The 2025 Wine Hit Parade

It is that time of year when the Top 100 lists appear in the wine world. James Suckling, The Wine Spectator and Vinous Media have all just published their lists.

What is refreshing about these lists, is that all three companies are trying to find wines that are genuinely exciting, relatively good value for money and relatively easy to find.

They are not necessarily the highest scoring, most expensive wines on the planet but a more considered blend of these factors. A bit more for the regular Joe, perhaps.

Obviously the wines in contention are the wines they have tasted and so the current vintage releases are all important.

Given that ’22 Bordeaux was landing physically in the time frame for review, it is perhaps no surprise to see that vintage doing well, especially as we all knew it was very good vintage in the region.

What is surprising, however, is that the appellation of Margaux is easily the star performer based on the number of entries compared to the other Bordeaux appellations.

Chateau Giscours (pictured) appears on all three lists, taking No.1 spot for The Wine Spectator, No.8 for James Suckling and No.62 for Vinous Media. That is quite an achievement.

Chateau D’Issan claims No.1 on James Suckling, whilst Brane Cantenac takes No.3 on Vinous Media and Marquis de Terme comes in at No.30 on The Wine Spectator.

This is a notable performance from AOC Margaux and worth bearing in mind, particularly if perusing a typical French bistro wine list (if they have remembered to include the vintages!).

Another great success in Bordeaux was Chateau Beausejour-Becot ’22, which had a top ten entry on both The Wine Spectator (at No.5) and Vinous Media (No. 8) – the latter also awarded it the magical 100 points. And yet it is still only £380 per 6 bottles In Bond.

Within Italy, Tuscany slightly outperformed Piedmont in terms of overall numbers of entries but that may have something to do with release dates. Other Italian regions were also well represented; it wasn’t all about the big two.

Produttori de Barbaresco receives a couple of mentions for wines from the brilliant ’21 Piedmont vintage, typically released a year earlier than their neighbours in Barolo. The inexpensive straight Barbaresco is always a shoo-in in my book.

It was great to see Alsace and Beaujolais receive some plaudits, particularly from James Suckling’s camp. Both are superb areas for inexpensive, high-quality wines although are never likely to move the dial for fine wine merchants such as ourselves!

There are so many different wines in the final 300 it is hard to identify any great themes although Chardonnays from the New World are clearly closing the gap on their more traditional rivals, offering competitive values too. Chardies from Argentina, Australia, Chile and the United States are all represented here.

When totting up the numbers to see which countries had made the podium, it felt like a global version of the Eurovision song contest – England: one point (Dermot Sugrue not surprisingly). Our closest rival was Portugal with four points.

The final standings are as follows:

France – 81

United States – 71

Italy – 62

Spain – 17

Argentina – 13

Australia – 13

Chile – 10

Austria – 9

New Zealand – 9

Germany – 5

South Africa – 5

Portugal – 4

England – 1

(and yes, after several efforts, it does add up to 300!).

Bien joué less Françaises!

P.S. The Wine Spectator were quite heavily weighted to the US, no doubt because they are very much an American publication whereas Suckling and Vinous have a much more international profile.