2022 DWWA Best in Shows: Top 50 wines to try

The Catalonian sparkling-wine scene is in full ferment at present, with a huge range of ground-breaking wines finding their way to market -- though a glance at the vintage date on this wine shows that this is a revolution that has been in the making for over a decade now. The wine is pale-gold and fine-beaded. That heady scent of dry grasses, cream, herbs and wild flowers could only come from Xarel-lo, and only from Catalonia, too, with all its Mediterranean distinctiveness. The wine is mouth-filling, dry and structured, as perfumed on the tongue as it is in the glass, and ideally suited not only as a head-turning aperitif but for mealtime use, too.

Those seeking out reds based on Cabernet Franc beyond their French home are, often enough, looking for a red wine which combines something of the structure and command of Cabernet Sauvignon but with more lift, grace and aromatic refinement. The red wine from this year's brace of South African Best In Show winners fills that role admirably. It's dark in colour, with refined, complex, raspberry and root-spice aromas in subtle and uninsistent style. Look out for bright, pure raspberry fruits on the palate with a further twist of liquorice and gentian. The structure comes more from the wine's quiet, limpid acidity than from any notable tannin presence, further unscoring that accessibility and responsiveness.

Sommeliers have led the charge in popularising wines made from Austria's distinctive Gruner Veltliner grape variety around the world -- since they were the first to seize on its remarkable aptitude for food partnerships, long apparent to Austrians. This light gold wine smells as comforting as fresh bread or newly washed linen; there's plump, subdued orchard fruits, too, as well as a hint of soft vanilla and white-pepper spice. In the mouth it’s both rich yet vivid, generous on the tongue yet quick and nimble too, and you'll see the same modulation in a flavour that begins sweet-fruitedly and ends with a flourish of ripe acidity and a grind or two of subtle spice. This carefully vinified Kamptal classic would partner almost anything save red meat.

The fiercely warm 2017 vintage was not an easy challenge to surmount, but this articulate Barolo has done just that with a wine which is not merely beautiful and characterful in its own right, but which also conveys the style of the vintage without travesty or falsehood. It is relatively dark in colour, and the aromas are rich, earthy and generous, using oak sagely to lend equilibrium to the boisterous fruits. On the palate, it is intense and deep, structured and detaining, and once again the oak here serves to give the fruit a charm, lift and fragrance it might not otherwise have. It is a wine which will be better in four or five years, but there is still much to enjoy here now on a winter's night with a fine meal.

Anyone who has ever ventured into a young vintage port will know that few regions in the wine world can deliver fruit with the force, power, energy and exuberance of the Douro -- so why not try to capture just a little of that in a simple, inexpensive, straightforward but exuberant red table wine? That's exactly what this wine does. It's a deep, saturated black-red in colour, and is packed with the irresistible tea-leaf, peony and black-fruit character of Douro's classic varieties. That's exactly what you find on the palate, too, shouting the wine's origins at the same time as it delivers fruited perfume and pleasure, juicy acidity and supple, tumbling tannins on the palate. This Value Best In Show is, in that sense, a distant Iberian echo of our Best In Show Fleurie: both are perfumed head-turners and smile-inducers.

This is the first appearance by a Sauternes in our Best In Show selection. Our judges were impressed by the generosity of this wine and by its fine value for money, and comparisons with other dessert-wine categories underscored the perennial appeal of this misty spot near the Garonne. It's a mid to full gold in colour, with ample luscious sweetness lent unction by botrytis complexities and lanolin oak. The wine is generous, creamy and long on the palate, with a creme anglaise and chantilly richness and just a faint perfume of lemon; the oak on the palate proves restrained, and it has relatively low acidity. It's not a Sauternes to keep for a decade or more, but this generous and accessible sweet wine will offer huge pleasure in the short term. Best with desserts – or as a dessert itself – rather than in aperitif mode.

