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    Jancis Earns World's Best Title Deservedly!

    Claiming the title of the world's best critic is none other than the illustrious Jancis Robinson MW from United Kingdom. Renowned for her illustrious career and unwavering impartiality, Robinson's victory resonates worldwide. Surprisingly, over 70% of her votes hailed from outside Europe, particularly from America, underscoring her global appeal.

    Jancis Robinson MW - Best Wine Critic of the World 2024

    Tb: Your illustrious career has been ongoing for quite some time,

    "Understatement!  48 years!"

    and you have been particularly praised for your impartiality and "incorruptibility" - these factors surely contributed to your selection as the world's best - what aspects do you consider particularly important to succeed as a wine critic?

    "If I look at my career, I’d say it has been characterised mainly by hard work(!), and also, still, insatiable curiosity. I really, positively enjoy writing but in-between the writing, I like to keep my mouth shut (except when tasting) and to listen to what wine producers, researchers, growers, consumers and merchants have to say."

    -Tb: Which wine critics do you yourself follow, and who do you see as your successors in the future?

    "To be absolutely honest, I have so many work commitments - to JancisRobinson.com, the Financial Times and a host of books that need updating - that I have shockingly little time to read other wine writers (a term I much prefer to ‘wine critic’). Hugh Johnson has long been an inspiration as a stylish writer and Andrew Jefford is always worth reading. I’d love to have time to work my way through Jon Bonné’s latest book on France. And I am keenly aware that there re myriad talents, notably female ones, bubbling up."

    "As for our successors, I think they will be communicating in new ways we can hardly imagine. I sincerely hope that scoring wine will diminish and feel extremely lucky that my career happens to have coincided with a golden age in which wine quality has soared, like enthusiasm for wine which seems currently to be fading unfortunately.  I think it must be quite challenging to embark on a wine writing career nowadays."


    Tb: How do you envision the future evolution of the wine critic's craft, and do you believe there's still a place for wine critics in a world where artificial intelligence reigns supreme? 

    " It’s taken almost 50 years’ programming to get my palate to where it is so that I can do all this without even making a conscious effort. Please don’t tell me it would take only a few hours to construct a machine that could do what I do."

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    My Today

    All of the tasting notes of the wine critic mentioned above in tastingbook, comes from press releases from wine importers and vineyards, or directly from the critic and can also be found on the critic’s own website, which can be easily accessed by clicking on the link above.

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    Me

    Described by Decanter magazine as 'the most respected wine critic and journalist in the world', Jancis writes daily for JancisRobinson.com (voted first-ever Wine Website of the Year in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards 2010), weekly for The Financial Times, and bi-monthly for a column that is syndicated around the world. Her most recent book is also her shortest, a practical guide to the essentials of wine, The 24-Hour Wine Expert. She is editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, co-author with Hugh Johnson of  The World Atlas of Wine and co-author of Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, each of these books recognised as a standard reference worldwide.

    She travels all over the world to conduct wine events - often for the global literacy initiative Room to Read - and act as a wine judge. In 1984 she was the first person outside the wine trade to pass the rigorous Master of Wine exams and in 2003 she was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen, on whose cellar she now advises. In one week in April 2016 she was presented with France's Officier du Mérite Agricole, the German VDP's highest honour and, in the US, her fourth James Beard Award.

    She loves and lives for wine in all its glorious diversity, generally favouring balance and subtlety over sheer mass.

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Wine Moments

Here you can see wine moments from tastingbook users. or to see wine moments from your world.

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  11 Wines  from  9 Producers 

Château Smith Haut Lafitte White 2020 - The Cathiards' 30th vintage. My saviour wine. Just when a bitter taste post-antibiotic for double pneumonia seemed to blight my impressions of all wines, this was the first wine that seemed free of it and gave me hope that my palate would be restored. I first tasted it on 22 Feb (last dose of antibiotic was 12 Feb) and kept retasting over subsequent days to check that I wasn’t kidding myself (high-acid whites generally seemed worse affected than full-bodied reds). Smoky-oaky nose and lots of fruit impact on the palate with masses of refreshing acidity too. Flatteringly satin texture with real pungency and interest on the end. Great balance. Just the right side of the oiliness that can dog some white wines from this appellation.

25d 16h ago

 Mommessin  has updated producer and wine information

27d 16h ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  19 Wines  from  11 Producers 

Château d'Yquem 1961 / Extraordinary in every way.Looked almost like black syrup, a PX, with gamboge rime. Smelt of treacle toffee and tea and moved like a thick treacle too.Very very sweet and concentrated. Certainly not fine but, amazingly, well balanced. A one-off. 23 and nearly at its peak. 19.5p

2m 2d ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  19 Wines  from  16 Producers 

Château Montrose 1888 / Mid clear fox red. Sweet, tender, gentle. Wonderfully hedonistic. Liquorice again. Very Montrose – with a real core of rosy sweet fruit. Very rich, racy and thoroughbred – just like a wonderfully sinewy racehorse. Shiny. Not unlike the marvellous 1911. There was an extraordinary variation between the paleness at the top of the bottle and the dark graininess of the sediment at the bottom. Bravo!

2m 23d ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  21 Wines  from  1 Producers 

Batàr is a wine unique among Italian whites, let alone Tuscan whites. It manages to be both rich and fresh and seems capable of evolving virtually forever.

