Wines of the Year 2025: South America

One of my favourite features of 2025, included in our September issue, collected contributions from our South America experts on their favourite ‘hidden jewels’.

Their input – kaleidoscopic and heartfelt – revealed unexpected and lesser-known wines, places and people. It offered colourful snapshots of South America as a source not just of outstanding wines, but also of creative energy and positive entrepreneurial spirit.

These are the drivers behind the continent’s most exciting bottles, many of which remained overlooked and underestimated for a long time. It’s great to see collectors and investors finally catching up with the quality and ageability of South America’s best – represented in this Wines of the Year selection by yet another outstanding vintage of Seña, the 2023.

Meanwhile, I was mind-blown by what is surely another Chilean icon in the making: Piedra Sagrada. But it’s not just in the upper fine wine spheres that South America is making an indelible mark.

Our September issue also included one of Decanter’s most successful panel tastings to date – South American Premium Whites – headlined by idiosyncratic (and accessible) gems such as Carmen’s DO Florillón #6 Semillon.

All of the wines etched in my memory of 2025 tell beautiful stories. From Argentina, Cara Sur’s Parcela La Totora evokes the exciting revival of Criolla varieties, while Catena Zapata’s Birth of Cabernet shows how excellence stems from the careful observation of the role nature plays in chance occurrence.

This is the essence of wine: unique messages, travelling the world in beautiful bottles. At a time when so many of us are feeling like stranded castaways, you’d want to feel inspired by one of these South American missives.

Wines of the year 2025: South America

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