With two wines in this year's Best In Show selection, Hawkes's Bay has excelled -- and our judges, too, were particularly happy that the North Island winegrowers’ slow, painstaking work teasing Chardonnay levels ever higher are patently paying off. This outstanding wine has a bright gold colour with faint lime glints. Freshness and richness are beautifully paired in the aromas -- to an extent which is perhaps only possible south of the equator in New Zealand. That gives this wine a memorable classicism, Burgundy-lovers might note. In the mouth, it is concentrated and confident, once again striding down that line between the fresh and the rich to vivacious effect. No hurry to drink: a year or two's cellar softening will bring great benefits here.

The Gimblett Gravels endeavour is a model for terroir research outside traditional regions, and recent generous vintages have really begun to pay off for this disciplined private association of Hawke's Bay wine growers. This is glorious Syrah: deep, dense and black-red in colour, with classic varietal aromas which combine inner urgency with sweet seduction. On the palate the wine offers a cascade of fruit, with tempered acidity and shy tannins. It's the grain to that fruit which impresses so: primary (plum, currant and sloe) yet nuanced, too, perfumed to the last drop and with a sense of stone behind the fruit to lend it dignity and keep you coming back to the glass for more.

Few if any grape varieties can reflect the nuances of origin as Riesling can -- which makes Kremstal, with its distinctively complex geology and transitional climate, a fascinating zone in which to craft subtle, expressive wines from this variety. Pale gold in colour, with an alluring, almost perfumed aromatic style (look out for quince, violet and freesia), in the mouth this Riesling surprises with its intensity, as well as the way that it mingles orchard fruit notes with leaf and plant sap. There's something which evokes powdered stone on the aftertaste, too. It's dry but not bracingly so -- and supremely harmonious already. Elegant, civilised, refined.

Greco is, with Fiano, one of the two great white varieties of Southern Italy -- and it may be even older than Fiano, though the case lies beyond proof. What's certain is that it can make refined, fresh, balanced whites which belie their latitude. Take a sniff of this wine and you might imagine you were up in the mountains, or close to some great ocean: it's fresh, sappy, ripely green, almost evoking Pessac-Leognan or the Pinot Bianco wines of Alto Adige. On the palate, it's true, you feel the southern width, depth, sinew and plump fruits, yet the poise and freshness sketched out on the nose never leaves the wine. Might Italy's greatest wines in fact come from the country's south? Taste this, and wonder.

A distinguished Vin Santo makes it into our Best In Show selection for the second year running -- so what might you look forward to if you aren't familiar with this style? The wine is a light, translucent russet brown in colour: old red wines lighten with time, but white wines of this sort deepen as the years pass. The aromas evoke old libraries and old furniture, but with a falling crystalline sweetness of scent that is hard to resist. On the palate, this Vin Santo is intense, vibrantly acidic and with remarkable aromatic focus: almost bracing, despite its extravagant sweetness. Look out for lingering flavours of fig, dried fruits (including apple), fresh grapes, caramel and toasted almond in this impressively concentrated wine.

It's fair to say that no other country delivered value in this year's DWWA to match that sent over to us from Argentina, and this saturatedly dense, dark Malbec from the prized highlands of Gualtallary makes this point admirably. It's initially beefy and purposeful in aroma, the plum and sloe fruits emerging in purer form with time in the glass or the decanter. There's admirable weight, lyricism and lift to those fruits: Gualtallery is never clumsy. Better still, in place of overt tannins and intrusive acidity there is a kind of sappy, stemmy freshness which combines the function of both texture and acidity -- and that, in fact, is the origin of the fruit's notable energy and charm. Value Best In Show wines rarely exceed the appeal you'll find here.

