Back In The Saddle and My Favorite Wines of 2024
Ethan (me) sitting in a suede chair with glass of an undisclosed white wine.
It took less than 9 months to end up back in the industry that started my professional life. I took a short hiatus from the wine world to try out another passion of mine (baseball) before coming back to the thing that keeps me wanting to learn each and every day. It truly is a wonder how something that feels so niche from the outside is actually much larger than I could have ever imagined. It’s a maniacally fast-paced system that’s been intricately and delicately woven by importers, distributors, sales reps, suppliers, producers, sommeliers, soccer moms, hedge fund analysts, hippies, heat waves, ice storms, favors, grudges, profit margins, honesty, deceit, data points, acquisitions, downsizing, storytelling, and passion. Despite the world of wine divulging its sheer magnitude to my face, I simultaneously feel as if my career is a party trick. I guess that comes with partaking in niche things. It’s like being the guy who designs ceiling tiles or door handles on mechanical closets for a living. Someone’s gotta do it, I guess.
Regardless, it’s nice to be back and now that 2024 is winding down, I thought it would be ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to list the top wines that I had the pleasure of tasting over the last 400 days or so. There are dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of publications, blogs, and critics who are doing the same exact thing this time of year. However, I feel like my perspective is one that comes with a whiff of…youth (also, Burberry for Men). I’m a relatively young person in this sector. Most of the people I have worked with are well into their 40s and 50s. Almost all of the wine writers (at least those whose words are worth a damn) have been wine writing for, at the VERY least, a decade for a major publication.
So I want to approach this as if the person reading this is just now peeling back the curtain that lays behind Barefoot (sorry, but that is disgraceful) and Cupcake (same for you). Or the person who already has peeled it back and just wants to see what another fellow wine snob like them is drinking. Or the certain someone who is just curious about what bottles stood out to me this year. As a fair warning, I absolutely will sound quite pretentious throughout this article and I’m okay with that. Drink what you like. I might judge you a little bit but why should you care? I’m just a guy.
With that being said, this list will vary in styles, regions, and prices. There are a couple bottles on here that I can almost guarantee I will never have the chance to taste again. Hopefully my words will accurately reflect how each of these wines etched their memory into my head forever. I might throw in a story or two about the people that were present with me to enjoy that wine as well. Wine is about history and people and stories. Sometimes we forget that the shared experience that the wine elucidates is just as important as the liquid in the glass. Also, I won’t give the wines a point score or put them on a scale. Why would I try to limit my variety of thoughts and opinions to just two numbers and a thumbs up? So lazy and restrictive…
The List
2021 RAEN Royal St. Robert Cuvée
Price: $90
Region: Sonoma Coast (California)
Varietal: Pinot noir
Imagine yourself on a hike. It is a cool day, slightly damp. You come across a small stream that sits between an open meadow and a forest of lush pines. You reach down and pull a wet stone from the stream; the cold water runs down your fingers. Admiring the smooth surface of the rock, you decide to sit down on the ground and listen to the various birdsongs echoing through the haze of pine needles. The same pine needles that have already fallen victim to the soft winds of autumn and now bunch around your feet. You breathe in deeply through your nose and slowly exhale through your lips. Your body is tired but you feel invigorated by the serenity around you.
THAT is what this wine felt like. The nose is a basket of dried rose petals, fresh tangerine pith, petrichor (the smart word for the smell after it rains outside), dark cherries, crushed raspberries, and black tea leaves. The palate contains similar earthy notes; some garden mushrooms, wet forest floor, rose petals. Fresh cherries and raspberries are beautifully intertwined with orange peel and a bright acidity that ties everything together.
I enjoyed this wine with my family on a Thanksgiving afternoon. My girlfriend Rachel gave it to me as a gift almost a year ago, and I had the discipline and foresight to save it for a special occasion. I'm glad I did. Even those in my family who are not ascribed the title of “Wine Drinker” were thoroughly impressed with it. The part that stuck with me was that during the usual Thanksgiving storytelling and hyperbole, everyone was enjoying the wine in their own little way. Which, at least to me, is the whole point.
