chains.

In St-Seurin to the west of the city centre, Maison Manège offers elegant rooms in a historic building within walking distance of the main sights.

Villa Victor Louis, also centrally located, provides a similar balance of character and convenience.

For a more affordable base, Bordeaux Cosy B&B in the Nansouty neighbourhood, 2km south of the city, allows visitors to stay slightly outside the busiest streets while remaining within easy reach of the city centre.

In or near the vineyards

For travellers willing to venture beyond the city, the surrounding countryside offers memorable alternatives. Les Roulottes Vesta in the heart of the Pessac-Léognan appellation on the Left Bank provides wooden caravans and atypical gîtes set in natural surroundings, appealing to those looking for something a little different.

Sleeping among the vineyards remains one of the most rewarding options.

Estates such as Château de La Rivière in Fronsac on the Right Bank and Château de la Grave in the commune of Bourg offer guest rooms within working wineries, allowing visitors to wake up with views over the vines rather than city streets.

Enjoy a different side to Bordeaux

Whether you choose to stay in the heart of the city or among the vineyards, Bordeaux rewards travellers who take the time to explore beyond its most famous names.

From relaxed château visits and vineyard picnics to market lunches, wine bars and easy cultural experiences, the region offers so many varied ways to enjoy great wine and food simply and authentically, without excess.

For those looking for a more approachable side of Bordeaux, the most memorable moments are more often than not found in simple places, good bottles and everyday settings.

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For Luis Duarte, surfing isn’t just a passion, it’s a way of life.

His connection to the swells of the Atlantic has guided both his professional and personal choices from an early age, leading him to where he is now: making ocean-kissed wines in the small village of Cortesia (Colares, Lisboa, Portugal), tending to vineyards overlooking the coast where he surfs almost daily.

Growing up with the beach of Praia de São Julião as his playground, Duarte developed an umbilical relationship with his surf board.

‘There was something exciting and forbidden about it,’ he says. ‘We would hide our boards from our parents – as if we were doing something secret and dangerous.’

As a teenager, this evolved into a whole way of thinking, looking and behaving, complete with dress code and jargon.

He surfed competitively for a while before settling into a more relaxed pursuit, still travelling extensively but surfing only for pleasure.

Tradition and soul

Duarte started out as the owner of an architecture office, but the bureaucratic intricacies weren’t for him.

‘At some point, we had the opportunity to buy a plot in Ribeira d’Ilhas, where the World Surf League Challenger Series event takes place.’

Together with fellow surfer Tiago Oliveira, he set up one of Portugal’s first surf camps. Before that he had run a surf school for local kids near São Julião beach.

Following the creation of the World Surfing Reserve of Ericeira in 2011, Duarte and wife Teresa Soares opened a surf-themed hostel in the village, as well as a restaurant, but the ruthless demands of hospitality took a toll on Duarte’s passion.

‘I then started contemplating coming back to my father’s vineyards, which he originally planted [in Cortesia, less than 2km from the coast] – about 1.5ha, from which we now produce our vinhas velhas (‘old vines’) wine.’

He eventually partnered with winemaker Mauro Azóia, and planted another 4ha. In 2016, Duarte and Soares left their hospitality endeavours to dedicate themselves fully to Haja Cortezia Wines, producing under the motto Tradição e alma à beira-mar (‘Tradition and soul by the coast’).

The change has allowed Duarte to rediscover his rhythm, attuned to both vines and waves.

From father to son

Duarte now supports his son, Santiago, a successful semi-professional surfer (his daughter Matilde, is a semi-professional acrobatic gymnast).

‘I travel with Santiago, film and photograph him, and introduce him to the waves I know,’ he says.

‘As surfers, we have our secret spots. That’s part of the magic. Although social media is somewhat destroying that…’

He’s also working on a parallel project, Ocean Wine, to create a community of winemakers and vineyards situated less than 2km from the coast, where surfing is also part of the local culture.

‘I’d like to create a new concept, a new way of presenting and experiencing wine,’ he says.

