Talk-A-Vino

Do you like numbers?

Do you like to play with numbers?

I do – so let’s have a bit of a [almost traditional] fun with wine numbers. I’m talking about analyzing the Top 100 lists from the major wine publications.

Top 100 is one of the most anticipated and coveted topics in the wine world. There is a lot of anxiety and activities surrounding the Top 100 lists. Wineries proudly put their Top 100 “membership” on the bottles; publications, such as Wine Spectator, create a lot of drama, slowly unveiling their Top 100 selections over a week; wine stores are anxious to get and offer as many of the Top 100 selections as possible; consumers get an extra reason to buy the Top 100 wines as their greatness had been established by the experts. So let us take a closer look at the Top 100 Wines of 2024 lists from the major publications and compare them side by side.

The majority of the wine publications present their Top 100 lists, many of the publications even offering a multitude of Top 100 lists – for example, James Suckling publishes separate Top 100 lists for most of the major wine countries; Wine Enthusiast offers Best Buys, Cellar Selection and Enthusiast 100 lists. As I have done in the past, for this comparison I’m using Top 100 lists from James Suckling, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine Spectator. For the Wine Enthusiast, I’m using the Enthusiast 100 list. Also note that while James Suckling and Wine Enthusiast 2024 Top 100 list links are specific to the year, Wine Spectator has one link for all top 100 lists from 1988 until 2024 (going through those is a fun exercise in itself).

Now, let’s discuss the particulars.

Wine of the Year

Let’s start with the Top wines of 2024. Out of the 3 top wines, 2 are reds and one is sparkling – not very surprising as red wines dominated the top 100 lists at all three publications. James Suckling’s Top wine of 2024 was the 2015 Bertani Amarone della Valpolicella Classico (JS100, $125). Wine Enthusiast’s Top wine of 2024 was the 2013 Roco RMS Brut Delayed Disgorgement 10-Year Sparkling Willamette Valley (WE98, $125). Lastly, the Wine Spectator Top wine of 2024 was the 2021 Viña Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon Puente Alto Puente Alto Vineyard Chile (WS96, $175).

Regions

Here is how the three Top 100 lists stuck up when it comes to the wine regions of the world:

I purposefully left all regions that were included in the previous years so you get a better picture. As you can see James Suckling’s list was dominated by Italian wines. Wine Spectator had a penchant for California, but not as much as the Wine Enthusiast, where almost 40% of the Top 100 wines came from California. New entrants compared with the previous years were the wines from Georgia and China.

Wine Types

Here is the comparison classified by the wine types:

As you can see, red wines dominated all of the lists. The last time I did this comparison back in 2021, and compared to that table I had to add a row for the fortified wines. I’m happy to see that all 3 Top 100 lists included at least one fortified wine. Also, Wine Enthusiast included a good number of sparkling wines, with most of them coming from Oregon out of all places (and those will be even harder to find than Champagne due to a very limited production).

Ratings

Ratings continue to be radically different between all three lists. James Suckling ratings don’t go lower than 97, and Wine Spectator’s top rating was 98 with only a single showing.

I don’t know why there is such a disparity in ratings, but that makes this comparison even more interesting.

Prices

Prices are always an interesting subject, and the presentation of the prices was different this year among all 3 lists. Wine Spectator had prices for all wines included in the description – I can only assume those are suggested retail prices. James Suckling had no prices listed but instead had prepared links for the Wine Searcher to retrieve a current market price for each wine – which makes sense as many of these wines might be on the market for a while and might command premium even before they were included in the Top 100 lists. Wine Enthusiast had prices listed for most of the wines, and also had buying links for all of the wines that were tailored to a specific source – some to Wine.com, some to Wine Searcher.

In the Wine Spectator’s Top 100, the most expensive wine was priced at $375 (MSRP). 19 wines on the list were priced at $100 or higher. The least expensive wine was only priced at $12 (#49 on the list). There were 6 wines on the list priced under $20, a very reasonable number. The top 10 wines, if you could find and buy them all at once, would cost you $1,032.

The most expensive wine on James Suckling’s list was priced at $407 (market price). Only 37 wines were priced at less than $100, which makes 63 wines to be priced above $100 – again, keep in mind that these are market prices according to wine-searcher, so YMMV. The least expensive wine and the only one under $20 was priced at $17, however, interestingly enough, it was wine #2 on the Top 100 list. The top 10 wines combined would cost you $677.

Lastly, the Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100. The most expensive wine was also the most expensive among all 3 lists, priced at $612. 33 wines were priced above $100, so 67 wines were priced at less than $100. The least expensive wine and the only one under $20 was priced at $19 (wine #35, price from wine-searcher). The top 10 wines would cost you $1,100.

Conclusion

I was happy to see lots of familiar  – not just familiar, but rather, favorite – producer names sprinkled across the lists. Turley Zinfandel as #14 on Wine Spectator’s list, Carlisle Zinfandel as #21, San Felice Chianti, Calera, Elena Walch; Lopez de Heredia and Cayuse Bionic Frog on the James Suckling list; Inniskillin Cab Franc Ice Wine and Wente Vineyards on the Wine Enthusiast list. I’m sure you will find lots of familiar names too.

I hope you are having as much fun looking through the data I presented here as I had compiling it. There is nothing to be concluded from this exercise, but I find it fun. If you think there is any other data you would like to see as part of this analysis – I will be happy to oblige.

Enjoy!