The Best and Worst Rated Wines of 2023! (Over 115 wines rated this year, why you should trust our ratings)

Explicit content warning

12/24/23 • 40 min

Welcome to our end of the year retrospective, review, and wrap for The Wine Pair Podcast! In this episode we review our highest and lowest rated wines of the year. Believe it or not, in 2023 we tasted and reviewed about 120 wines, and out of all of those wines, just a handful got ratings of 9 or 10, or got ratings of 4 or under.
If you are looking for a list of great wines to buy, or bad wines to avoid, this is the perfect episode for you!
Some fun things we found as we reviewed these wines. First, Joe tends to grade a bit harder on the lower end of wines than Carmela does. Not a surprise there since Carmela is the nice one!
Second, Carmela tends to rate white wines just a bit higher than Joe, and Joe tends to rate red wines just a bit higher than Carmela.
Third, our top rated wines are a good mix of red, white, rosé, and sparkling, and also a good mix of wines from around the world. We have wines in the tip top of our ratings from France, Spain, Italy, and the United States. No matter what wine you like, we think you’ll find one represented in our “best of” review.
And for our worst rated wines, well, they all happened to come from the state of California. Which is not a huge surprise because they make A LOT of wine in California, but also because we tend to find the style of California wine that makes it on the grocery store shelves lacking in subtlety and elegance. What we call “punch-you-in-the-face” wines.
Finally, we’ll tell you why we think our reviews are more useful and reliable than the 100 point professional ratings - and it’s mostly because we share with you when we like and don’t like a wine, and the pros do not!
Join us for a super fun ride, and we would love to hear what your favorite and least favorite wines were this year, too!

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undefined - Wines for the Feast of the Seven Fishes: 2023! (Italian-American traditions, The Bear, celebrations with family by blood and family by friendship, great seafood wines)

Wines for the Feast of the Seven Fishes: 2023! (Italian-American traditions, The Bear, celebrations with family by blood and family by friendship, great seafood wines)

Buon Natale! The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American tradition that got an interesting send-up in Season 2 of The Bear. How accurate is the “Fishes” episode of The Bear to our family Christmas Eve seafood feast? Well, let’s just say there are a few similarities and some really important differences. For starters, our family doesn’t throw nearly as many forks as they do in The Bear - but you gotta listen in to learn more! We are revisiting this amazing meal again this year because, although last year we found some great wines to serve, there are lots of different wines that are great pairings with seafood and the Holidays. Of course, all of the wines we selected are Italian, but one of them is a sparkling red wine, and the other is an Italian white wine we are betting you may never have heard of, but is a great option for those of you who love a bigger-bodied Chardonnay, but are looking for something new, and something Italian. Unisciti a noi per questo episodio divertente e festoso! Wines reviewed in this episode: 2022 Caruso & Minini Naturalmente Bio Catarratto, 2021 La Cappuccina Soave, 2019 Pederzana Gibe Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro.

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undefined - Special Episode! Meet the (Wine) Makers #6: Duncan Shouler! (Giesen Wines Chief Winemaker, how to make great zero-alcohol wine, what is the Spinning Cone method for de alcholizing wine?)

Special Episode! Meet the (Wine) Makers #6: Duncan Shouler! (Giesen Wines Chief Winemaker, how to make great zero-alcohol wine, what is the Spinning Cone method for de alcholizing wine?)

What do you do if dry January - or some other dry month - is on your list, but you don’t want to give up wine? First, you need to listen to this podcast! We had the great pleasure of interviewing Duncan Shouler from Giesen Wines, and spoke to him in-depth about their zero-alcohol wines. Like many of the winemakers we talk to, Duncan did not start out to be a winemaker. In fact, he started out in marine biology and was surfing before finally listening to his calling. Duncan spent most of his career making “regular” wine, which is probably why his non-alcohol wines taste so good. In this episode, we talk to Duncan about how zero-alcohol wines are made, what the Spinning Cone process is to remove alcohol (sounds intimidating, but it’s not!), and why zero-alcohol is a category that is growing in popularity. Like all good wine, Giesen Wine is meant to be paired with food, and this is especially true for their zero-alcohol wines. Curious?!? Then listen in to learn more!

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The Wine Pair Podcast - The Best and Worst Rated Wines of 2023! (Over 115 wines rated this year, why you should trust our ratings)

Transcript

Show Notes
Episode 103: The Best and Worst Rated Wines of 2023 00:00
Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and I am doing this quick intro to the episode while Carmela works like crazy to get her Babycakes and Baby Bites ready for all of the Holiday orders.
Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode what we usually do is we learn about, taste and give our honest