James Suckling unveils his ‘Wine of the Year’

American wine critic James Suckling has unveiled his ‘2018 Wine of the Year’, crowning Château Canon 2015 with the title, calling the Saint-Emilion red, “a wine of a lifetime”.

The Canon 2015 was among 14 wines that the critic tasted from the 2015 Bordeaux vintage that were awarded 100 points.

It is also one of dozens of 100-point wines rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team this year including the critic himself, his son, Jack Suckling, Nick Stock and Stuart Pigott.

Suckling claimed the wine was picked after he and his team tasted more than 22,000 wines this year, and travelled to dozens of tasting locations around the world from Napa to Barossa via France, Spain, Italy, Austria, New Zealand and Germany.

Explaining his selection, Suckling wrote that the wine was already a top contender when he tasted it in barrel in 2016 in what was, “a superlative vintage” in Bordeaux.

This explains why this year for the critic’s top 100 wines of the year, Bordeaux, particularly 2015 Bordeaux, dominated the list with more than two dozens on the list.

Released at €60 per bottle ex-negociant, the Saint-Emilion wine wine also topped the list of Neal Martin’s Bordeaux 2015 tasting, where he claimed that he “could not find a flaw, and it merely confirmed sentiments from barrel.”

Suckling’s top 100 list required wines with a miminum production of about 300 cases. Explaining the list further, the critic wrote that the team also arranged the wines in their respective ratings level according to price whereby a wine with the same score as another but with a lower price would be positioned higher on the list. Only one wine per winery was allowed.

For Suckling’s full list, please click here.