Given that the two are adjacent regions, it's hard to believe how different Shiraz can be when you compare an authentic Eden Valley wine from one from its slightly lower-altitude neighbour, Barossa. Our two Best In Show South Australian Shirazes make this point memorably. Both are dense, dark and black-red in colour, but give this wine a sniff and you'll find perfumed blackcurrant fruits impeccably defined, their breath sweetened with a little oak. On the palate, it is intense, deep and salty-savoury but clearly a tenor in range, surging through the palate on a surf of pristine fruits. The natural balance is impressive, as are the ultra-soft tannins which seem to melt into the fruits, combining with the wine's saline crushed-stone richness to convey some of the profundity of terroir possible here.

For all the grumblings, Gran Selezione has been a resounding success for Chianti: a straightforward and recognizable way for estate owners to offer the world their "best wines". Often lovely wines: here's a great example. When Chianti sings, nothing could be more civilised, more refined, more elegant: one sniff of the settled fruits, the cypress and bay leaf, the oak copse and dried cep that your nose can intuit in this glass makes the case. It's fresh, sustained and intricate in the mouth, weighty yet almost weightless thanks to its impeccable balance. Hard not to think of Old Master paintings – or the eye-soothing landscapes of Tuscany itself – once you have this beautifully vinified Sangiovese waiting patiently in your glass.

You'll have no trouble telling our two Antipodean Chardonnay wines in the Best in Show selection apart -- which is exactly as it should be, as place-related differences step to the fore in winemakers' thinking and craft. This wine is more greensilver than gold, and packed with aromatic floral lime, underscored by a swirl of cream from barrel-fermentation. It's vivid and fresh without being skinny, lean or over-taut -- clearly a Chardonnay at ease with its cool climate. Yet the layers are there, too, like exposed sedimentary strata, giving the wine a vertical dimension which will carry it effortlessly through a meal.

The aesthetic evolution over the last few years in Spain's greatest wine region leaves its winemakers with more style alternatives than ever before -- and fortunate drinkers with a range of different translations of these propitious soils and skies. The Rioja that won its way through to our Best In Show selection this year is perhaps best described as a 'new classic' -- rather deeper and more primary in colour, scent and expressive force than the limpid, time-burnished classics of the past, yet at the same time packed with the classic Rioja virtues of gentle, brimmingly ripe fruits, warmth, glowing richness, supple tannins and understated but guiding acidity. It's absolutely accessible now, yet a few years will help ease back the focus and force of the fruits to the benefit of further gentleness and a still warmer glow.

Both of our Champagne Best In Show wines this year have seen plenty of cellar age, something that is particularly important when a restrained dosage takes the wine into the Extra Brut category, as it does for this refined, pure-fruited Blanc de Blancs. The pale straw gold of its colour is just beginning to deepen, and the wine has a restrained aromatic profile of white nectarine and peach, with the cream of lost lees smoothing its journey in the glass. In the mouth, it is intense, long, searching and pure, all sap and sinew at first; give it time, and you'll see those early-season summer fruits begin to smile shyly despite the wine's dry force.

Historically speaking, the port laureates in our Best In Show selection have tended to be fine old tawnies -- burnished, silk smooth and shimmering with fragrant allusions. This year it's different -- not least because this Vintage Port laureate comes from the magnificent 2017 vintage, unquestionably one of the greatest in the last four or five decades. It's a dense black-purple in colour, with a powerful mill of aromas which evokes not just black fruits like sloe, damson and mulberry but vegetal and spice notes, too and even a little fragrant pine. On the palate, it is rich, dense, powerful and close-textured as vintage port must be in youth, luscious with those same black fruits, fragrant with tea leaf and petitgrain, and supported by extravagant but toothsome, chewy tannins. This is an attractive price for port of this quality. Of course it needs longer -- but it is also exciting to try now in its first, thrilling flush of youth.

None of us know. Only the Swiss know. And yet, by dint of recent entries to DWWA, the secret is slowly seeping out: some of Europe's finest, subtlest, most intricately crafted and most quietly satisfying white-wine blends come into being in the Alpine valleys of Valais and elsewhere. You won't often come across Petite Arvine with Savagnin (locally called Heida) and Marsanne. Smell this pale gold wine, with its fruit notes of pear and nectarine gently creamed and vanilla-infused via subtle barrel fermentation; and taste its concentration, force and freshness combined with what can only be described as a marrowy, sappy richness, and the doubts will slip away. Yes, the prices are Swiss -- but there are other wines in our best in show in that same price bracket. In qualitative terms this remarkable wine stands fairly alongside them.

