2024 WINE WRAPPED

Thank Spotify for my obsession with reminiscing over the year via a compiled list of my greatest listening hits. It ain't easy carrying around all this good taste & my back is begging for a break at this point. Jokes aside, why haven't they created an app like Spotify that provides a recap of your wine shenanigans at the end of each year? I'd invest immediately despite the risks of it only appealing to a small set of the population, ha!

2024 brought me face to face with a series of wines that were either thought provoking solo encounters in my glass, casual flings in a haze of weekend fun with friends or somewhere seamlessly in between both realms. Each added a layer of excitement to my year of wine that I hadn't originally anticipated. As a professional wine buyer in the industry, I'm subjected to new wines all day, every day. Experiencing new juice on the regular isn't what was different about this year. It was the fact that 90% of what I tasted would also go on to haunt my palate, to the point of holding it ransom until I chose to buy more for personal consumption. It was difficult to narrow down the selection to 12 key wines that had me under their spell throughout the year, but I managed to trim the fat. Each of the featured wines hold some significant memory with friends or new revelations about my own palate. Some simply floored me with a new varietal & winemaking concepts to make me rethink the things I thought I knew.

A whole lotta fluff to simply say: I drank damn good in 2024.

So, until someone significantly more tech savvy than me creates that wine-Spotify hybrid app, I'll stick to just regaling you with my top 12 bottles in written format. Y'all know I love waxing poetic about juice anyway. The list below is in no particular order! I will make note of bottle pricing with a makeshift scale for your reference when shopping since prices will vary depending on where you are.

• $ = under $40

• $$ = between $45 to $80

• $$$ = $100+

THE 2024 WINE LIST

My love for the team at Terra D'Oro Winery runs deep. They were such a great winery to collaborate with on multiple projects over 2023 & 2024. With the last project wrapping up in May, I was surprised to have a bonus bottle sent to me here in Charlotte. I had consumed literally everything in their portfolio with the exception of some tasting room specific bottles, but that changed when I got to taste the coolest domestic red blend I've encountered to date. Barbera, Cabernet Sauvignon & Aglianico join forces for a big, warm & spicy red wine that commands attention on first pour. This is one you need to thoughtfully sip and allow it plenty of breathing room to really let it shine like the star that is.

I have this friend who swears by the adage of "it's more cost effective to just do a bottle than just buy glasses of wine". Which, while true in most cases, becomes null & void if the choice takes us down the road of 3 to 4 bottles. Plus, I like to hop through different wines on a by the glass list because commitment to a single bottle can be too overwhelming even for me. This friend is both a creature of habit & lover of Chardonnay. He isn't one to bend easily to new things. However, I turned him on to this value priced Chenin Blanc from importer Mary Taylor that sings with tropical fruit on the nose but holds a racy amount of acidity & weight on the palate. A perfect option to please a Chardonnay lover. It's now a go-to when we get together to catch up, laugh & keep the night on a budget------well, budget adjacent after several bottles.

I've never really been enchanted by Brunello or Rosso di Montalcino. It's not that I didn't find them tasty. I just never had a magical moment with them. They didn't tickle the parts of my brain that cause me to feel inspired. However, I snagged this bottle on a whim because I was kind of obsessed with the font choice adorning the label, ha! I cracked it open while revisiting maps & historical overviews of the medieval town of Montalcino. It opens with familiar scents I grew up with: freshly lit incense, sweet cigar smoke, toasted baking spices and black forest cherries. Sangiovese, the grape of Montalcino that makes the age-worthy Brunellos & the entry level Rosso di Montalcino, never felt more homey in my glass. Like a hug from an old friend. I savored this bottle for a few days, expecting it to show additional layers as it opened up. The initial aromatics remained constant but the palate just became a silky roller coaster ride. I can confidently say that La Gerla has made me a believer.

Giulio of Di Colle in Colle was the most gracious of hosts for my group & I during my first wine retreat to Italy (see my recap here). Every night for dinner we would have carafes of red & white wine continuously flowing alongside our meal. The red was always the Drago Viola or the "Purple Dragon", a persistently juicy blend of Merlot & Syrah. It was incredible to see members of the group who normally didn't enjoy red wine chug away at this every time it hit the table! Getting to spend hours just breaking bread with a group of strangers turned friends over wine is quite possibly the only way to fully immerse yourself in the vibes of Italy. This delicious Umbrian wine served as the perfect social lubricant to nights I won't soon forget.

When you think of beverages produced in Mexico, what comes to mind first? If you say wine and not tequila or mezcal, you are lying to my face & I don't appreciate it. Thought we were closer than that. I've had wines from New Mexico, sparkling wines specifically, but even those sometimes had a blend of juice from California in the mix of the final product. This lush white wine from Bodega Domecq is from proper Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico (located in an area sometimes referred to as "Baja California" on maps). 100% Semillon & the kind of thirst quenching white wine I live for. When we talk about "porch pounders" in the wine world, this is what we are referring to.

