James chats with Herve Birnie-Scott and Marcos Fernandez of Argentine winery Terrazas de los Andes about how recent harvests have gone and how their work in the vineyards has translated to a better quality of wine.

JamesSuckling.com Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tasted some new releases from Trapiche, one of Argentina's largest and oldest wine brands, with Marcelo Belmonte over Zoom. Marcelo is the director of winemaking and viticulture at Trapiche and he called in from Mendoza to discuss the wines.   They tasted two chardonnays and malbecs from Trapiche's Terroir Series, a project started in 2003. These are from single vineyards and aim to express specific terroir and microclimates, as well as the...

JamesSuckling.com Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt recently talked and tasted over Zoom with Piero Incisa della Rocchetta of Bodega Chacra in Patagonia, Argentina. They tasted Chacra’s latest vintages of pinot noir, including his Sin Azufre (without sulfur) wines and old vine Cincuenta y Cinco and Treinta y Dos (which was our wine of the year in 2020), from vineyards planted in 1955 and 1932: structured, mineral and incredibly fresh. “It’s so hard to make bad wine here – the protagonist here...

From Napa, James talks via Zoom with the owner of Tuscany’s Tenuta San Guido, Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, and her assistant, Elena Brachini, about the recent Sassicaia vintages. James asks Priscilla about the growing season during 2019 and how it was different from 2018. Priscilla says 2019 was "quite cool and fresh in the spring and we also had a couple of hailstorms at a certain point but then … the real summer temperatures arrived after the second half of June.” The heat wasn’t “out...

James recently had a tasting over Zoom with winemaker Matt Brain and consulting enologist Andy Erickson of Alpha Omega in St. Helena, California. They discussed the winery’s goal of making more refined and transparent vineyard sourced wines, which shone through particularly in Napa’s superb 2019 vintage.

Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tastes five consecutive vintages of Bemberg Estate Wines Malbec Gualtallary Valle de Uco El Tomillo Parcela 5 La Linterna and five vintages of Pionero, their malbec-based blend, with winemaker Daniel Pi.  Parcela 5 is made with a low-intervention philosophy with wild yeasts, like all their wines, and is only released after four years. Pionero is a vintage-dependent blend of 60 to 65 percent malbec with cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, all from El...

Daniel Pi, the advisor and winemaker of Bemberg Estate Wines in Mendoza, Argentina, and previous director of winemaking at Grupo Peñaflor, takes Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt through the latest vintages of Bemberg's single-parcel La Linterna series, including chardonnay from El Tomillo; pinot noir from Los Arboles to the south; malbec from Valle de Pedernal just north of Mendoza, in San Juan; and cabernet sauvignon from extreme altitudes in Cafayate, Salta.

Alice Tetienne, the cellar master of Henriot, introduces the inaugural 2016 vintage of L'Inattendue, a 100 percent Grand Cru chardonnay from Avize,, alongside Henriot's main wines: the Brut Souverain, Henriot’s historic cuvee; the Blanc de Blancs, a blend of chardonnay from 12 Crus; and the 2006 Cuvee Hemera, a 50-50 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay from the house’s six historical Grand Crus.   Alice explained the decision behind Henriot's first-ever single-vineyard bottling, describing the...

JamesSuckling.com Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt talks with Patrick de Suarez D'Aulan, the president of Alta Vista in Mendoza, Argentina, about the winery's history and their production of single-vineyard wines.

Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt tastes two of Billecart-Salmon's exceptional vintage Champagnes with CEO Mathieu Roland-Billecart: Le Clos St.-Hilaire 2006 and Cuvée Louis Salmon 2008. Le Clos St.-Hilaire is made from a unique, single parcel of old pinot noir vines, vinified in oak casks and aged for 13 years on the lees. 6,750 bottles were made of the 2006 vintage – an incredibly harmonious and seamless Blanc de Noirs, with fascinating spice notes and beautifully fine, integrated bubbles....

James and Paul Hobbs, the renowned California winemaker and founder of Viña Cobos in Mendoza, Argentina, compares Argentina's 2019 vintage with 2018 and 2020. "There's been a lot of variability in some of these vintages, James," Paul says. "There's just been a shifting in the weather and so there's been more rainfall, which I think has been beneficial for Mendoza. "'19 was a stunning growing season, fairly uniform but kind of a wet January, February that gave way to a beautiful fall – dry,...

JamesSuckling.com Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt sits down with Valentina Abbona, the owner of Marchesi di Barolo, to talk about the 2018 vintage. "2018 was quite a challenging vintage in terms of work to be carried out in the vineyards because ... we did have a lot of rain rain already in wintertime in the first months of the year and some rain at the beginning of summer," Valentina says. But, she adds, "this great water supply compensated for the very dry season that we had in 2017" and...

Tod Mostero, the director of Dominus Estate, tells James about the challenges of 2019's "really rainy year," compared with 2018, which was much drier, resulting in an easier harvest.  Most of the rain in 2019 came from January through April, Tod said, leaving "really wet soils and a lot of vegetative growth, which meant a lot more work in the vineyard." Tod then made the decision to open up the canopy to let the sun shine in, taking the risk that the exposed vines could be less resistant to...