There is really no wine sensation like that afforded by a very old sherry: exquisite, provocative, but almost painful, so concentrated, dry and demanding is the wine. This magnificent Palo Cortado is no exception. It's a light brown walnut in colour, with aromas which billow from the glass and evoke not just the bodega in which the wine has passed most of its life, but also hessian, polish, embers, bubbling marmalade in a copper pot and much, much else. It's searingly dry on the palate but ranges far and wide, too, vivid with acidity and filling the mouth with vapoury aromas which constitute almost as much of the 'flavour' as do the notes you can detect on the tongue. Are you tasting wine -- or time itself? It's hard to say, but this is an experience that you won't forget.

Bannockburn sits at the heart of one of the wine world's most promising Pinot locations outside Burgundy, and this dark, fragrant yet intensely fruited wine drew our judges' attention not just for the panache of its fruit but also for its intensity, drive, structure and resonance. The blackberry and plum fruits you can find on the nose are almost brooding, and a far cry from the sometimes simple appeal of the region's pioneer Pinots. On the palate it is mouth-filling and deep with high-resolution focus; the acidity is neither trivial nor shrill; the tannins are soft, but carry a useful flavour print. It's after you swallow, though, that you come to appreciate its sinew and ligament, its inner seriousness and its sheer completeness. Very fine Pinot by any measure.

One of the most encouraging qualities of those Chilean wines which made it through to gold and platinum this year, our judges felt, was a new aromatic complexity and a much finer understanding of aromatic maturity in the vineyard than in the past. This complex, subtle and still youthful blend offers an excellent example of this. It's dark black-red, with creamy plum and currant notes as well as a hint of fragrant, cured Havana leaf. On the palate, it is concentrated and long, with admirable freshness lending life and energy to the red and black fruits. Meaty yet supple tannins bring ballast. It's harmonious and accessible now, but there is enough density here to carry it effortlessly through half a decade's maturation.

Those who long for freshness, restraint and petite shapeliness in white wine paired with a bracingly acidic palate shouldn't confine their search to the northern hemisphere’s high-latitude wines. Australia's great original, Hunter Valley Semillon, offers just this profile in youth -- with the added lure of additional layers of perfume, complexity and character as the cellar years pass. This classic example is, at six years old, on the cusp: those unique scents of lime, parsley and rue are beginning to deepen, while the lean, saline edge of youth is beginning to soften and open. It's as pure and pristine as any Riesling, any Coteaux Champenois, any Txakolina, though its restrained fruit characters if anything makes it even more amenable than those wines at table.

The Stags Leap District of Napa has been a consistent performer down the years in DWWA: its balanced, digestible wines with their distinctive combination of plush fruits and poised, intrinsically complex flavours often win our judges’ approval. This Cabernet Sauvignon from the promising 2019 vintage is midnight black in colour, and its aromas (at this youthful stage) are full of floral charm as well as ripely tender blue and black fruits. The tannins are delicate and the fruit-infused acidity is soft and tender. The wine has clearly been made with little extractive force in order to provide an overall picture of great refinement and subtlety -- yet the quality of the raw materials here guarantees a long future, as does the wine's inner wealth.

The world's greatest red wines often seem infused with a sense of refinement and ease when mature, no matter how dense and impenetrable they appear in youth. This hallmark of this finely crafted Cabernet Sauvignon from Margaret River is that, youthful as it is, it’s able to convey both density and refined ease simultaneously. In colour it's dark black-purple, and you'll find remarkable fruit concentration and closeness of texture in the mouth. Yet the aromas are warm, open and resonant, pure and unthrusting, and such is the clarity of organisation of the palate, finesse of the tannins and delicacy of that fruit that it already drinks with the serenity of a fully mature wine. Fine craftsmanship here.