10m 23d ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  18 Wines  from  1 Producers 

M. Chapoutier Ermitage La Pavillon 2014 is very dark indeed. Real lift and twang to this on the nose. Very sophisticated. Surely long lived. Remarkably muscular.

1y 10m ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  13 Wines  from  1 Producers 

Olivier Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2014 – Reductive flint and smoke on the nose. Exquisite oak intergration – real mastery of the creaft here. Great volume, goegeous purity and superb concentration. Outstanding.

2y 2m ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  15 Wines  from  13 Producers 

Ceretto Barolo Brunate 2013 –  La Morra. Pale ruby with orange tinges. Although the Brunate has the same ageing regime of one year in barrique, of which 10% was new, the oak is much more noticeable here than in the Bricco Rocche just tasted. Elegant and subtle focused fruit with fine, grainy tannins. Finely tuned, elegant wine with a subtle fresh finish. 17+/20 points.

2y 3m ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  25 Wines  from  23 Producers 

Alión 1994 / Production was much smaller then than now. All bought in fruit of course. There are different phases for ageing of Ribera. After bottling it is depressed and then the wine starts to develop. After 8 months some reduction but not a problem because reduction protects the wine against ageing.After 7-10 years there will be light reduction. This is the 1994 stage currently. Some people will call this brett butit’s not because we have analysed all our wines. We have observed that the 1994 is leaving the reductive phase but the 1996 is approaching it. This is why these are the two wines from the whole set that are more difficult than most to understand. We prefer not to decant.
Blackish crimson. Slightly cheesey on the nose – even a bit dusty. A more traditional style than many – hint of burnt toast. Really interesting and logn – complete. Thick and sweet. Dusty finish. Rich but with lots of very firm tannins.

2y 5m ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  18 Wines  from  5 Producers 

Penfolds Bin 144 Yattarna 2018 / Launched in 1998 with the 1995 vintage, Yattarna is the result of one of the most comprehensive, focused and highly publicised wine development projects ever conducted in Australia. The aspiration and independence of mind across generations of Penfolds winemakers inspired the ambition to create a white wine that would set the standard for ultra-fine Australian Chardonnay, a sortof 'White Grange'. They aim to source and select only the very best Chardonnay fruit from cool-climate regions, in this case Tasmania, Tumbarumba, Adelaide Hills. The name Yattarna is drawn from local indigenous language, meaning ‘little by little, gradually’. Acidity 7.3 g/l, pH 3.12. Aged for eight months in French oak barriques (60% new). All three regions enjoyed a relatively wet winter and spring, setting the vines up with healthy soil moisture profiles for the ensuing growing season. Tasmania experienced clear and generally warm conditions from January onwards, with no extreme heat spells leading into harvest. The temperature breached 35 °C only once in January, resulting in optimal conditions for ripening. Tumbarumba had plentiful rainfall right up to December, when a dry spell set in. In February, temperatures were generally cool allowing for slow, consistent ripening. The Adelaide Hills fruit set was slightly above average. The region experienced a warm finish to the growing season, but well-developed canopies shielded the fruit from adversity and ensured the berries ripened evenly. Harvest was an orderly affair across the three regions. 


Fine, complex, really rather burgundian nose and great crystalline fruit and grip without austerity. The acidity level is really quite high compared with many other Chardonnays. Pretty smart. You would be very happy with this if labelled Puligny-Montrachet actually. Good stuff and it should have a long life but could be broached already.

2y 8m ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  22 Wines  from  11 Producers 

Opus One 1979 / Fully mature, brick rim but good depth of crimson too. Sweet, gentle fully mature nose. Not desperately intense but certainly eloquent enough. Quite a luscious palate entry with a bit of acidity showing now and some dryness on the finish. As though this wine is going downhill but very, very slowly. Not especially alcoholic. Fresh, refreshing. Contrary to popular folklore, Opus claim they didn’t poach fruit for this from the 1979 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Reserve because Lucian Sionneau of Mouton chose the leaner samples, leaving the fatter ones for Reserve. Only 10 day skin contact and he captured some of the press wines to mitigate this.

3y 11d ago

Jancis Robinson MW / BWW2024/Best Wine Critic of the World, Wine Writer (United Kingdom)  had a tasting of  21 Wines  from  20 Producers 

Cristal 2008 / 16% malo, only on Pinot Noir from the Montagne de Reims. ‘There were lots of similarities with 1996, which gave us the possibility to replay the 1996 vintage! Maybe we picked 1996 a bit early so in 2008 we waited longer, by at least a week, than in 1996. Lots of tasting – far more than in 1996 when Roederer based picking only on analysis – and there was no malo in 1996.’ For the first time ever, they decided to release it later than the younger vintage, 2009 – so 2008 had nine years on lees. The last batch of 2008 will be disgorged in March 2019. (Scan the back label via the Roederer app to get the disgorgement year.) Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon is coy about the assemblage. ‘I’m looking for chalkiness.’ In 2008 60% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, which reflects perfectly the balance of their plantings. 40% of the estate was biodynamic then.
Really dense nose with lots of evolution but still extreme freshness. Some apple-skin character. Bone dry but wonderful lift and freshness. Long and super-lively. Real undertow, but very racy on the nose. Lots to chew on. Really elegant!

3y 4m ago

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