Today came with the announcement of James Suckling’s favourite wine of 2019: Siro Pacenti, Brunello Vecchie Vigne 2015 – “a perfect example of what makes 2015 Brunello so compelling to buy and drink”, according to the critic.
Not only did Suckling award it a 100-point score, but he also claimed the wine was “one of the best Brunellos I have tasted in my career”. He described it as “full-bodied and extremely dense and powerful with a super center palate of fruit and ripe yet compact tannins”. He further praised its “superb transparency and intregration” and liked the “energy and excitement to tasting it”.
In 2019, Suckling and his team rated 25,000 wines from different vintages and discovered “more than 50 perfect wines among them”. In his latest report, the critic said that his year of “travelling and tasting” was “truly phenomenal for great wines”; “a Golden Age for winemaking”. Moreover, “many regions shone in quality”, notably “Argentina, Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Tuscany, Piedmont, Rioja, Port, Champagne and Chile”.
Suckling admitted that “while the emphasis is on quality, special preference was given to more affordably priced wines” when choosing his favourites. His top ten wines, displayed in the table below, are “all priced at less than $80 a bottle”. They also “show the diversity of greatness in the wine world today, with entries from Italy, Spain, Germany, France, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina”.
To read Suckling’s report “Top 100 wines of 2019 and our wine of the year” and see the full rankings, click here.
