What Makes One Wine Stand Out Amongst Thousands?

Some of my most memorable bottles from 2025

Back in the dark days of 2021, I decided to document how many wines I tasted over a whole year. It began with the best of intentions, every single bottle captured via an Instagram story together with its sequence. I got to 457 before it became overwhelming and my social media batteries ran out.

I still kept count though. The total that year came to 1972. The tail end of Covid restrictions on travel and events probably affected it a bit. These days, I suspect that closer to 3,000 wines pass through my gullet annually - albeit often just for a few seconds before being expectorated.

So what makes one wine claim a piece of real estate in your head, where hundreds more are forgotten within hours? Sometimes it’s just pure deliciousness. Sometimes it’s the backstory or the bottle’s rarity. Sometimes it’s the company or the occasion.

The thrill of discovery often does it for me. Many new finds get featured on this site, but some fall in-between the documentary cracks. This article is my attempt to fix that.

Here for your vicarious pleasure are six bottles that made 2025 special for me.

🟠 Pranzegg - Caroline 2017 (Trentino, Italy)

Chances are I tasted this in its youth, but it really made an impression when my panel got it blind at the Asia Wine Trophy in 2024. We awarded it ‘Grand Gold’, the highest accolade possible.

This October, I had the pleasure of sharing a bottle with South Korean importers Matthias and Nara (Kavod Wines) over dinner. It’s a stunner, still so juicy and fresh but with boundless depth and harmony. The tropical fruit flavours have the purity and intensity of alpine sun, the texture is soft, silken and luxuriant.

Readers in the US can still purchase the 2017 here for $46. In the EU, try Trentino Alto-Adige Wine (€30).

🟠 Koppitsch - Gemischtersatz 2015 (Burgenland, Austria)

This is special because it’s the last vintage that Alexander and Maria Koppitsch made what you might call a ‘proper’ orange wine. It’s also the very last bottle the couple had in their cellar. I’m super lucky that it was gifted to a good friend, who kindly opened it with me a few weeks ago.

It’s a field blend (Grüner Veltliner, Muskateller, Weissburgunder, Sauvignon Blanc) that stayed two weeks on the skins. I love the briny, silty attack, together with candied citrus fruit - a recognisable Sauvignon signature. It satisfies my craving for texture - albeit the tannins are soft, fine and fully integrated - and ‘oomph’. There’s beautiful ripeness without it being heavy or over the top. To me, it is exactly the kind of fruit-forward, medium-bodied style of orange that Burgenland’s growers have made their own.

Koppitsch have since moved away from this style, preferring (even) lighter wines with less extraction. Personally I think that’s a shame, because there’s less stylistic diversity in their current range - and nothing that I guess could age quite as majestically. But that’s just my 0.2 g/L.