There's no rule that English sparkling wines must feature in our Best in Show selection; quality is all. Year after year, though, it is precisely the quality of those English sparkling wines submitted to the DWWA that keeps impressing our final-round judges and insisting on inclusion. What distinguishes this wine is that it's not a vintage or late-disgorged speciality, as with previous Best in Show winners, but a non-vintage blend of the three classic varieties. It's pale gold in colour, with a steady stream of fine bubbles; aromatically you'll find ultra-freshness and a distinctive sappy cool infusing the shy orchard fruits, like a sniff of an early spring morning before the mist has lifted. It's taut, tight and stony on the palate, in bracing aperitif style -- but the quality of the fruit, teased to ripeness over the long-houred English summer, is there for all to taste.

Three of the four Argentinian wines winning their way through to Best In Show this year come from Uco, and this splendid Malbec is the second Value Best In Show from Uco, too, underscoring the colossal potential on offer here. As with its peers, this wine is a dense, opaque purple-black-red in colour with huge saturation on the sides of the glass after a swirl. It's opulently fruity too, with billowing damson and sloe pointed up by notes of tea leaf and rose. You might, from the aromas, be expecting a fruit bomb -- but this is purer, finer and fresher than that, with ample sinew, sap and ripely leafy inner freshness. Can anywhere in the world compete with red-wine value of this order at present?

The anatomisation of Uco is one of the wine world's great adventures at present: it's been obvious for some years that the resource is a splendid one. If you harbour any doubts, try to get hold of a bottle of this midnight-black blend of Malbec with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Head-turning fruit perfumes are always possible here -- but harnessing and optimising that aromatic potential is the point of this blend, which actually steals from the glass stealthily and convinces by slow increments. On the palate, the wine is wide, broad, amply dimensioned and naturally balanced, with admirable textural wealth. Once again, the blend has brought complexity to what is clearly outstanding fruit. It's young still, and a few years in the cellar will provide further insights into this finely crafted Uco classic.

We all now know just what a fine natural fit Sauvignon and the various districts and sub-regions of Marlborough are: varietal style and the exuberance which comes with the South Island's bright light and clean air are never in doubt. Looking for the grain and complexity which will take each wine a little further is the great challenge, but it was one our judges felt this wine met. Bright green-gold in colour, its aromas are haunting, layered and subtle, without overt grassiness or passionfruit extravagance; look instead for the soft leafiness of a sunlit copse in spring. It's fresh, bright and urgent on the palate, but once again the primary notes are muted to benefit texture and perspective, sinew and line. The memorable acids are rounded, ripe and resonant in this wholly successful Sauvignon.

It is some measure of Tuscany's propitiousness for fine-wine-making that, having given us Chianti, Brunello and Vin Santo over the centuries, it still had one last hidden trick up its sleeve: Bolgheri. This is no pale imitation of the inland DOCGs, as you'll quickly grasp when you pour a glass of this dense, opaque black-red wine, and smell its luscious, plush fruited richness, oozing with blackberry and plum. In the mouth, this is sweetly phrased, ultra-ripe yet expressive and balanced, too -- and you may catch a note of pine and cypress in the finish that will take you to the shores of the Mediterranean, which lap nearby. Exuberant and expansive yet structured too, this Cabernet-Petit Verdot blend (and its Bolgheri zone) personify a Tuscany you won't find elsewhere.

The varietal overlap between Sardinia and Spain is a fascinating story in its own right, and too complicated a matter to discuss here. What we have got the space to say, though, is that this Cagnulari (the same variety as Spain's Graciano) manages to achieve an aromatic poise and lively complexity on the palate which many in Spain would envy. It's dark black-red in colour, and the scents may remind you of forest resins and oily Mediterranean scrub leaves, with a quiet, beefy undertow of dense black fruits. As in Spain, the wine is vital and bright on the palate, and there are more of those resins and scrub plants lending a haunting, perfumed austerity to the bright fruits. Clearly a wonderful variety to use here for the warmer years to come.

