ON THE BAR: Lauren's Top 10 Wines of 2025
in no particular order
Hello, friends!
Here’s one just for fun.
I miss writing about wine, but the reality of running a small biz often means I use my newsletter time to let you know about what we’ve got going on around here, rather than what wines we’re losing our minds over. I’m hoping to fix that in 2026, but for now, here’s a hail Mary effort to encapsulate some of the best of the year. The unintended theme, I’m realizing as I’m putting these together, is one of delightful surprise; each of these wines shook me up a little. It’s fun to be floored.
These are all available at Wild Child (exception being the Ellison Estate, but it was too good not to mention), and the links will take you through to the item. A reminder that we’re still doing Thursday delivery for orders placed by Wednesday at midnight :)
I’ll see some of you at Champagne school on Thursday! And a little reminder that 1/2 price oysters and grower Champagne by the glass are still happening daily at Dear Annie from 5-7pm—I personally can’t think of a better holiday ritual.
XOXO,
Lauren
THE LIST
2018 Tatsis ‘Old Roots,’ Goumenissa, Greece
Outrageous. The style I expected from the combination of Tatsis (a producer that usually conjures rusticity) and xinomavro (a grape that’s usually a little aggro) was completely smashed to bits on first taste. Xinomavro is most often suggested as a surrogate for Nebbiolo, but this was more Burgundian than anything. From 70 year-old vines in northern Greece, I couldn’t get over how finessed and well-integrated it was. Tatsis remains one of my favorite producers, and this is the most exceptional wine I’ve had from them in more than a decade of working with their wines. Plus, they’re good people. From their website: “Companionship with the vine is a lifelong relationship, it is family. Together we grow, vines and people, in good times and bad.” Sob.
2023 Collecapretta ‘Terra dei Preti,’ Umbria, Italy
Year in and year out, everything Collecapretta produces on their tiny farm in Spoleto is unlike anything anyone is making anywhere else in the world. I stand by that (perhaps extreme) assertion without hesitation. And while their Selezione delle Cese surpasses most of what’s being done in Tuscany, Terra dei Preti has a special place in my heart—this one would land in my Top 10 every year. One of the most elegant skin contact wines I’ve ever had, it always has a distinctive jasmine tea-like quality that I just can’t get over, alongside sticky dried apricot and a pretty bitter herbal note. I just love it.
2023 Vins Vivants & Bailey A, Nagano, Japan
I love love love an opportunity to inhabit a learner’s mind. At the big ZRS tasting in New York earlier this year, I slipped in between the masses crowding Anders Frederik Steen and Athenaïs Béru’s tables to taste a handful of Japanese selections with Rui at Kind Wine. Rui herself is thoughtful and generous, and the wines were standouts in a room full of standouts; in particular, the hybrid wines from Vins Vivants stopped me in my tracks. Gorgeous, delicately fruited hybrid cuvées from Nagano, they’re both objectively delicious and intriguing, showcasing a purity and focus I don’t often find in hybrid wines. While I slightly preferred the & Bailey A to their Steuben cuvée, both were exceptional, and their Ariuwa pét nat could easily have ended up on this list as well. A really exciting look at what promises to be a really exciting producer in a really exciting region.
2005 Clos Rougeard, Saumur-Champigny, Loire Valley, France
If you’ve ever talked to me about prestige bottles, you know I often struggle to reconcile the expense with what’s actually in the bottle, even for an iconic estate like Clos Rougeard. But this was really, really, really good. I was humbled. One to add to the collection, especially since the sale of the estate in 2017.
2021 Haliotide Blanc de Blancs, Stolo Vineyards, San Luis Obispo
Another surprising one! In a room full of 100+ of the most incredible Champagnes in the world, it was a Champagne-method bottle from California that most caught my attention at an industry tasting earlier this year. Haliotide is a tiny little project on the coast of Northern California, capturing the potential of meticulous attention to terroir and craft. Their Stolo Vineyard Blanc de Blancs is razor-sharp, extremely focused, and rivals some of the best Côte des Blancs Champagne I’ve ever had (which, if you know me and my taste in Champagne, is saying a lot). It’s proven to be a stunner behind the bar, too—every time we sell a bottle (usually to another curious industry pal), it blows a few minds.
2022 Ellison Estate ‘Renewal M’ Pet Nat, Grand Isle, Vermont
Perhaps unfair to include a wine you can’t buy from us, but the good news is you can visit Ellison’s tasting room in Stowe any time you want :) I think we should all make a point to visit Vermont’s wine country in 2026; there’s a lot of really interesting winemaking happening, and we haven’t historically had world-class wineries a day trip away. That’s changing, and it’s time to reap the benefits of getting to know our local winemakers. I loved a lot of what I tasted from Kendra and Rob this year, but their Renewal M Pet Nat was top of the list. A juicy rosé bubble based in the hybrid Marquette variety, it was like biting into a perfectly ripe strawberry—but actually. The fruit here was alive in a way that I rarely experience. Check out Ellison’s tasting room in downtown Stowe if you’re headed up to the mountain this season—maybe I’ll see you there!
2024 Vinos Pijoan ‘Arbol de Fuego,’ Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico
At the same ZRS tasting where Japan stole my heart, I had a little thing with Mexico, too. Vinos Pijoan’s Arbol de Fuego is a delightful coferment of zinfandel, grenache, and colombard that’s powerful but graceful, not unlike winemaker Silvana Pijoan, a classically trained dancer who joined her family’s winery with an eye for natural production in 2016. There’s a deep, almost profound warmth to this wine that I can’t quite explain. You’ll understand once you taste it. Another exciting peek into the future, I hope.
2023 Charly Thévenet ‘Grain & Granit,’ Régnié, Beaujolais
Charly Thévenet is natural wine royalty (nepo baby?), but I wasn’t expecting Régnié to blow every other cru Beaujolais out of the water at our annual Beaujolais tasting. It was the wine of the night by a long shot, even next to some of the most iconic Beaujolais wines out there (I’m not going to name them, but yes, even that one). This was one of those cases in which a wine’s structure just can’t be ignored—it was the most put-together, integrated, well-balanced… however you want to put it. It was perfect. If you’re a Beaujolais lover, you’ll want a bottle.
2024 Emme Wines ‘amando el sol,’ Redwood Valley, California
I love everything Rosalind Reynolds does. I could put any of her wines on this list. I chose amando el sol because we still have some :) Rosalind is such a wonderful, kind and open person who is clearly so focused on using wine as a means of both self-expression and stewardship of land and community. It was a joy to have her visit us earlier this year, and it’s a joy to drink her wines. This one a blend of colombard and chardonnay, a lean little orange wine that’s full of salt and zest and life and joy.
2020 Domaine Valentin Zusslin Monopole ‘Clos Liebenberg,’ Alsace, France
I returned to Zusslin after a decade of absence for mostly boring, import-related reasons, and it’s such a joy to be back in the arms of these beautiful wines. We had these open last week at our big Abbondanza tasting, and they were among the favorites in the room. I mentioned to a few people that Zusslin—like Pacina—is burned into my sense memory; between the mind-blowing terroir and the unparalleled winemaking, there’s just nothing like it. Clos Liebenberg is the platonic ideal of Alsace, turned up to eleven. Just a shimmering, opulent, unbelievable wine.
THE PLAYLIST
I hate ending newsletters without a little something. I’ve been listening to a lot of Nation of Language recently—kind of New Wave-y, pretty moody. Their new album’s a little more slick, but I like the art school vibes of this one.