The catch-all wine appreciation day, Global Drink Wine Day is held annually on 18 February.
Familiar favourites like Champagne, Riesling or Pinot Noir might spring to mind as your celebratory wine of choice – and there are many top examples to choose from when searching Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) results – but to narrow down the selection, we have put together a list of some of the competition’s highest-scoring wines from classic regions and grape varieties, as well as some perhaps less familiar styles to discover.
Tasted and rated by our expert judges at DWWA 2025, here you can explore a selection of 97-point sparkling, white, rosé, red, sweet and fortified wines from across the globe well worth seeking out.
Global Drink Wine Day: 15 wines to discover
Sparkling
Bluestone, Blanc de Noirs Brut, Wiltshire, United Kingdom 2019
Platinum, 97 points
Myriad apricot, peach, cherry skin and floral aromas bask in the soft, broad texture and supple mousse. Focused and vibrant with a tapering acidity and a tingling black tea element to close. Long and rewarding. Alcohol 12%
Can Sala, Vinyes de Can Sala Brut Nature, Cava, Spain 2015
Platinum, 97 points
An unrivalled opulence of ripe mango, peach and nectarine enveloped in freshly baked bread crust and toasted almonds. The impeccable harmony of structure and acidity, topped-off by the striking pin cushion mousse captivates and endures. Alc 12.5%
Deutz, Amour de Deutz Brut, Champagne, France 2014
Platinum, 97 points
A delicious interplay of honeyed toast, ripened fruit and smoky savoury notes with a soothing, creamy mousse and svelte acidity. Exuding charisma and typicity with a thrilling swirl of oyster shell minerals at the end. Alc 12%
White
Wirra Wirra, The 12th Man Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, South Australia 2024
Best in Show, 97 points
Adelaide Hills Chardonnay has made five appearances in our Best in Show selection, one more than Western Australia’s Margaret River has notched up; these are clearly landmark regions not just in national but also global terms for Chardonnay-lovers. The struck-match note so prized in Australia is apparent here — but subtly so; look out for a sweetly leafy charm, too, and a soft creaminess from finely judged barrel-fermentation. It hasn’t had long in bottle yet, so its aromatic harmony and seamlessness was another factor in seducing our panels. You could call it mouthfilling in terms of texture and flavour expression but relatively delicate and light on its feet, by contrast, in terms of weight and alcohol charge. These vineyards are indeed ‘up in the Hills’, remember, where ripeness is neither assured nor rapid. The wine’s grain and finesse reflect a full season on the vine – and its producer’s careful harvesting and handling techniques. Alc 12.5%
Cantine Belisario, Cambrugiano, Verdicchio di Matelica Riserva, Le Marche, Italy 2021
Platinum, 97 points
Exemplary aromas of honeyed nuts, lemon, lime and fennel with a supreme drive of freshness and purity which ebbs and flows alongside the stylish mineral structure and zingy nettle acidity. Very long and accomplished. Alc 13.5%
Weingut von Winning, Pechstein Riesling, Grosses Gewächs, Pfalz, Germany 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Alive with white flower and rose petal fragrance. On the palate savoury white pepper accents the perfectly ripe lemon and stone fruit with a poise of graceful acidity that cuts through the lustrous Crème Brûlée texture. Alc 13%
Orange
Vinakoper, Capris Orange Rumeni Muškat, Slovenska Istra, Primorska, Slovenia 2015
Best in Show, 97 points
Every year our orange wine categories attract more entries, and there is always significant clamour from judges to be allowed to scrutinise them. The wine world is beginning to realise just how much this, the sixth genre of wine, has to offer. The orange wine that has stepped up to the bright lights of our Best in Show selection this year is made from Yellow Muscat (a notably yellow-skinned variant of Muscat à Petits Grains Blancs). Muscats in general take well to this treatment, since time on skins can provide complex variations to the usual ‘grapy’ aromas and flavours. This Istrian example is in fact relatively light for an orange wine: deep gold with faint coppery glints. It has commanding aromas in which classic Muscat sweetness meets something darker and earthier, with orange-and-peach fruit behind; on the palate, the wine is fully dry but with an amplitude and wealth rare in ‘normal’ dry Muscat. Its precision and freshness are irreproachable. Alc 13.5%
Rosé
Léoube, Secret de Léoube, Côtes de Provence, France 2024
Platinum, 97 points
Full of class and elegance: bashful peach, cranberry and wild strawberry characters gently shroud the nose and palate, embracing the lush Mediterranean core of thyme and pine. Billowing and long with a refined mineral ending. Alc 14%
