Wine Champions Reds 2024

This ‘serious, grown-up and classy pinot` from New Zealand is made with a stylistic nod to Europe, but carrying the generous black-cherry fruit and polish that can make Marlborough pinot such a tempting style. A stand-out pinot noir and rightly a Wine Champion this year with a touch of spice on the finish.

Bordeaux is offering brilliant value, and a number of clarets soared to success in this year`s Wine Champions tastings. This delicious wine earned enthusiastic praise for its richness, freshness, fleshy texture and hint of spicy complexity, and all for less than £8. As one taster pointed out, ‘there`s nothing not to like`.

Uncomplicated charm doesn`t get more charming than this. A popular southern French red and a Wine Champion in 2024, Laborie was given a makeover in 2023 to include some especially good, crunchy syrah fruit. Tasted blind among its peers, it was a resounding hit: ‘So much fruit, juicy and user friendly. Incredible value.`

Few reds work better than good montepulciano for a comforting, characterful accompaniment to midweek pizza and pasta, and this year it was Gran Sasso that leapt out as the perfect candidate and as a worthy Wine Champion in 2024. ‘Drinking beautifully`, with full-bodied cherry, raspberry and blackcurrant fruit backed up by second-glass-inviting freshness.

Soft, chillable and so easy to enjoy, this is a delicious ambassador for the quality, value and finesse South Africa`s reds can offer. The country`s signature grape, pinotage, is blended expertly with syrah and handled gently in the winery by the outstanding Radford Dale team, resulting in a joyful, cherry-scented Wine Champion. Radford Dale are a brilliant case study in pioneering sustainable practices, despite challenging circumstances. They employ practical low-intervention solutions in the vineyards such as encouraging raptors to manage pests, and creating a natural water purification system with reeds. They also run a trust using revenue from the sale of wines of the Land of Hope range to fully pay all educational costs for the children of their black employees.

Pure blackberry and raspberry-fruit driven, soft, balanced Sicilian red that is perfect with or without food. The estate works to conserve the local flora and has catalogued rare species of orchids on their land. As a further move to improve biodiversity, Feudo Arancio has planted a lemon grove inside the stone quarries on the estate and thus rehabilitated previously damaged land.