I’ve had the privilege of drinking some wonderful wines this year, including a few rare, breathtakingly gorgeous old bottles.
Those are often the ones that stick in the memory, the experiences that you carry around as benchmarks of beauty.
But I drank a lot of memorable wines that were not so rare, old or hard to find. This year, as I considered which bottles to include in my year-end list, I decided to focus on 12 younger, more accessible bottles along with a couple of middle-aged examples.
Perhaps for that reason, every bottle is from the 21st century, the first time for me since I’ve been writing year-end lists. Time passes quickly.
Here they are, in order of their age.
Kelley Fox Dundee Hills Dux Vineyard Chardonnay 2022
Each year, Oregon chardonnays seem to get better, more precise and more interesting. One that I’ve enjoyed several times this year was the 2022 Dux Vineyard chardonnay from Kelley Fox in the Willamette Valley.
Ms. Fox tends to float under the radar compared with the more well-known Willamette producers. She offers quirky, sometimes pointed opinions. Referring to her own wines, she said, “These are living things and quite inscrutable.”