Bordeaux is rarely acclaimed as a source of great-value Sauvignon -- because the varietal message in this part of the world is often obscured rather than validated by origin, and because many Bordeaux whites are based on the blends traditional in Pessac-Léognan and Graves. This was the only single-variety Sauvignon amongst our Value Best In Show wines this year -- and its grassy freshness, purity and poise make it a terrific winner. Our judges felt, though, that origin was indeed a part of its appeal -- palpable via the soft grain of its faintly oak-infused aromas, and the vinous drive and length of its palate. At this price, don't look for complexity or concentration, but there is a class to the fruit which is rare at this level and which will provide much drinking pleasure for Sauvignon fans.

This part of our Best In Show selection is usually the monopoly of one of the great Rutherglen fortifieds, and a glance at our Platinums will show that they scored as well as ever. This year, though, it was a fortified GSM that came stomping through to Best In Show victory: an often unsung, unheralded category that draws on some of the deepest and oldest South Australian traditions. The wine is walnut, just clearing to a deep tawny at the rim. Aromatically, you'll find apples, nuts, cinders and sackcloth amidst much else, while on the palate this is a rich, deep but above all energetic wine, lancing its way about your palate and balancing its burnt sugar richness and distilled-compote fruits with bracing acidity and a lingering extractive force that almost seems tannic ... until you realise that it's actually just the residues of time itself.

One measure of Ontario's success in the wine world is the fact that so many different varieties seem to be happy there -- Chardonnay and Pinot can both be outstanding, while Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Gamay all show great promise. (And that’s before we start talking about Ontario’s dazzling panoply of icewines.) Riesling, though, may still be the most successful variety of all, as this assured dry table wine shows. The scents trace out citrus and cologne in pithy, zesty style, while the wine is no less zesty and pithy in the mouth: crunchy apple and juicy clementine with a twist of lemon peel. Crisp natural acidity, balanced and fruit-resonant, leaves the mouth tingling after every sip.

Jurancon is not a large appellation, and its little Pyrenean corner of France's South West is easily overlooked ... until, that is, you taste a Jurancon of this quality, and you realise that you have a giant among dessert wines in your glass. Not in terms of unction and richness: it's not a steamroller. But its aromatic refinement is second to none, thanks to its long, lingering season and the extraordinary potential of the Petit Manseng variety. One sniff of this wine, with its layers of lemon, frangipane and gardenia, will stop you in your tracks, and the palate -- at first richly aromatic, then long and flavoury, both luscious and cleansing -- more than lives up to the aromatic promise. Few dessert wines are more complete, or more arresting, than this.

Brunello's Riserva category is sometimes called into question in the region – is it, given the long ageing requirements for ‘ordinary’ Brunello, really needed? Riserva certainly showed its worth in this year's DWWA, where the 'normale' versions mainly hailed from the difficult (though not impossible) 2017 vintage. 2016 was always going to provide wonderful Riserva wines while we wait for their younger siblings, and this darkly translucent example, fragrant with refined red fruits, provides seductive proof. It is settled and softly articulated on the palate, long and quietly pulsing with transmuted red fruits, summer forest warmth and the visceral allure of game, illuminated with the glowing acidity of 2016. The tannins melt away as you hold the wine in your mouth.

The appearance of two different Cabernet Franc wines in our Best In Show selection this year underscores the seriousness with which this variety is now being regarded away from its Bordeaux and Loire Valley heartlands. This Value Best In Show version from Agrelo in Lujan de Cuyo delivers, as you'd expect, extravagant fruit pleasure. It's dark black-red in colour, with warm, sweetly pippy scents bubbling from the glass. In the mouth, it's a smooth flood of soft, vibrant raspberry and damson fruits which, despite the gentleness of both its acidity and its tannins, still contrives to give the drinker a sense of texture, amplitude -- and satisfaction. A sense of gravity, too, lifts those fruit flavours well clear of simplicity: another Franc hallmark? You decide.