James and Guillaume Boudet, the winemaker for HdV in Napa, California, discuss the differences between the 2018 and 2019 vintages. "In the long run we'll see which one is is better than the other one," Guillaume says. "I think '18 might be up there, but also '19 has more of this approachable charm almost from the get-go. But '18 was so easy – it was a very compact vintage but we were able to pick everything when we wanted to pick and still be able to retain a lot of freshness and aromas in...

Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt and Santiago Achaval, the founder of Argentine winery Matervini, talks Matervini's 2019 and 2020 malbecs, and why malbec is perfectly suited to Argentine tastes and terroir.  "It's our conviction after many years of making wine in Mendoza and in Salta and throughout Argentina that malbec is the only variety that has the adaptability, the plasticity to do well in all of Argentina," Santiago says. "Malbec does well everywhere – it does well from Patagonia to Hui...

James talks with Carlo Mondavi, the founder of Raen Winery in Sonoma Coast, California, about the role site and microflora play in imbuing Raen wines with their coastal California characteristics. "This is very California terroir," Carlo tells James. "Those beautiful trees, flowers, the grasses ... even the dirt that comes up and comes into contact with the vines and the clusters during the final weeks of their evolution on the vine, and then we have this beautiful coast here that creates...

Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt chats with Laura Catena, the managing director of Bodega Catena Zapata and founder of Domaine Zico, and winemaker Alejandro Vigil, about their journey with pinot noir in Argentina and how Domaine Zico came to be. "Pinot noir was always the heartbreak grape," Laura says. "Pinot noir was always difficult. We had a few good vintages in the beginning, in the late '90s... Because of that, we planted in Adriana." And then, she said, "we had what I call the 'dark...

James chats in person in Napa Valley with Maya Dalla Valle, the winemaker at Dalla Valle Vineyards, and Axel Heinz, winemaker at Ornellaia in Tuscany, about the 2019 vintage for their joint project, DVO, and how it compares with 2018. As to James' question of which vintage she likes better, Maya said: "It's so hard. They're both such high-quality vintages, but I would say six months ago I would have said '18. I've been really loving the '18s and the depth that those wines have, and I feel...

Associate Editor Claire Nesbitt discusses the newest releases from Argentine vintner Bodega Catena Zapata with managing director Laura Catena and winemaker Alejandro Vigil.

ames is back in Napa Valley to meet with winery owners, winemakers and others in the region and taste the 2019 vintage. Here, he chats with Continuum Estate's owner, Tim Mondavi, and his daughter Carissa. James tasted Continuum's 2019 bottling with Tim and Carissa, and he called it "another illustration of how 2019 allowed great winemakers to produce precise and curated wines that emphasize their unique provenance and character."  Tim said of the progression from the 2018 to 2019 vintages...

James sat down in person in Napa with Scott Becker, the owner of Realm Cellars, and Benoit Touquette, the winemaker, to find out their thoughts on the 2019 vintage in Napa Valley. It was James' first sit-down Zoom interview in two years, after he landed in the United States last week from Hong Kong.

James asks Craig Isbel, the winemaker at Tarrawatta in the Barossa Valley, how the 2018 and 2019 vintages compare. Craig said '18 had classic, cool conditions in the Barossa, "and so we could pick and choose when we picked, so we had the opportunity to be nice and patient. It was a great year." There was more pressure on for the '19, he said. "We had some frost in September; we had some quite cool conditions through winter, but it was quite dry, and then we experienced some really hot, windy...

"I don't know if it's the best Cheval Blanc ever, but I know it is one of the most Cheval Blanc ever," Pierre-Olivier says of the chateau's latest release. But how does it compare with 2018? "At the end, '18 is more round, voluminous, sweet, silky, ripe, intense," Pierre Olivier says. The 2019, he says, "is for sure a high-level, quality vintage and is meant to be a little more academic with a certain power." It also has "a huge density, but more importantly than just the density, a huge...

James and winemaker Fabien Teitgen of Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte discuss Bordeaux 2019 and whether there's anything specific to Smith or Pessac-Leognan for the vintage. "For me, 2019 was the last easy vintage we did: no frost, no hail, no mildew," Fabien says. "So it was a very good year for the vineyard because it was very easy to do; no big problem to manage." James adds: "Some people try to say it's like '16 but I find it more like '15, because also you taste it and you want to drink it –...

Noemie Durantou Reilhac of Chateau L'Eglise Clinet tells James she thinks Bordeaux's 2019 vintage can be considered a "great" one, in part because of the exceptional balance found in the wines. "What I was surprised about was the quality of the tannins of the fruit," Noemie says. "When we tried it en primeur it was a very flashy fruit, very seductive. Because of that, I was very really happy with the vintage.. 2019 has gained so much depth so I think it's far better in bottles." Have a listen...