Taste is as personal as it is poetic. It’s mired in nostalgia; lived experience. For me, certain salty Sicilian whites taste like Rockaway Beach, while Roussillon muscats recall an old perfume of my grandmother’s.
I know of one Champagne that tastes like turning 30, and another, like East Coast oyster shells. For you, however, the same bottle may conjure a wedding, a funeral, or buttered toast. Either way, the association stands.
With that in mind – amidst our requisite end-of-year round-ups, our ’best of’ lists and our trend reports – I thought it wise to consider the prevailing flavours of 2025.
In the great wide world of associative, sensory bliss, was this year rife with milestone celebratory bubbles? With minerality and rocky encounters? With instances of residual sweetness? Mouse and cork taint?
On my end, one bottle in particular comes to mind: 2025, for me, tastes like Château de Béru, Montserre Chablis from 2022 – the very vineyard where I worked my first harvest…in none other than 2022. It’s memorable for its pointed, loud acidity and its lush roundness – though difficult to mistake for the richer, more traditional Chardonnays grown in the surrounding area. I hadn’t tasted this particular vintage until late October – when it was poured at the release party for my first book (quite a number of entrenched firsts).
More conceptually speaking, this is a wine that never tastes quite like I think it will. There’s a consistent element of surprise in the tartness and brightness. It demands attention; an unwillingness to rest on the laurels of predictability.
And to that end, no piece of 2025 felt precisely as I imagined it would, either: Not the book, not the new apartment, not the dear friend I lost to a bike accident mere weeks after we’d returned from working in vines together in the South of France. Not the plane trips, or the family dinners, or the messy, late-night conversations. Not the devastating news reports, the sweltering August heat, the relentless December snowstorms.
In the spirit of lyricism, then – and in homage to the specificity of taste we’ve asked other wine professionals to weigh in on what, precisely, 2025 tasted like for them… be it rich and warming, racing and intense, dark and brooding, or something else altogether.
What better way to compress a full year’s worth of glory and turmoil into something as digestible as a glass of wine?
For Joe Hirsch, wine importer at Terrestrial Wines, it feels like we’ve gone back in time a little:
‘Much like the world at large, this year, the wine world took a turn towards the traditional, the more rigid, the bolder, and — depending on where you stand — it lurched towards regression. People have begun to question natural wine, progressive approaches, and general risk-taking. 2025 tasted a bit bigger, a bit bolder, less three-dimensional, and perhaps a bit less free and optimistic than in years past. Vin Noé Pommard ‘Rêve Américain’ 2023 comes to mind. A wine from a traditional region, but made by one of the most envelope-pushing winemakers out there, who still has immense respect for the land he works on. Here’s to the tide turning back once again in 2026!’
Nikita Malhotra, the wine director at Smithereens, sees it as a year of simple pleasures:
‘2025 was a year of enjoying the simple act of drinking a glass of wine rather than lusting over a unicorn bottle. It was as if I was going back to the basics, revisiting regions and styles I hadn’t tasted or cared for in years. I enjoyed glasses of Riesling at Smithereens that tasted like home. On visits to the Chinatown, wine bar Lei, I tasted Chinese wine that floored me. 2025 was my year of not being trendy — and Clos du Rouge, Gorge Côtes Catalanes Jeunes Vignes 2024 was the most representative bottle I drank.’
Keara Driscoll, wine director at acclaimed Brooklyn restaurant Bridges, sees 2025 as a uniquely life-changing experience:
‘My bottle of the year was Mas Candí, ‘Montombra’ Blanco 2019. It’s Xarel·lo and Malvasia from a single parcel of rehabilitated vines on the slopes of a mountain in the Massís del Garraf, in western Penedès. I bought this wine as an inexperienced buyer when the bottling was first released in 2021. It needed time; I didn’t understand it.
‘It was one of the first wines I drank after having my son, and it was singing: suede-like texture, lightly aromatic, saline but not sharp. Parenthood so far has been: dizzying, heady, marvellous, and with the constant feeling that all things will be revealed as you need to know them. This bottle was a reminder: it’s a good thing to admit what you don’t know and what you’re not ready for, and in that experience, true joy is most often found.’
Haden Riles, sommelier at the Upper East Side’s Sushi Noz :
‘I have to split the year into two. Not, like, one half and then the other – these currents run parallel. Julie Balagny’s Minouche, Fleurie Beaujolais tastes like unfiltered sincerity to me. Poised between pluck and flirtation. Like those moments where you recall or relive the easy highs of your youth. It’s something like the temptation and the flush of a first kiss.
‘On the other hand, Rosewood’s Neptune Riesling, Niagara VQA, is something I tried for the first time more recently, and it transformed my understanding of what Riesling is capable of, just as many other experiences this year challenged my perceptions. It’s like Walter Scott meets Coche meets Portuguese Arinto meets saline salt-water taffy meets golden-hued orchards arrayed from east to west and blessed by both the sun and the sea. It is aggressive and refined. Bold. Unyielding yet sensual. Embodied. Plush. So many things at once.’
Daniel de la Nuez, founder of Brooklyn’s Forthave Spirits, is pretty definitive about 2025:
‘A Gamay because God is dead.’
Sammi Schachter, wine director at Manhattan’s Nudibranch:
‘This year tasted like Manzanilla sherry: Salty and nutty, reminiscent of another time and place, adaptable to wherever we are now. Specifically, Buelan Mirador, Manzanilla’
Sophie Stettler-Eno, server at Washington, DC’s Reveler’s Hour:
‘The city of DC has become much more conservative in many ways in 2025. We’re still pouring fun freaky stuff at Reveler’s Hour, but the list has many more recognisable gaps at the moment. It seems like everyone is drinking more trad bottles these days, myself included. So Domaine Verdier Logel, La Volcanique, Côtes Du Forez 2023 was my bottle of the year, so delicious, fantastic, and very Gamay-y.’
Mariano Garay, server at Manhattan’s Cove:
‘This year felt like a mix of Riesling, Nebbiolo, and Champagne to me. The year started with a lot of drive and mineral focus (Riesling). As the year progressed, the idea of excitement, change, and energy started to arise (Champagne), but through and through, this year has always had a feeling of confidence and strong footing (Nebbiolo). In particular, I’ve been thinking about Vollenweider Goldgrube Kabinett 2021, an Emmanuel Brochet Champagne, and the Elio Sandri Barolo Riserva Perno Vigna Disa 2018.
Travelling chef Henry Elliman sees a silver lining in it all:
‘2025 tasted like a natural sparkling white wine. Active, alive, slightly unpredictable. Bubbles feel like the start of something, and I like that sense of hope, possibility and joy. After quitting my corporate job to travel, cook, and host dinner parties, I made a winter stew and instinctively reached for a sparkling white to flavour it. The funky bubbles added a light effervescence to the beef cheeks, and the whole thing felt reminiscent of this year’s optimism and experimentation. The bottle was Julien Altaber’s L’Écume Vin Mousseux, Extra Brut, Pinot Noir Aligoté Blend.
