It’s that time of the year again! When wine reviewers reflect on the vintages they sampled over the past 12 months and post their Top 100 Wines lists.
Wine reviewer, writer and videographer James Melendez of James The Wine Guy just released his own Top 100 Wines of 2024 list. On this, his 14th edition, we were delighted to discover that our 2021 Candide Estate Reserve Pinot Noir—the first Candide sourced exclusively from our own vineyard—made the list!
He writes:
This marks the 14th annual edition of my Top 100 Wines. As I’ve often said, creating such a list is both a joy and a challenge—it’s never easy, nor should it be. My selections are consistently listed in alphabetical order, with no ranking implied. I firmly believe it’s naive to declare a definitive “number one” wine in the world. Instead, this list highlights the exceptional wines I’ve encountered this year, compared against many others I’ve tasted.
Melendez has been creating detailed reviews of wines since November 2006. In 2024 he transitioned to short format reviews posted on Instagram and YouTube. Here’s what he had to say about the 2021 Candide, which he awarded 95 points out of 100…
This is an estate reserve Pinot Noir, Chehalem Mountains, a ‘21 vintage. Here’s the front label and here’s the back label. Now the two clones on this Pinot Noir are Wadenswil as well as Pommard. This wine is 13.6% ABV, spends 12 months in 36% new French oak, and this is a $56 price point.
Very nice rich and bright red fruit character of Bing cherry, as well as raspberry notation, forest floor, spice notation, violets, and cedar. Fruit is at peak ripeness love the elongated palate, red-dash-black cherry, as well as freshly ground spices, red pepper, as well as red rose petal, and finishing off with a graphite finish. This is a 95 point wine out of 100 points.
Watch the video, here:
