Once again, we present our version of Spotify Wrapped where we review the top 10 and bottom 10 wines we tasted and reviewed in 2024. Some of what we think makes our podcast different from other wine podcasts or wine publications and reviewers is that we share with you both the good and the bad. Most wine reviewers only share with you the wines they rate highly, but we share the wines we think you should avoid as well. We also let you listen into our actual tasting, so you can see how we are examining the wines and what flavors and smells we are getting - in real time. We do not change or adjust our tasting - you get the real real on what we think. And we use normal terms that people can relate to - like apple juice or lemon or cherry Twizzler rather than odd wine terms like quince and cassis. So, for our last episode of the year, you can hear the wines we liked the most and liked the least, and in our show notes, we will share with you the full list of wines we drank and our ratings for each!
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Show Notes
Episode 151: The Top 10 Best and Worst Wines We Drank in 2024! 00:00
Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, I am doing double duty today filling in for my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela.
Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode what we usually do is explore a different wine varietal or blend or style of wine making or wine making area of the world — like Priorat from Spain or Tannat from Uruguay or Gavi di Gavi from Italy — and dive into how to you can make great choices that aren’t the typical wines you find everywhere like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay from California. We want you to have some fun while you learn about new wines, and so our goal is to help you expand your wine knowledge in an entertaining way that is understandable and accessible to regular people, not just wine nerds like us! We also usually taste and review 2-3 wines under $20 each, and share our scores and recommendations to help you find great wines without breaking the bank, but this week we are going to share the best and worst wines we drank this year on the show. So, thank you so much for joining us! And, we are proud to say that Decanter Magazine calls us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining.
Ok, friends, don’t worry, you are not going to have to listen to me host by myself the whole time, what I am going to do is share with you our top 10 and bottom 10 wines of the year and play little sound bites from each tasting.
We actually tasted and reviewed over 105 wines this year on the podcast, and our average combined rating was 6.5 points on a 10 point scale, and incidentally, each of us averaged that score as well, so we were very consistent. Which seems fair. And just as a reminder, we rate on a scale of 1 to 10 and we don’t give half points, although when combined together our scores can include halfs, like for instance if I gave a wine an 8 and Carmela gave it a 7, or average score is 7.5.
Out of those 105 or so wines, exactly 10 had at least one score of 4, and so we will run through those wines in a minute, but there are going to be some on there that may surprise you.
The harder to choose from were the top 10 wines because we had 16 wines that scored at least an average of 8 from the two of us and so we had to make some choices on which ones made the cut and which ones didn’t and here we had to make some calls. To round out our top 10, I wanted to make sure we had a decent representation of different types of wines and wine regions, and just to be fair, we will list all 16 in our show notes.
I will also say that, different from last year, 3 of our top 4 wines were sparkling, which was not what I expected, although Carmela and I love sparkling wine. And one of our very top wines was a Rosato or Rosé wine.
I mentioned this last year, but I think our rating scale is a little more honest and unique because we tell you both the wines we like and the ones we don’t like. Most reviewers and podcasts and journalists only really tell you the wines they like or that they score highly, but that is only half the story. We also want to share with you the wines we think you should avoid, which is just as important as the wines we think you should buy.
And, in our show notes, I will have a list of all of the wines we tasted and reviewed this year that got 7 or higher because those wines we think are worth buying. So we’ll get there in a minute . . .
But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.
We want to thank you for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you have not had the chance to do so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast - it is a free way to support us, and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already!
And, another great way to support is to leave a nice rating and review on our website or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or other podcast service so we can continue to grow our listeners.
You can also follow us and see pictures of the wines we are tasting and trying today and weird AI pictures I like to make on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, we are now on Bluesky as well if you are curious and we post differently on there than we do on Instagram, and you can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, and you can sign up for our email newsletter there and get news and food and wine pairing ideas and more! And if you send me a note at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com with your mailing address, I will send you some Wine Pair Podcast stickers for free!
And we want to make content you care about and you like, so send us a note and tell us what you like and don’t like, if there are wines you want us to try or wine making areas of the world you are curious about - and we’ll take care of it!
And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast because word of mouth is so important for growing our listeners, and this week we want you to tell anyone who may need a little intro to The Wine Pair Podcast, because this should be a fun episode!
Our Bottom 10 Rated Wines of 2024 05:14
To get this kicked off, I am going to start with our top 10 worst rated wines for 2024, starting with the best of the worst. Interestingly enough, 7 of the bottom 10 were red wines, and the average price of these worst wines was $11.39. 8 of the bottom 10 were from California, which doesn’t surprise me, and 2 were from South Africa.
So here we go.
At #10, from episode 148, pretty recent, is the 2023 Spier Seaward Chenin Blanc which we gave an average score of 4.5 to.
At #9 is the 2022 Kirkland Signature Napa Valley Red Blend from episode 144 which we also gave a 4.5 score to.
At #8 was an unsurprising wine, it was the 2022 Josh Cellars Central Coast Pinot Noir from episode 109 called Josh Wines are Meh. This is our last wine with a rating of 4.5.
Now we are getting to the really sucky wines. The #7 worst wine of 2024 with a combined score of 4 is the 2022 Bread & Butter Cabernet Sauvignon from Episode 143 Are Bread and Butter Wines Good? And this is not the only wine from Bread & Butter in this bottom 10 list.
The next worst wine of the year, coming in at #6 is the 2022 Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve GSM Santa Barbara County Lot #132 from Episode 132 called Are Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Wines Good? And this one we gave a collective score of 4 to.
We are halfway through the list of the worst wines of 2024, and coming in at #5 from the Episode WTF is Pinotage which was Episode 111 is the 2021 Lievland Pinotage which we also gave a collective score of 4 to.
