Wines of the Year 2025: North America

Napa & Sonoma

Napa and its neighbouring Sonoma County continue to shine brightly, as winemakers representing the next generation, and a fresh voice, sidle up next to established producers who’ve been making wines of renown for what seems like decades.

Our Sonoma correspondent Ana Carolina Quintela picked the one white in this year’s Wines of the Year selection – Poet & Prophet’s beguiling Ghost Cat Chardonnay from the intense mountain terroir in Alexander Valley’s eastern highlands.

And Quintela’s other selection is this year’s only 100-point wine, a Pinot Noir from Occidental – the lone producer who was in our WotY selection last year, too. The tiny berries and low yields harvested from this near-coastal vineyard site have crafted a wine of intensity.

Cabernet is king in Napa Valley, yet our Napa correspondent Jonathan Cristaldi’s top wine from 2025 is a Syrah: the Colgin Cellars IX Estate from the remarkable 2021 vintage. There’s an elegance to this bottling, offering floral and citrus tones like the classic Syrahs of the northern Rhône.

Napa’s Cathiard Vineyard, at St Helena, produced Cristaldi’s top-scoring Cabernet Sauvignon: from 45-year-old vines, the 2022 is a complete package. And from a high-elevation site on Howell Mountain comes Pilcrow’s Granite Lake.

Rather than the inky black fruit and dark chocolate you might expect, this Cabernet Sauvignon is a red-fruited surprise, with blood orange and grapefruit elements mingling with forest and mineral tones.

A throwback, says Cristaldi, to a classic age in Napa Valley.

Greater North America

Decanter’s US team tasted nearly 4,000 wines this year, and we saw talented winemakers come together with wonderful vintages in the 2022 and 2023 releases. Fantastic wines were made up and down the West Coast – indeed, four of our five selected wines were made from white varieties.

The cooler vintage in Washington state, balanced years in Willamette Valley and California, and the evolution of Chardonnay and white wine in general have given us a brilliant slate of wines.

In terms of scores, our list tops out with two wines from my Willamette Valley vintage report. My first 100-point wine is a thrilling Chardonnay from legacy producer Bethel Heights – The High Wire soars to great heights.

And the 99pt Hyland Vineyard Pinot Noir from Martin Woods is, in my opinion, the best red wine of the vintage: its elegance impresses immediately.

A stunning 2018 sparkling Chardonnay from Rhys is the current release from one of the first names in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the Mt Pajaro Vineyard perches on the western flanks, just 12km from the Pacific.

The wine offers a depth and richness evocative of the great wines crafted in that one place in northern France. From an iconic site in the Sta Rita Hills comes the Domaine Jean François, Sanford & Benedict Twelve Rows Chardonnay from 2021– it’s a collaboration between John Terlato of Sanford winery and Burgundy’s François Labet.

From the vineyard’s original 1972 own-rooted plantings, this is an intense wine that shows the greatness of Santa Barbara Chardonnay.

While a few wines from Washington in the cool 2022 vintage scored 98 points, the 97pt Grand Klasse Roussanne from Gård is the most compelling wine from the region. Intuitive winemaking, coupled with a perfect white wine vintage, came together to create what I believe is the best white wine ever to come out of Washington.

Wines of the year 2025: North America

Wines from Napa and Sonoma are listed first then wines from the rest of North America

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