I had this big rant earlier in the year about how we mistreat Rosé regularly and seem to not give this particular wine style enough credit for year-round consumption. I had a colleague who was going on the rampage about ONLY selling & consuming the most recent vintage of rosé because it is always "better for the consumer". However, because that narrative has been pushed into the minds of the consumers so heavily, the industry (restaurants, retailers, etc.) has a hard time selling through previous vintages when the new year rolls around. Any professional who argues against this has clearly not been paying attention this year. I was hard pressed to find a single importer or distributor who wasn't showing me at least one rosé that was an older vintage (usually by 1-2 years) because no one was buying enough of it prior to the new release. While the most recent vintage of a rose will be fresh, fruity & lively and designed to be consumed in its youth, there are producers making serious rose that is designed to age. Chateau d'Aqueria is a perfect example of this in the area of Tavel, France, which is known for these intense, hot pink colored roses built to be sipped every season. #RoséAllDay

Orange wine has been the one style that keeps me in a perpetual state of push & pull. For every delicious orange wine I encounter, there's a basic 'OK' one or an absolute horror story one. Orange wine is essentially white wine grapes masquerading under the guise of red wine production techniques, hence the added depth of color & element of tannins in the wine. Oenogenesis is a Greek producer I came across while trying to expand my rolodex of quality orange wines. Using the native white grape of Assyrtiko (ah-seer-ti-co) in controlled fermentation with the lees & grape skins, they've achieved a quaffable take on a style that can be overwhelmingly acid forward. If you're an orange wine enthusiast or naysayer, this is one to please both parties!

NC was showing up & showing out all year. Prior to my invite to the NC Wine Symposium hosted at Surry Cellars community college, I was contacted by winemaker Erik Martella to share my thoughts on his wines. I had the CVD Sparkling once before at a tasting helmed by friend & writer, Kara Daly, but didn't realize at the time that Erik's whole focus was showcasing the many variations of the Muscadine grape that exist here in North Carolina. From dry, aromatic reds to fleshy & spicy whites, Erik is putting respect on Muscadine's name. It's not just for the sweet stuff! The sparkling is lively & fresh on the palate, and the perfect partner to this years' Thanksgiving festivities. I highly recommend this bottle (all of his wines, really) if you've ever been curious as to what the future of our wine region will look like with innovators like Erik at the helm.

Talking about Champagne has been weird for me this year. Normally I'm shouting for everyone to drink bubbles from literally anywhere else. While Champagne is the blueprint, and the original center of the sparkling wine paradigm, I've consistently found more joy in the sparkling wines of other regions around the world. Hello, Cap Classique or Franciacorta, anyone?! However, I was constantly coming back to the absolutely divine grower's champagne of Dremont-Marroy. Grower's champagne is bubbly that is vinified, bottled & sold by the family/producer that grew the grapes. The entire line up is great from this house, but my fave is from the Les Méandres line. This Blanc de Noirs (60% Pinot Meunier & 40% Pinot Noir) invites you in with aromas of apricot jam & crushed raspberries before belting out high notes of minerality & sea salt on the palate. Best paired with Korean fried chicken & Netflix.

If you've been around long enough to hear me chat about South Africa, you know that I go hard in the paint for the region. I think it is criminally underrated till this day despite over 365 years of winemaking to look back at. A friend & colleague is an importer of some incredible, bang-for-your-buck juice all from South Africa. Risky, yes. Worth it? Absolutely. He invited me to a private trade tasting where I got to meet a winemaker, Wynand Grober, who's wines I'd been selling for the past year, and also taste something new from him. This delicate white blend is led by Muscat of Alexandria with Chenin Blanc & Semillon following suit. Wynand doesn't make this one every year and the composition constantly changes. If you spot this at your local wine shop: don't think, just buy.

When did Virginia wine get so cool? The wine regions along the east coast are primed to really wow us in the next decade with more innovators like dynamic duo Reggie & Lance of The Parallax Project. The parallax effect refers to “a difference in the apparent position of an object when viewed along two different lines of sight”. This name serves a dual purpose in its messaging to us as the consumer. First, What's This/What's That is a white wine AND a red wine, respectively, made with a similar composition of grapes to achieve a different perspective in the glass. The white wine is 32% Vidal Blanc, 29% Chardonel, 29% Tannat (direct press, juice runs clear not red), 6% Petit Manseng, 3% Traminette, 1% Albariño. The red wine is is 83% Tannat, 8% Vidal Blanc, 7% Chardonel, 1% Petit Manseng, and 1% Traminette----unlike any Tannat you've had in the past with its wild aromatics. The second message is that Virginia and its contemporaries on the east coast have the unique opportunity to approach winemaking from a different line of sight with familiar grapes & some entirely new ones, to create a wine scene that is wholly distinct from the rest of the world.

Cue the goosebumps. A curated retreat to Italy put me in contact with some fantastic producers each day I was there. Il Campino stood out because I got to meet not one, but THREE generations of winemakers at the same time! I explored their vineyards where there's an incredibly old Sangiovese vine casually growing up a tree in the center of the rows and got to taste a vertical of Chianti inside a quaint 12 seat tasting room. Mind you, the small tasting room is next to an even smaller (think walk in closet) production facility. The Benelli family stressed to us that preserving their family history through quality winemaking is more important than scaling up to turn a profit. They are doing it for the love of the art; the love of their family. It was really beautiful to witness the younger generation take such pride in what their family has built, recall the history that brought them to this point & carefully craft each vintage. If you find yourself in Chianti Classico, and want to experience these wines (less than 200 bottles produced with no exposure stateside), let me know. This is an absolute MUST if you are serious about Tuscan wines.