Travelling, surfing, passing on his knowledge to Santiago, ‘it’s all part of a lifestyle’. Haja Cortezia gives Duarte a degree of freedom, allowing him to travel over winter and escape almost daily to catch a few quick waves.

Above all, he now feels a seamless connection with the landscape.

‘I can always see the sea when I’m working in the vineyard.’

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Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) first week of judging has been officially concluded, with 245 experts coming from all over the globe assessing over 16,700 wines from 57 different countries.

Celebrating in style the party was held at Vagabond Urban Winery in London, where top-winning wines from DWWA 2025 were poured via enomatic machines for guests to enjoy.

Opening the soirée, managing director of Events & Decanter, Jonny Sullens, reflected on the event's sustainability focus, including the recycling of leftover wines through a specialised glass-crushing machine and the introduction of reusable blind tasting bottle bags.

A special gathering full of excitement with a perfect atmosphere for new connections and delightful conversations. Including some delicious canapés, paired with a curated selection of Vagabond still wines, oysters and fresh cheeses from Curd & Cure.

Champagne Bollinger brought sparkle to the celebration, joined by an array of cocktails such as Wilfred’s non-alcoholic Spritz mixed with Double Dutch tonic and soda, as well as refreshing Renais Gin & Tonics.

Find out the results from the world largest and most influential judging competition this 17 of June on Decanter.com

Sign up to the DWWA newsletter to receive results news, regional highlights and expert analysis.

Scroll down to see the highlights of the night.

Judges arriving to Vagabond Urban Winery in London.

From left to right: Tone Veseth Furuholmen MW, DWWA Co-Chairs Michael Hill Smith AM MW and Beth Willard enjoying a glass of fizz kindly provided by Champagne Bollinger.

Guests enjoyed delicious Wilfred’s non-alcoholic Spritz & Double Dutch Tonic.

Champagne Bollinger kindly sponsored the sparkling wine served throughout the event.

DWWA judges raising a glass (L-R): Will Hill, Sietze Wijma, Chris Martin MW and Eugene Mlynczyk MW.

Judges enjoyed a carefully curated selection of DWWA 2025 top winners sampled from the enomatic machines from Vagabond Urban Winery.

Jonny Sullens, managing director for Events & Decanter, delivered the opening speech to guests.

Glasses of Champagne Bollinger held high as guests prepared for the opening speech.

Guests enjoyed Gin & Tonics carefully prepared with Renais Gin mixed with Double Dutch Tonic.

From left to right: Decanter's Regional Editor Julie Shepard, DWWA judge Malu Lambert and Regional Chair for Southern Italy, Jason Millar.

A celebratory toast: Spanish DWWA judge Teresa Cedenilla and fellow judges enjoying a glass of Champagne Bollinger.

Savouring the sparkle: Ronan Sayburn MS enjoying a glass with DWWA official sponsor Riedel.

In festive spirit (L-R): DWWA judges Susan R. Lin MW and Lisa Granik MW and Decanter's Regional Editor Sylvia Wu.

DWWA judge Eddie McDougall (left) and Resident Co-Chair Caro Maurer MW (right), having a good time.

The party offered a great chance for DWWA judges and guests to reconnect and network with the world's leading wine professionals.

Nearly 17,000 wines from 57 countries were assessed during the first week of judging at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2026. This week, the competition enters its final stages, as every Gold medal-winning wine is reassessed by a selection of DWWA’s senior judging panels to determine Platinum and Best in Show.

While the first stage of DWWA is defined by scale, Platinum week is defined by calibration. Wines awarded Gold medals during regional judging return to the tasting table for blind assessment by cross-regional panels made up of Co-Chairs and Regional Chairs.

Some wines will be elevated to Platinum. Others may be downgraded following further scrutiny and discussion – a process that judges say is central to the competition’s credibility and consistency.

How Platinum week works

The Platinum judging process forms a key part of DWWA’s multi-stage assessments, designed to ensure consistency and rigour throughout the competition.