2019 Weingut Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese
Price: $70
Region: Wehlen, Mosel (Germany)
Varietal: Riesling
An absolute lightning bolt of a wine. Terrifyingly lush, dense, ripe, acidic, and airy all at the same time. With a handful of years spent in the bottle, the wine is now (subtly) shifting to a deeper straw color with a tinge of yellow and gold. The aromatics explode from the glass. White flowers, ripe peaches and apricots, honeycomb, and the classic kerosene note all slam into your brain receptors at an instant. On the palate, the wine is even more spectacular. Bright nectarine, honey, and stone fruits are bolstered by an irrepressible acidity and a shiny minerality that is undeniably refreshing. The slight oily texture plays perfectly in tandem with its racing acidity and lower alcohol content, making it impossible for the wine to become tiresome or bland. When you take a sip and close your eyes, it feels as if the wine has pierced a sliver of space through your senses and has replaced the now missing bits with a rush of electricity. It’s like taking a cold plunge after a year spent in the Makran. It’s the final string on a harp being stretched and taut into tune.
If someone ever says that they hate sweet wines, I feel sorry for them. It truly is a pity. Because this might be the best wine on the planet (It’s almost certainly not. However, in the space between the moment you pull the cork and the moment the last drop falls from the rim of the glass onto your lips, you might find yourself coming to a similar conclusion). Es ist einfach umglaublich.
2014 Cantina Sociale Di Gattinara
Price: $30
Region: Gattinara, Piemonte (Italy)
Varietal: Nebbiolo
Gattinara is certainly one of my favorite value regions in all of wine. If you’re not willing to go into the triple digits for a Barolo or Barbaresco but still want a beautiful expression of nebbiolo, then this is your best bet. Situated northeast of Torino, Gattinara wines are planted in soils that are heavily comprised of volcanic rock. Additionally, there is a massive diurnal shift (the difference in temperature between day and night) that lead these wines to be both elegant and approachable in their youth. While Gattinara wines tend to be less austere and powerful than both Barolo and Barbaresco, they are still very complex and mineral in character.
I found this particular bottle in a tiny wine shop in New Orleans earlier this year. One of the few downsides to these bottles is how difficult they are to find due to the miniscule amount that is imported compared to the other Piedmont giants. Regardless, this wine had around 7 years of bottle age and almost a decade overall, so I was ecstatic to open it. My first thought when the wine hit the glass? What a magnificent color! Nebbiolo tends to be a fairly translucent brick color with some orange hues that dissipate into a watery rim. What I saw was a garnet center with tinges of sienna that faded into amber that faded into a watery rim. It was hypnotizing. The nose opened with mineral, oak, and floral characteristics: clay, wet rocks, dried roses, asphalt, leather. It also contained underripe strawberries and dried cherries. On the palate, the dried fruits quickly faded into gravel and dark chocolate. The most surprising element was the raging acidity that hadn’t seemed to dissipate since it went into the barrel and bottle. Conversely, the tannins did seem to have benefitted from the hands of time, as they balanced out the acidity well but not to the point of insane astringency.
Unlike the first two wines, I don’t have much more to say other than this. Buy a Gattinara. Try it. If you don’t like it, go back to the Barolos, Barbarescos, and Langhe Nebbiolos. It’s worth a shot at the very least.
