A Deep Dive Into Top 100 Wines
This week is all about data. And we spent hours crushing numbers to bring you some interesting facts about annual lists of Top 100 Wines from the most respected wine publications in the world: Wine Spectator, Jeb Dunnuck, James Suckling, and Vinous.
We started by looking at each publication individually and combining their lists from the past five years (2020-2024), with the exception of Vinous which launched their Top 100 in 2024 (see above). While our findings may be obvious to some, this cements what we know or assume.
Jeb Dunnuck puts most of their focus on U.S. and French wines (92.4%), while the rest of the pack gives Italy a bigger slice of the pie. It’s not surprising that U.S., France, and Italy dominate these rankings. The outstanding quality (and quantity) of wines have captured the hearts of wine lovers and critics alike.
What do you think of the data below?
We had all this data already so we took it a step further and found that red wine comprised 84.7% of the total wines in the set (~1,600), while 15.3% was white wine. James Suckling had the most white wines in their lists and Jeb Dunnuck the least (and vice versa for reds). The producer that made the most appearances across all the rankings was Château Smith Haut Lafitte, a prestigious Bordeaux wine estate located in the Pessac-Léognan appellation of the Graves region, just south of Bordeaux city (known for both its red and white Grand Vins).
We then asked ourselves, “Which wine appeared the most?” Hint: It’s in South America.
This wine comes from Chile’s most prized vineyard site: Puente Alto. Pretty much inside the city of Santiago and surrounded by residential neighborhoods, we got to tour this region up close on a visit to Don Melchor’s neighbor, Viñedo Chadwick, in 2023 and found the Cabernets to be elegant, structured, fine-grained, and juicy.
Know that being a leader in your country pays dividends. Take Catena Zapata for example. Argentina doesn’t make up a big part of the pie, but when you are the flag bearer for your country, you take up a large market share of that slice. End result? Catena Zapata is one of the producers with most appearances across the Top 100s. Emerging regions take note.
While publications are including lots of American, French, and Italian wines, it doesn’t mean it’s easier to make the cut. This creates room for these regions to showcase many wines, but the slots are very competitive and require presence in the market and a good story to tell. You could easily make it a list of perfect score wines from Burgundy and Bordeaux, but the reason all of these roundups are so diverse in price and score is because they have to connect with any of us. We’re all different, so why shouldn’t the wines be too?