After initial regional blind tastings determine Bronze, Silver and Gold medal winners (or no award), all Gold medals are retasted during Platinum week by mixed panels of lead judges drawn from different regions and specialisms. The aim is not simply to reward power or style, but to identify wines showing the strongest sense of balance, typicity, precision and overall quality within a global context.

Ronan Sayburn MS said: ‘There’s still a process of sorting, there’s still a process of looking for the very very best, and that is elevating from Gold to Platinum. Some wines we feel don’t actually reach Gold, so maybe move down a little – but we’re doing up to Platinum and then to Best in Show.’

From there, Platinum medal winners progress to Best in Show deliberations, where DWWA’s Co-Chairs select the top 50 wines of the competition through repeated blind tastings and collective discussion.

The judging methodology remains central to DWWA’s global reputation, combining blind tasting, regional expertise and collaborative panel debate to evaluate wines across style, origin and price point.

Cross-regional scrutiny

This year’s Platinum and Best in Show judging brings together an internationally recognised group of tasters, including Co-Chairs Andrew Jefford, Beth Willard, Michael Hill Smith AM MW, Ronan Sayburn MS and Caro Maurer MW, who joined DWWA this year as Resident Co-Chair.

They are joined by Regional Chairs including Amanda Barnes MW, James Tidwell MS, Andy Howard MW, Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, Matthew Stubbs MW, Justin Knock MW, Dr Caroline Gilby MW, Stefan Neumann MS, Michaela Morris, Paz Levinson and Dominique Vrigneau.

For Beth Willard, the structure of Platinum week is what makes it particularly compelling.

Emerging trends and standout flights

One of the defining features of Platinum week is the opportunity for judges to taste across regions and categories, offering insight into both global benchmarks and emerging stylistic trends.

James Tidwell MS noted the breadth of wines already performing strongly during this year’s judging. ‘We have such a broad overview of the entire competition, and we get to see, really, what happened in the entire competition.’

Early highlights have included Chardonnay flights spanning both Old and New World regions, with Amanda Barnes MW pointing to standout wines from Japan, Serbia and England alongside more established growing areas.

‘It is really nice to see diverse regions producing beautiful quality Chardonnays as well,’ she said.

Paz Levinson also highlighted strong performances from Alto Adige whites, Bordeaux Left Bank wines and Rioja, noting both quality and value across several categories.

‘We had easily three Platinum and Best in Show [candidates] in this category,’ she said of Rioja. ‘The quality was there.’

For Dr Caroline Gilby MW, Platinum week offers judges the opportunity to focus exclusively on wines already identified as exceptional. ‘We’re tasting what should all be good, and just making sure that we pick the highlights that really shine,’ she said. ‘They’re genuinely exciting wines.’

Narrowing the field

Following Platinum judging, the competition’s Co-Chairs undertake the final Best in Show deliberations – a process that narrows around roughly 200 Platinum medal winners down to just 50 wines.

The final selection remains one of the most debated and rigorous stages of DWWA, requiring consensus across styles, regions and price points, and often involving repeated tastings before the Best in Show wines are confirmed.

This is also when the Co-Chairs re-taste all Value Golds to confirm a top selection, last year encompassing 30 Top Value Golds, all under £15 a bottle.

For Caro Maurer MW, the week captures both the challenge and enjoyment of judging at the highest level. ‘With the best tasters on the table, such a unanimous decision – I really enjoy it.’

Results on the horizon

DWWA 2026 results, including Platinum and Best in Show winners, will be announced on 17 June on Decanter.com.

Readers can subscribe to the DWWA newsletter to receive the results, regional highlights and expert analysis as soon as they are published.

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Arguably, no wine region – not Bordeaux, not Burgundy, not even Champagne – has pursued luxury as deliberately as Napa Valley.

When winemaker Ivo Jeramaz arrived from Croatia in 1986 to work alongside his uncle, Miljenko ‘Mike’ Grgich, Napa was a quieter, humbler and unmistakably agrarian place.

