Like sublime meals and glorious journeys, great wines create great memories. They leave impressions to be pondered and stories to be told. I have the privilege of tasting many wines over the course of a year. In 2019, these are the 12 that left the most lasting memories, in chronological order.
La Violetta Great Southern Riesling Das Sakrileg 2017
In January, at the extraordinary Carlton Wine Room in Melbourne, I ordered a 2017 riesling with the curious name Das Sakrileg. It came from La Violetta in the Great Southern region, and from the first sip I was entranced. The texture was rich yet delicate at the same time. It was tense and energetic, stony, succulent and absolutely delicious.
Later, in the town of Denmark, I visited La Violetta and its proprietor, Andrew Hoadley, who explained how he fermented the riesling in barrels without clarifying or filtering. “When I started, it was a radical thing not to fine or filter a riesling,” he said. “Not to protect a wine at every step along the way was considered unthinkable.”
Hence the name, Das Sakrileg.
Luke Lambert Yarra Valley Nebbiolo 2017
On the same trip to Australia, I visited Luke Lambert in the Yarra Valley. Mr. Lambert is an excellent producer whose gorgeous chardonnays and savory syrahs have turned the heads of those who disparaged Australian wines as fruit bombs. Yet Mr. Lambert was focused on nebbiolo.
Nebbiolo is the great red grape of Barolo, Barbaresco and other singular wines in northern Italy. It rarely flourishes outside its home. In the Yarra Valley, however, more than a few producers were trying their best with the grape. I was not particularly impressed until I tried Mr. Lambert’s, particularly his 2017 vintage, which in January had not been released.
It was nuanced and complex, with a lovely, fine texture and classic flavors of dark fruit, menthol, flowers, tar and earthy minerals. It was the truest combination of nebbiolo and place that I’d ever had outside northern Italy. Later in the visit, I learned that Mr. Lambert had purchased land north of Yarra with the intention of planting only nebbiolo and concentrating solely on that wine. It may take 15 years to see the results, but I can’t wait.
Tiberio Trebbiano d’Abruzzo Fonte Canale 2015
In late March, Cristiana Tiberio of Agricola Tiberio in Abruzzo, Italy, visited New York to offer a tasting of six vintages of Fonte Canale, a single-vineyard wine made from an 80- to-90-year-old vineyard of trebbiano Abruzzese.
Trebbiano is a ubiquitous white grape in Italy, and generally makes unmemorable wine. But trebbiano Abruzzese is distinct, relatively rare and potentially superior. From this old vineyard, planted in limestone, sand and marl, the wines were exceptional.
I especially loved the 2015 Fonte Canale, a gorgeous, intense wine with salty, minerally flavors. This wine is hard to find and relatively expensive at $65 or so. Luckily, Tiberio also makes a $20 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo that, if it doesn’t have the depth, intensity or complexity of the Fonte Canale, at least suggests the potential of the trebbiano Abruzzese grape when done right.
Bodegas Riojanas Rioja Monte Real Gran Reserva 1942
Classic old Rioja has been one of wine’s best-kept secrets. It has the capacity to age gracefully and evolve with complexity and nuance over time. Until recently, it was even possible to find it at affordable prices.
Nowadays, old Rioja has its superstars like R. López de Heredia. But little-known gems are out there, like Monte Real Gran Reserva from Bodegas Riojanas. This was reinforced in April at a tasting of a dozen different vintages stretching back to 1942.
Among more recent vintages, I loved the young, pure, complex 2001. And the 1964, from a great Rioja vintage, was graceful and lovely in every way. But for me, it was hard to top the 1942, made in an era when all the grapes were trod by foot, and when barrels were considered a means of transporting wine rather than aging it. Though almost 77 years since the vintage, the wine was pure, complex and energetic. Its ruby color was just browning around the edges, and the flavors of spicy red fruit were tempered by touches of leather and herbs.
This great wine has seen a lot of history. May we all emerge with so much still to offer.
Familia Torres Costers del Segre Pirene 2018
Early in May, I headed to Catalonia to visit Familia Torres, a large Spanish winery that had become an industry leader in fighting climate change.
Aside from taking many steps as a company to limit its greenhouse gas emissions, it was also taking practical steps to adapt to a warming planet. In pursuit of greater freshness, it has planted vineyards at higher altitudes. And it is experimenting with ancestral Catalan grapes that had largely been abandoned because they ripened so late and were so acidic, traits Torres now seeks.
Among those grapes was one called pirene (pea-RENN-ay), a red variety that Torres had planted in its Sant Miquel vineyard, 3,000 feet high in the foothills of the Pyrenees near the town of Tremp. After visiting the vineyard, I had lunch with Miguel Torres Maczassek, the general manager of Familia Torres, and we sampled the 2018 pirene. It was bright and lively, fresh, floral and herbal, a delicious, refreshing drink. Why had this grape been discarded for so long?
Mr. Torres speculated that the grape had been popular when Europe was naturally warmer, from about A.D. 950 to 1250. In the years that followed, as the climate cooled, the Catalans had less use for late-ripening grapes like pirene, so they virtually disappeared. Torres is now experimenting with six such recovered grapes. Imagine how many others have yet to be discovered in the historic wine-producing world.
Château Climens Barsac 2005
Sweet wines like Sauternes have fallen out of fashion. Yet they can be mind-blowingly complex and wonderful. In May on Nantucket, a dinner of old Bordeaux finished up with Château Climens 2005 from Barsac, a region within the greater Sauternes appellation.
This wine, made entirely from sémillon grown on limestone, was gorgeous, luscious with flavors of oranges and cream and the complexity that comes from grapes infected with Botrytis cinerea, the noble rot. Best of all, it was resolutely fresh, with lively acidity, which made the wine entirely refreshing, unlike some Sauternes, which can seem cloying because they lack balancing acidity.