Red
Craggy Range, Pinot Noir, Martinborough, Wairarapa, New Zealand 2024
Best in Show, 97 points
Of the six Pinot Noirs from New Zealand to feature in our Top 50 selections since 2018, this is the third to come from Wairarapa’s Martinborough (the other three, unsurprisingly, have been Central Otago wines). This is an uncompromisingly dark wine that plays to New Zealand’s strengths in terms of purity and vivacity of fruit: raspberry, cherry and plum come streaming from the glass, and the fine meshing of fruit and oak in this wine adds to its lustre and appeal. In the mouth, the wine is both long and broad but not in any way clumsy, and the fruit flavours (raspberry to the fore again) are hypnotic. Svelte tannins are barely palpable, so there’s no textural barrier to entry. Alc 13.5%
Rutini, Single Vineyard Malbec, Gualtallary, Tupungato, Mendoza, Argentina 2021
Best in Show, 97 points
Our second Gualtallary red this year is a pure Malbec from the cool 2021 vintage. It, too, is a very dark black-purple in colour, with disarmingly pure blackcurrant, black cherry and blackberry fruits just smoothed but not dominated by oak. That oak, by contrast, is barely visible on the palate at all, so dominant and head-turning is the fruit: a slalom run in which the sweet cherries and berries of the aroma are joined by slightly sourer, wilder fruits like elder and sloe. As that nuance suggests, the acidity is ample, ripe and supportive, working with the fine-milled tannins to keep the fruit well-trimmed and enduring. It’s four years old at present and still an infant, so much lies ahead: this would make a grand dinner-time bottle at any point over the next ten years. Alc 14%
Backsberg, Patriarch Cabernet Franc, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Divine black plums and forest berries parade across the nose and palate offsetting the compelling savoury capsicum complexity. Refined and densely populated with velvet tannins, shapely texture and a subtle cedar wood elegance. Long and composed. Alc 14%
Mahsarto d’Midin, The 8, South-East Anatolia, Turkey 2023
Platinum, 97 points
Burnished with sumptuous dark berry fruit and vibrant floral notes, full of zeal and verve. The palate is bedecked with a dark chocolate and coffee oak structure with tannins sidling up subtly. Lots to offer. Alc 14%
Fortified & Sweet
Graham’s, Quinta Dos Malvedos, Single Quinta Vintage, Port 2018
Best in Show, 97 points
The 2018 vintage for Port was a challenging but finally rewarding one: it came on the back of a long drought sequence throughout 2017, and the summer of 2018 saw heat spikes of up to 45⁰C in the Douro. It could have been a disaster – had it not been for a very wet spring. That wet spring meant that many of the region’s greatest vineyards could call on water reserves to sustain them in summer. The result was grandiose … in places; hence ideal for Single Quinta Vintage declarations. That was what our judges sensed when they came to this magnificent wine. It’s midnight black in colour, with a powerful weave of blackcurrant, mulberry, menthol, resin and cistus aromas. On the palate it’s generous, broad and thick-textured, with more black fruit lent complexity by the dried herbs, by malt, by dark chocolate; the tannins are softly chunky, intimately meshed with the fruit; the spirit integration is seamless. No hurry to drink, needless to say – but this fine Quinta port is inspiring just now. Alc 20%
Donnafugata, Ben Ryé, Passito di Pantelleria, Sicily, Italy 2023
Best in Show, 97 points
Strange to say, no Passito di Pantelleria has yet featured in our Best in Show selection, so we’re delighted to rectify the omission this year with this 2023 wine. It’s made, of course, with Muscat of Alexandria grapes (locally called Zibibbo) which are laid out on mats in the sun after harvest to dessicate and dry for about four weeks. The wine is a rich golden sunset orange. Oranges, too, set the tone for its astonishing, perfume-like aromas: once smelled, never forgotten. On the palate it is thick, liquorous and unctuous, though still bright with that intense orange fruit. In some sweet wines, sheer intensity of sugar substitutes for complexity. Not here. It’s almost as if the force of Pantelleria’s near-African sunlight has engraved the wine with layers and lessons of its own. Alc 14.5%
Reif Estate Winery, Grand Reserve Icewine Vidal, Ontario – Niagara Peninsula, Canada 2023
Platinum, 97 points
An explosion of vibrant florals underscored by wave upon wave of grilled pineapple, passionfruit, dried orange and fleshy apricot riches. Full and voluptuous with a waxy, lanolin texture and tantalising acidity. Complexity wins the day. Alc 10.5%