In the decades that followed, the region was transformed, he recalls.

An influx of outside capital ushered in showpiece wineries with chandeliered tasting rooms. The hot pursuit of 100-point scores introduced cult wines and tightly held allocations.

‘Napa became a very exclusive place,’ says Jeramaz – a region, and wines, defined by luxury, polish and power.

The model worked for a while, he says, but today it’s clear that it’s under strain.

Inflexion point

Signs pointing to an unprecedented market correction are unavoidable across Napa Valley.

Wine sales have slowed, leaving excess inventory in their wake. Layoffs and facility closures have become regular and climate volatility is an operational constant.

Confidence levels at Napa wineries are among the lowest of any major US wine region, according to a recent survey by Silicon Valley Bank.

At every turn, there’s talk of a reset – a new era for Napa framed in terms such as authenticity and accessibility.

Wineries are leaning into storytelling and digital outreach. Wine tastings are being recast as wellness experiences.

But beneath the tactical adjustments, there are signs of a deeper, more structural shift emerging, too.

In a region that has largely exhausted conventional markers of luxury, a more durable expression of prestige may lie in the vineyard itself.

Prestige reconsidered

For many growers, this recalibration begins with a correction of the narrative.

Annie Favia, the viticulturist and co-owner of Favia Wines, recoils slightly when I suggest that Napa can, at times, resemble a Disneyland for wine lovers.

‘Napa has this very shiny veneer,’ she says, ‘but underneath it, it’s always been about farming.’

The valley’s agricultural core, she argues, may have been overshadowed by a commercially sexier narrative of luxury, but its backbone, built on family-run estates and generational stewardship, never disappeared.

For Favia and her husband, winemaker Andy Erickson (of Screaming Eagle and Dalla Valle fame), farming has always come first.

Since 2012, they’ve produced wine from organic vineyards certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), incorporating biodynamic and regenerative principles.

‘We’ve had our heads down, working towards this goal for over three decades,’ Favia says.

What feels different now, Erickson suggests, is the growing momentum around those principles. ‘[Now] we have a chance to be a voice in a new chapter for Napa,’ he says.

At Vine Hill Ranch, a heritage estate situated on the slopes of the Mayacamas mountain range in Oakville, Bruce Phillips (pictured, above) – whose family has grown wine grapes there since the late 1950s – poses the idea similarly. What if Napa’s new luxury was rooted in a grower movement?

It’s a question that points to Champagne as a reference – a reorientation of currency away from grandes maisons and brand marketing, and toward wines crafted by growers, site expression and generational stewardship of land and community.

These recalibrations align with broader cultural currents. The rise of quiet luxury in fashion, for example, displaced logos and overt displays of wealth with a renewed reverence for craft, origin and sustainability.

In Napa, sustainability has similarly emerged as a marker of changing value systems.

Translating that impulse into a cohesive movement, however, hasn’t been easy.

A greener Napa

Among many wine-growers, there’s a shared conviction – if any wine region should take the lead on stewardship, why not Napa?

It’s one of the world’s most prestigious wine regions, with some of the highest land prices and operating budgets in the world, explains Jeramaz.

‘And yet, we’ve pretended that what we put in the soil has no bearing on wine quality,’ he says.

Grgich Hills, along with pioneers such as Neal Family Vineyards and Spottswoode Winery, were among Napa’s earliest adopters of organic viticulture and the trio are the only estates in the valley to hold silver-level Regenerative Organic Certified status, a standard that extends beyond organic regulations to include things such as soil health metrics, biodiversity benchmarks and labour protections.

Jeramaz argues that Napa should be further along, with stronger commitments to organic certification, wider adoption of regenerative practices and a full ban on synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers.

Organic certification, often considered a baseline standard for meaningful sustainability, has grown in Napa, especially in recent years.

According to CCOF data, about 12.5% of Napa Valley’s vineyard acreage is certified organic.

The Napa County Department of Agriculture reports that there were 138 certified organic wine grape growers in Napa Valley in 2024.