1967 Remoissenet Père et Fils Chambertin-Clos De Bèze Grand Cru
Price: $1400
Region: Chambertin-Clos De Bèze, Gevrey-Chambertin, Côte de Nuits, Burgundy (France)
Varietal: Pinot noir
Never in my life have I ever expected less from something that costs so much (other than car insurance). It’s really not the wine’s fault. It’s the age. At a basic level, wines that can be aged are usually only able to do so by way of a high concentration of one of five attributes: sugar, alcohol, tannin, oak, and acidity. Most age-worthy wines carry at least two of these qualities. For example, Napa Valley cabernet is usually high in tannin, high in oak aging (which contributes additional tannin), and high in alcohol, making them prime candidates for aging. These attributes act almost as preservatives for the wine, extending their drinking window for many years. Sauternes is high in sugar, acidity, and oak (in my estimation, a bottle of Sauternes could age for a couple centuries and still be very delectable). An exception to this is pinot noir. Pinot noir (when it’s grown correctly — and in the right place) is naturally high in acidity. However, it generally has a lower concentration of tannin and potential alcohol content and is almost never made into a sweet wine, eliminating three factors of my very rudimentary wine aging model. What makes it worthy of aging then? In short, producers that make pinot noir (with aging in mind) meticulously use oak in ways that will bolster the tannins without destroying the delicate nature of pinot noir. They also use fermentation techniques such as whole cluster (which I won’t get into) that help add structure to the wine and allow it to age gracefully. Most high-quality pinots will hit their peak around 10-15 years of bottle age.
Despite knowing this, when my sommelier friend Skyler opened this bottle for a paying customer and offered me a tasting of it, I was convinced that the wine was going to be far beyond its prime. I’m talking Barry Manilow on tour in the year 2024. The wine was nearly 60 years old at this point!
I was mistaken. While definitely not anywhere near its peak, the wine was vibrant. Both the acidity and the tannins were still alive enough to converse with one another. The red fruits, while certainly fainter and dried out, were amazingly perceptible. But the showstopper was the finish. I could taste that wine in my mouth the next morning. It embossed itself on my soul. 80 grit sandpaper wasn’t going to be enough to remove it from memory. That is what makes this wine special for me. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever tasted. But it might be the wine I remember the most on my death bed.
2020 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche Grand Cru
Price: $10000
Region: La Tâche, Côte de Nuits, Burgundy (France)
Varietal: Pinot noir
Let’s make things clear. I didn’t buy this wine. I will never be able to afford this wine. I truly am so lucky to have worked in places where people who can afford this wine are generous enough to share a small portion of it when they feel a desire to. They are not obligated to do so.
This really needs no introduction. Imagine everything I said about the aromatics for the RAEN pinot and turn the dial up to 700. It’s like getting slapped in the face by a beautiful woman who you have no business talking to. If a wine could make a grown man cry, it’s DRC (I didn’t cry, I was on the clock). In all honesty, I forgot to take any notes on this one. I think I was starstruck or something. All I remember is thinking that somewhere along the course of human history, God had ordained DRC as the holy grail of pinot noir, and maybe of all of wine itself.
2015 Château Gloria
Price: $85
Region: Saint-Julien, Bordeaux (France)
Varietals: Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, cabernet franc
Currently, Château Gloria is my favorite buy out of Saint-Julien for the commoner. The château has become a model of consistency over the last decade, churning out fantastic bottles at prices that beat out Napa Valley and classified growths (I believe you can pick up the 2021 at around $45). There might not be a better value wine than current release Gloria. It’s ready to be opened on release but still has the age-worthiness of a quintessential left bank Bordeaux.
If you want a wine that drinks twice as well as some Napa atom bomb at this price point or if you just want to start your journey into the realm of Old World wines, this is your play. It’s a ballet in the glass. Dark raspberries and plums mingle with notes of spearmint, cigar box, nutmeg, cardamom, and dark chocolate. All the complexity is there if you want it. But if you don’t, then it’s not too fussy if you want to chug the damn thing. The tannins and acidity and alcohol are so in tune. It feels both artisanal and pristine. Rustic yet refined. For the individual and for the masses. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you about it (I’d like to keep the prices down, ya know). But then again, I’m probably overestimating the reach and stature of my words.
This is the end of my list. I could go into the fact that I only had one wine on my list that is from the New World. Or that I seemed to gloss over the La Tâche and all of its magnificence. We’ll save that for another time. Thank you to those who sat down and read through all of it. It means a lot. I put together a small gallery of bottle shots of each wine that I wrote about below. I’m excited to continuing learning about the everchanging landscape of the wine world and hope to try many more amazing wines in 2025. In the meantime, I plan to write a couple more posts in the coming months about my life in wine and some more details of my experiences so far working in this industry. Remember, drink what you enjoy and share it with others.