Wines like this have so much more to offer than we imagine. In November, at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, the sommelier Giuseppe Rainieri paired Sauternes with a savory rice dish, akin to risotto, over finely sliced sea bass. The contrast between the sweet wine and the tart, complex flavors of the dish were a revelation to me, and a suggestion of new opportunities for drinking sweet wines.
Castellinuzza e Piuca Chianti Classico 2016
Chianti Classico has been one of my favorite wines for years. I love the sangiovese grape and its graceful red fruit flavors, tempered by a refreshing bitterness and dusty tannins, which come from growing sangiovese in the hills of the Classico region.
I wrote about the wine in June not only because I love it, but also because it seemed to me that Chianti Classico was widely underestimated, even written off, by those who had found newer, shinier objects in wine. As a side benefit, I drank a lot of Chianti Classico in preparation and research, which of course is the burden of the wine writer.
Of many excellent Chiantis, none of the wines made as strong an impression on me as a 2016 Chianti Classico from Castellinuzza e Piuca, a tiny property just outside Greve in Chianti. The wine, made of 90 percent sangiovese and 10 percent canaiolo, was stunningly pure and fresh, with flavors of bitter cherry and earth, refreshing with just a touch of mystery, compelling sip after sip in an effort to unravel it.
It had the quality that the French call digestibilité, in which you can drink a lot of a wine without it weighing heavily on you. I will have to learn the Italian term.
Luis Seabra Douro Xisto Cru Branco 2018
In late June, I visited the Douro Valley of Portugal, the land of port and, increasingly over the last few decades, unfortified table wines. At first, many of those wines were heavy and flamboyantly fruity, not unlike port. Nowadays, producers have learned how to make lighter, more graceful and elegant wines.
Among the best of these new-wave Douro producers is Luis Seabra. His reds are terrific, and his whites are eye-opening. I was particularly impressed with his Xisto Cru Branco 2018, a wine that, even though tasted from a large old barrel, caught the essence of what producers like Mr. Seabra and the Douro region have to offer.
It was made of virtually unknown Portuguese varieties, mostly rabigato with a little côdega, gouveio and viosinho, from a 90-year-old vineyard at 2,600 feet in elevation. On the palate, it was saline and mineral, with fresh acidity and the sort of gorgeous, opaque texture that demanded further sips. This wine is not yet available. But I can’t wait for the day when I can drink it again and see what it became after such a promising beginning.
La Garagista Vermont Loups-Garoux 2016
One of the most wonderful things about wine is how much about it we have yet to understand. This point was driven home in August when I drank a 2016 La Garagista Loups-Garoux, from the wife-and-husband team of Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber.
The wine was made from frontenac noir, a hybrid red grape they grow with utmost care and feeling in West Addison, Vt. The wine was astounding, pure, minerally and soulful with flavors that reminded me of iron and blood. I’ve always loved the Garagista wines — it’s perhaps the most creative wine project in the United States. But this wine achieved a new level of complexity that has left me craving more, though it is hard to find.
Ms. Heekin and Mr. Barber are pioneers, demonstrating the potential of hybrid grapes, which have been dismissed for so long, and of terroirs like Vermont, from where great wine was once unimaginable. This wine was visionary.
Heitz Cellar Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Martha’s Vineyard 1985
Later in August, I went to a tasting and dinner featuring old vintages of Heitz Cellar cabernet sauvignons with the new leadership team at Heitz. I tried many superb bottles, but the most memorable was an affirmation of a long celebrated wine, the 1985 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard.
This was an old-school cabernet, made using techniques that were fashionable in the 1970s and ’80s, when Heitz came to prominence, but which, in our increased appreciation of wines made with minimal intervention, are no longer widely accepted, though they may still be widely practiced.
These techniques include adding tartaric acid, not to make up for a deficiency but because the founders of Heitz believed that acidity rather than tannins was the key to long aging. Based on the tasting, which stretched back to the 1972 vintage, they were not wrong. The ’85 Martha’s Vineyard was balanced, long, complete and delicious, with the prominent minty herbal aromas that are characteristic of wines from that vineyard. It was a demonstration that great wines are a lot more than a crowd-approved recipe.
De Conciliis Paestum Aglianico Naima 2010
At Don Angie in New York in early November, I drank a 2010 De Conciliis Naima from the Paestum region of Campania.
The wine was 100 percent aglianico, a reminder of how great this red grape can be when grown on the volcanic soils of its home territory in southern Italy. Bottles intended to be fresh and fruity can be enjoyed right away, but wines like Naima, named for a John Coltrane ballad, need time.
At nine years, the tannins were resolving but still gave the wine spine and structure. The flavors were deep and beautiful — dark fruits evolving into the realm of earth, licorice and tar. It was a joyous bottle, and one that I cannot stop thinking about.
Simon Bize et Fils Savigny-les-Beaune Les Fournaux 1er Cru 2007
Eventually, wine lovers circle back to Burgundy, the region that has shaped the way we think about wine and its potential.
In November, at Eli’s Table in New York, I drank a 2007 Savigny-les-Beaune Les Fournaux, a premier cru red from Simon Bize et Fils. Savigny-les-Beaune is not among the most prestigious terroirs of Burgundy, nor is 2007 a celebrated vintage, though I’ve always liked it. But this wine reminded me how a wine can change and evolve in the glass over the course of an hour.
At first it seemed a bit disjointed, a little stemmy — it was fermented with whole clusters of grapes including the stems. But over time it began to knit together. The flavors became deeper, more intense and more complex, even as the wine retained its gorgeous delicacy.
Our table of three was drawn into the wine as it touched us emotionally in unexpected ways. It was an invitation to all that is beautiful about Burgundy.