Yet even those numbers may understate actual practice. Napa Valley Grapegrowers estimates that the number of organic grapegrowers would double if uncertified farms practising organic methods were included.

Long-term benefits

The pursuit of sustainability rarely follows a single blueprint in Napa. Cathy Corison (pictured, above) of Corison Winery farmed organically for nearly three decades before obtaining CCOF certification in 2023, prompted largely by her daughter Grace.

‘I started farming organically long before it was fashionable,’ explains Corison, recalling a time when the label could even be viewed as a liability.

Cost and administrative burdens delayed the decision, but her daughter’s influence helped Corison to understand the greater value and recognition that certification carries, particularly for the next generation.

Also, she says, a growing sense of greenwashing in the industry – when companies use terminology related to sustainability to make misleading, vague or exaggerated claims about the supposed environmental benefits of their own operations – made the decision feel timely.

Indeed, the idea of sustainability is increasingly central to Napa’s messaging, but it’s a notoriously elastic term lacking a consistent definition or standards.

As environmental virtue begins to function as prestige currency, the absence of cohesion leaves consumers navigating a wide spectrum of approaches, often with varying shades of greenwashing.

On one hand, certifications provide invaluable benchmarks for assessing and communicating farming practices, but on the other, debate persists over which standards carry the most weight, and how much legitimacy should be afforded to vineyards operating outside formal certification.

The sheer number of certifications and competing claims from wineries can be difficult for consumers to parse, acknowledges Caleb Mosley, the executive director of Napa Valley Grapegrowers.

Yet if the shared objective is the long-term health of soils, vines and the people who work the land, ‘the certification conversation might become a little more ancillary’, he suggests.

It’s possible that even imperfect or incremental moves toward sustainability, which are often dismissed as greenwashing, may still signal a shift in values.

Long-term view

If farming is indeed becoming the new marker of luxury in Napa, Joseph Phelps Vineyards offers one of its clearest expressions.

Following its sale to luxury group LVMH’s Moët Hennessy division in 2022, the estate launched one of the valley’s most ambitious regenerative projects to date.

Unveiled in 2024, the Borgo Project represents a sweeping redesign of vineyard systems around agroecology principles.

The initiative incorporates everything from an intensive study of soil health to hydrological mapping and the creation of ecological corridors to restore biodiversity.

The plan operates on a capital-heavy, nine-year horizon before wines even reach the market.

CEO David Pearson describes the Borgo Project as ‘a new paradigm and a new basis for agriculture in Napa’, a model he hopes others in the region will follow.

Pearson is candid that he doesn’t intend to pursue third-party certification. The goal of the project, he says, was always to produce the best possible wines.

Certifications, he argues, neither guarantee that outcome nor necessarily align with the estate’s specific needs.

Building resilience

The Borgo Project underscores a reality many growers face – cost remains a significant barrier to structural change.

Regenerative certification, for example, requires paying all workers, including seasonal grape pickers, a set living wage – a minimum in Napa of roughly $36 an hour, instead of the more typical $20-$25, explains Aron Weinkauf, winemaker and vineyard manager at Spottswoode.

The upfront costs are high, acknowledges Spottswoode’s president and CEO Beth Novak (pictured, above).

‘[But] we look at it as an optimisation of profit rather than a maximisation,’ she says.

Over time, those investments amount to business resilience, Novak explains – a healthier environment, as well as longer-lived vines that require fewer inputs, less labour and ultimately, lower operating costs.

‘You make those investments because you intend to be here decades from now,’ she says.

Napa is in a tough place right now, Napa Valley Grapegrowers’ Mosley acknowledges, but it’s a reset that has offered clarity, ‘recalibrating toward people making not only positive business decisions, but positive viticultural and land-use decisions, too’.

Approaches to a greener, more resilient future for Napa will vary, as will the metrics used to assess them.

Ideally, what will endure is a fundamental shift in values and a return to farming as the region’s most credible expression of identity.

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