Wines of the Year 2024: The US

Credit: Andrew Lipovsky / Getty Images

(Image credit: Andrew Lipovsky / Getty Images)

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.

Scroll down for notes and scores of the US Wines of the Year 2024

Napa Valley

In Napa, we’re seeing shifts in styles. As climate change pushes ripeness, winemakers are moving towards fresher wine styles.

From Jonathan Cristaldi, two 100-point wines made the cut. He was bowled over by the Ad Vivum, Sleeping Lady Cabernet Sauvignon from longtime Napa Valley winemaker Chris Phelps, as well as the 2021 Ovid red.

Freshness and elegance carried the day in our selections, as Lokoya’s Mount Veeder Cabernet showed great balance and vitality, with classic wild mountain fruits and a floral elegance framed in its aromatic intensity. A true wine of place.

One of my favourite Napa winemakers is Steve Matthiasson, and Cristaldi and I agreed on his Phoenix Vineyard Cabernet. Its purity and precision are worthy of the 99-points it was awarded in Cristaldi’s 2021 Napa Valley vintage report.

Matthiasson skilfully frames the terroir of his dry-farmed, organic Cabernet vines in wines that are light, floral and evocative of Nebbiolo.

Finally, the 2021 Stony Hill Chardonnay, from the producer’s timeless Spring Mountain estate, stood out among the California Chardonnays I featured in our August issue.

America’s first cult winery has stood as a bulwark against passing fads and Chardonnays of oaky opulence. A wine of finesse and intricacy truly worthy of its wine of the year status.

US West Coast beyond Napa

American wine keeps getting better, in Napa and beyond.

With nearly 3,000 wines tasted and reviewed just since January 2024, there were many tough choices to be made. As the selection shows, there is quality up and down the West Coast.

The 2021 Due North Pinot Noir from Abbott Claim was the best wine that I tasted myself in 2024, meeting winemaker Alban Debeaulieu in the cave at the Oregon winery for my feature in the May issue. This shows the Willamette Valley’s stripes, as one of the world’s greatest Pinot Noir growing regions.

On a visit to Walla Walla, in Washington state, it was Corliss Estate – which actually has all of its estate vineyards on Red Mountain – that stunned me with its balanced blend. Cabernet Franc leads the way here and offers great bay leaf and eucalyptus elegance and a brilliant graphite minerality against the powerful fruit of Red Mountain.

A standout from my Sonoma Coast 2021 vintage report is one of my top wines of the year, Occidental’s Running Fence Cuvée Catherine: an elegant Pinot Noir from a vintage that played into the hands of some of Sonoma’s top winemakers.

Truthfully, a few wines from that report could easily have made the cut here. There are two top wines from California’s Central Coast regions as well: Pinot Noir from the classic producer Au Bon Climat and one of Edna Valley’s iconic Syrahs from Alban, each earning a 98-point score.

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