Drunk as long ago as the thirteenth century (by Emperor Frederic II) yet abandoned and almost extinct by the 1970s, the Campanian variety Fiano's story prefigures that of the Northern Rhone's Viognier. There's a similarity in profile, too, notably the variety's captivating scent, which is much in evidence in the irresistably floral aromas of this Value Best in Show from Siciliy. In the mouth, though, Fiano often has an acidic poise and freshness all of its own, combined with haunting flavours of citrus, nougat and grenadine -- and more of those fresh aromatic flowers. All of those notes are packed exuberantly into this energetic young wine. Submissive and shy it isn't -- but there's Italian class here too.

Those drinkers with Carignan in their sights tend to enjoy its often wild, unbridled character, full of energy and unpredictability. They also know, though, that such wines tend to be made from old vines, since few new vineyards of Carignan have been planted in recent years. This is as true of Chile's old-established regions as it is of Western Languedoc -- and it often signifies great value. This dark wine has an amply fruity aroma which succeeds in suggesting wild herbs and scrub too. On the palate, it is deeper and more concentrated than you might expect from a Value Best In Show. The rugged austerity of the variety, though, is mitigated by Chile's inherent charm, softness and affability, and the result is a value wine which seduces and stimulates in equal measure.

This Barossa wine makes the perfect point of comparison with our Eden Valley Shiraz Best In Show. Both wines are a saturatedly dark, opaque black-red in colour, but in place of the racy, lifted fruits of the Eden Shiraz, this Barossa wine is weightier, sweeter, its fruits confit and pressed, and with notes of oil, camphor and leaf litter lending those fruits an intriguing chiaroscuro. On the palate, it is dense and almost shockingly flavoury, the flavour pattern mimicking the wine's aromatic complexities to compelling effect. Texturally, too, this is a far weightier wine, with splendidly rich, flavour-saturated tannins and an admirably soft, unconfected acid balance. Virtuoso, vanguard Barossa.

Rose wine has been the greatest category success story of the last decade in the wine world -- driven by Provence. Provence, though, no longer has a monopoly on that success: rose drinkers everywhere are beginning to wake up to the fact that this category, too, has its highways and byways, all of which offer distinctive and authentic pleasures. An oak-aged rose from 2009? Why not? In place of fresh creaminess, you'll find a mellow, forest-like warmth; in place of chiffon fruits, you'll find concentration and structure, vinosity, secondary fruit resonances and even a faint tannic grip. This is emphatically a rose for food, and if you’re not receptive to the proposition of oaked rose then you're better off looking elsewhere, but for those whose palates are open to this other world, this is a rewardingly layered, mouthfilling and satisfying aged wine.

For the second year running, Blaye has come storming into our Best in Show selection, and on this occasion with a Value wine from the exciting 2018 vintage. It was a warm and generous year, and you can read that generosity in the deep colours and vivacious aromatic ripeness which lifts from the glass. The wine is deep, round, ample and approachable on the palate, the primary plum and damson fruits just beginning to soften into something a little more savoury and meaty. There are, though, firm shaping tannins behind those prominent fruits; while the acidity is supple and fruit-packed. This sturdy Value Best In Show will certainly continue to evolve for another half-decade yet, and would show convincingly among peers of loftier price.

Praise has been lavished on the 2008 Champagne vintage in recent years, and justly -- but this beautifully aged Champagne also underscores how the 2006 vintage, here as elsewhere in France, has a terrific amount of pleasure to offer. The colour has yet to deepen towards gold, and for the time being keeps its bright straw allure; the aromas are rich, bready, enticing and refined, beginning to show the harmony of age. It's pure and structured on the palate, clearly built on fine Meunier and Pinot Noir, with Chardonnay adding grace notes and charm. The dosage is sagely discreet: cellar time as much as grams of sugar give the wine its finishing roundness and poise.