The #4 worst wine of the year came from Episode 116 which was called Wallet-Friendly Wine Reviews, and this is not the last wine from this Episode. This wine is the Beringer Main & Vine American Cabernet Sauvignon, and had no vintage or year which is the sure sign that a red wine is going to be crap. This one got a combined score of 3.5.
For the third worst wine of the year, we are back to the Bread & Butter wines and episode again, Episode 143, and this is the 2022 Bread & Butter California Chardonnay which got a combined score of 3.
Our second worst wine of the year comes from Trader Joe’s and is the 2022 Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc and came from another Wallet Friendly Wine Review Episode, this time it was Episode 140, and was focused on Sauvignon Blanc. This wine got a combined score of 3.
And now the worst wine of 2024 and it was the Bay Bridge Vineyards American Cabernet Sauvignon which does not have a vintage. This came from Episode 116 which again was called Wallet-Friendly Wine Reviews and this wine received a combined score of 1.5. I gave it a 1 and I think may be the worst rating I have ever given a wine.
Our Top 10 Rated Wines of 2024 21:00
Now let’s switch to our top rated wines for 2024. As I mentioned, we have a lot of sparkling wines in the mix, and I had to make some calls on the lower end of the top 10 because we had 12 wines that average an 8 rating, and so I had to choose 6 of those 12. I did make sure that of the wines that averaged a score of 8, I did choose wines that received a 9 from one of us.
Coming in at the #10 top rated wine is one from Episode 118 and was called Spain’s Hidden Gem: Priorat! This wine is called Cellers Unió Luarentia Priorat and was from the 2020 vintage. We each gave this wine an 8, for an average score of 8.
Our 9th best wine of 2024 came from the very next episode, Episode 119 which is one of our Costco Episodes, and is called Costco Kirkland Signature 2019 Rioja Reserva Challenge! The wine is the Kirkland Signature Rioja Reserva from 2019 as the title implies, and we both also gave this wine an 8 each. And it is a bargain at $7.99.
#8 on the list of our best rated wines of 2024 comes from Episode 105 which was our Italian Wine Adventure #10 which was on Fiano, and this wines is the 2020 Claudio Quarta Cantina Sanpaolo Fiano di Avellino, and was our only still white wine that made the cut. We also each gave this one an 8 score each.
Coming in at #7 is a Trader Joe’s wine. From Episode 112 which is called How Good Are Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Wines? This is the Trader Joe's Platinum Reserve Sonoma County Brut and so is our first sparkling wine out of many in this group of top 10. Carmela gave this one a 9 and I gave it a 7 for an average score of 8.
Our 6th best wine of the year also got a 9 rating from one of this, but this time from me, and Carmela gave it a 7. This was from our first Bordeaux Bargains episode, which was a real eye-opener for me because I was not inclined to like Bordeaux style red blends. But, in this episode, #115, we really liked the Château Prieure de Beyzac.
Ok, now to the top half of the top 10. #5 on the list comes from a very recent episode, and is one of our two Rosé wines. This one may come as a surprise, but we really liked this wine in our Thanksgiving episode, Episode 145, from this year, and it is the 2023 Chateau Ste Michelle Columbia Valley Rosé. And, by the way, this is not the last wine from this episode, either. Carmela gave this wine a 9 and I gave it a 7. This is also our last wine that has an average score of 8.
Our #4 wine is our most expensive wine, and this one was actually quite a bit out of our price range at $32, however, there was a purpose to it as it come from Episode 106 which was our Episode on wines from Michigan, something you may not know they do - make wines in Michigan. This wine got an 8 from me and a 9 from Carmela for an overall score of 8.5, and, by the way, there were two wines from this episode that got at least an 8 score.
Wine #3 for 2024 comes from Episode 127, which was our Great American Sparklers episode from the 4th of July where we review sparkling wines made in America every year, and this wine got a 9 from me and an 8 from Carmela for an average score of 8.5. It was the Paula Kornell California Brut, and like most sparkling wines, is a non-vintage.
There are only 2 wines left, and our penultimate wine, which means second to last by the way, is the 2023 Scaia Rosato from Italy, and also came from Episode #145 which was, again, our Thanksgiving episode. I also gave this wine a 9 and Carmela also gave it an 8.
And now, our #1 wine of 2024, the only wine this whole year that one of us gave a 10 rating to, and that was me, while Carmela gave it a 9 is the 2020 Vins el Cep Kila Cava Brut Organic, hailing from Sant Sadurni D’Anoia in Spain, which is a place we got to visit this year, the city, not the winery unfortunately, and this wine was only $13.99! This was from Episode #121 called Spain’s Answer to Champagne, and here is the full tasting of that wine.
By the way, here is where I changed my rating on the wine.
Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 40:42
Alright, so there you go. Our top 10 and bottom 10 wines for the year, and we hope you enjoyed this retrospective - it was really fun to go back and see all the different episodes we did and different wines we drank from more than 12 different countries!
We also just want to say thank you to our faithful listeners who download and listen to us every week or almost every week. We honestly do it for you, and we love when you reach out to us and let us know what you think, ideas you have for episodes, and even when you share stuff with us like wines you are drinking or adventures in wine you are having. We had a great 2024 and we owe a lot of that to you. And we hope that you will share us with your family and friends and just random people you meet on the street.
Remember to follow us on your favorite podcast app, to give us a nice rating and review, and visit our website to join our newsletter and see the show notes for this episode where I have posted all of our wines and wine ratings for the year.
And you can always reach out to us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com or DM us on social media, but that is it for 2024! Thank you again, have a fantastic 2025, and like we like to say, life is short so stop drinking shitty wine! Bye Bye!
HERE IS A LINK TO A SPREADSHEET OF ALL OF THE WINES WE REVIEWED IN 2024 ON OUR BLOG
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