Wines of the Year 2024: Champagne, Rhône & Regional France

Decanter’s expert writers and contributors awarded 95-points or more to almost 3,000 wines in the 12 months to October 2024.

While they have all appeared in the pages of Decanter magazine and online on Decanter Premium and in our decanter.com database, there were too many to reproduce here for a seasonal wrap-up.

So, in a somewhat unfair and very challenging task, we asked each of our Regional Editors to select just five wines from each of their key areas of expertise to highlight the bounty and diversity on offer across the world wine map.

Scroll down for notes and scores of the Champagne, Rhône and regional French Wines of the Year 2024

Rhône

Our extensive Rhône coverage is impeccably reported by Matt Walls, with his twice-monthly column, yearly en primeur report and frequent features in the magazine and on Decanter Premium online. With this in mind, all but one wine in this selection is reviewed by Walls.

The outlier is M Chapoutier’s De L’Orée Ermitage Blanc, which I tasted alongside Michel Chapoutier at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter event in New York in June last year. I was immediately seduced by this wine as the aromas twisted and turned; 99-points, a sip of pure gold.

Vincent Paris’ exceptional Cornas cuvée La Geynale warranted inclusion here not just because of its 100-point score, but also for Walls’ description of it, which I loved: ‘When young, it’s a roaring black hole, massive, dense, drawing you in. A wine so assertive it seems to taste you as much as you taste it.’

Châteauneuf-du-Pape takes two spots in the list, one red and one white, and although one is an older vintage (Château La Nerthe’s 1999 Cadettes), if you have it in your cellar, its 98-point score suggests now is the time to drink it.

Outside the well-known appellations, there’s great potential in Ventoux, with vines grown at altitude, so Saint Jean du Barroux’s 95-point La Montagne white merited inclusion, too.

Champagne

In Decanter’s first dedicated Champagne report, on the Côte des Blancs (July 2024 issue), correspondent Tom Hewson reviewed the latest releases from this chalky Chardonnay hotspot. Pierre Péters’ Les Chétillons Grand Cru 2009 was cream of the crop.

Three in this list were some of the most delicious wines I’ve tasted this year. Krug’s 2004 vintage Champagne, textured like silk and wearing effortless charm, will continue to dazzle for some time yet.

Regional France

Domaine FL’s Savennières Roche-aux- Moines 2016 supports my conviction that if I could only drink a single style of wine for the rest of my life it would have to be Loire Chenin Blanc.

Mas Cal Demoura’s Les Combariolles 2022 red earned a spot on this list as it demonstrates the potential of the Languedoc’s Terrasses du Larzac region, which I took a deep dive into for the October 2024 issue.

Many wines have fluidity, finespun tannin structure, lifted freshness and soaring aromatics.

Finally, the June issue’s Bandol panel tasting revealed top scores (95-points each) for the structured yet approachable reds from Château de Pibarnon, Domaine de la Tour du Bon and Domaine Ray-Jane.

Yet it was Pibarnon’s dark and distinctive 95pt rosé that I picked for this list, as the judges were wowed by its layers of fruit, spice, salinity and minerality.

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Wines of the Year 2024: Champagne, Rhône and regional France

Wines are listed white then red, in score order

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