Compared with its other nine Beaujolais cru peers, Fleurie is never 'the most' of anything -- except, that is, of charm. The pretty name, too, promises a beguiling scent. This heady as well as head-turning combination is sometimes hard to live up to in practice … but not here. This wine is a dark, opaque black-red, and from the moment you dip your nose into the glass, you'll find all of the flower-fruited lift you expect, allied to flavours which fill the mouth with bright cherry and plum but do so in a way which never calls either charm or scent into question. The wine's weight is all fruit, too, with tissue-soft tannins, and the cherries and plums themselves continue to evoke blossom as much as juicy, spurting flesh on the palate. You might, though, find just a touch of granite stoniness in the finish – enough to detain and thrill on the second (or third) glass. Drink as soon as possible, lightly chilled.

We haven't welcomed Toro to our Best In Show selection in the past, but the sheer power and exuberance of its celebrated Tempranillo strain (Tinta de Toro) has often attracted our judges' attention as we hunt down silvers and golds. This wine puts all of that generosity into the glass, but does so at a price that qualifies for a Value Best In Show: a combination that's hard to resist. It has been oaked, but not with the wild exuberance of some of its pricier peers: look for damson and bramble fruits to come singing out of a glass of this dark, almost-black wine. Like most Toro, it’s gratifyingly soft in the mouth but texturally rich for all that: creamy and coaxing. It's hard not to sprawl and wallow in all of that luscious damson and bramble darkness, but soft, discreet acidity combines with the plush tannins to stop the wine cloying.

Despite its warmth, 2020 is a Bordeaux vintage where freshness was eminently possible -- and freshness is a quality increasingly associated with ambitious wine-making in St Emilion, as the era of ultra-ripeness draws to a close. (This, remember, is the highest in altitude of all Bordeaux’s major sub-regions.) Our judges were impressed with this wine's depth of colour allied to its vibrant, zesty yet sweetly ripe blackcurrant and plum scents. On the palate, it is deep, concentrated, lively and dramatic in style, with pithy acidity bringing as much structure to the wine as its relatively gentle and accessible tannins. It's still young, but a few years in the cellar will see the wine begin to round out as the blackcurrant and plum soften and ease. The oak integration is skilfully managed, too, in this excitingly pure St Emilion.

As Rhone-lovers will know well, it's important to nuance the very different qualities of St Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. It wasn’t the plump, juicy generosity of the latter which fought its way through to our Best In Show collection this year, but rather the fragrance, elegance, swish, verve and classicism of the former that most impressed our judges. If you love the mouthwateringly smoky, ham-bone-and-flowers allure of Northern Rhone Syrah, then dig into a glassful of this 2020 wine and see it personified. The wine is neither plump nor texturally rich on the palate; what it does do, rather, is take that perfumed fresh fruit and run with it to hypnotic (and mouth-watering) effect. You’ll find brighter acidity here than in most Northern Rhone white wines, paradoxically, but that acidity is ripe, vivid and resonant: perfect structuring for a wine that is clearly best drunk and enjoyed as soon as possible.

This remarkable Amarone won the very highest acclaim from its original judging panel and then sailed through every subsequent judging stage, to the extent that its appearance in our Best In Show collection was never seriously in doubt. It’s already over five years old, but is still very dark in the glass -- and it's a wine of remarkable aromatic complexity, too. Amarone-lovers will know just how many allusions these wines are capable of evoking, and it’s not hard to make out mushrooms, forest underbrush, truffle, Havana leaf and even woodland violets as well as the more usual confit cherries and plums in this wine’s aromatic profile. In the mouth, the wine is remarkably concentrated yet elegant, carrying that bundle of allusions effortlessly and seamlessly through the palate. Fine-beaded tannins lend support, and the concentration of fruit is such that any overt acidity is almost an afterthought.