In looking back at 2024, the format follows previous years. Here, I will give you a few boring statistics before mentioning the highlights of my year. I like to mix it up, some wine things (wine books, tastings, rising stars to watch, that sort of thing) and some music (my other passion), both listening to and reading about. It gives a flavour of my 2024.

My wines of the year will follow in a separate article. In theory there’s a wine for each month, and twelve clear winners get a plug, but sometimes there is another wine which runs it close, or perhaps a classic, well-known, wine that perhaps didn’t get WOTM purely for that reason, so they get a mention. That article comes soon.

I said we shall begin with some boring statistics, but actually I think readers are interested in some of these, especially finding out which articles have been the most read in the year. We have seen a different selection in 2024, with some old favourites, and some long-time chart toppers still proving popular. If any take your fancy, check them out.

The figures are skewed because by far the most hits are on my home page, and therefore whatever has most recently been published at the time. The following dozen are therefore articles, or search terms, which have been specifically looked for. So far this year I have written fifty-two articles including this one, and my site has had just over 52,000 views (as of 30 December). That is pleasingly close to my best year so far (2021) which saw 52,809 views. I am not sure how close I shall get to that by midnight on 31 December, but I’m happy that writing all this stuff is apparently worthwhile.

1. Tourist Jura: Although I added a paragraph pointing out the things that are now out of date in this 2020 article, it continues to prove popular.
2. Tongba, A Study of Emptiness: Low alcohol Tibetan fermented millet drink that empties body and mind. Oddly enough it has less effect the higher the altitude (2016).
3. Extreme Viticulture in Nepal: Pataleban Estate (2019 visit).
4. Vin Jaune: A homage to one of my favourite wine styles (2023).
5. Jura Wine Ten Years On by Wink Lorch (Book Review)(August 2024). Only published in August and still the fifth most searched article of the year. Well done, Wink, it’s a great book.
6. Pergola Taught: Yes, we can learn a lot from Pergolas, on several levels (2021)
7. The Solent Cellar: one of my series looking at great independent wine shops, this one in Lymington, Hampshire (April 2024).
8. The New Viticulture by Jamie Goode: (Book Review)(2023). Jamie’s big one…how we do it and what we can achieve when we do things differently is my take on this important work.
9. Rewilding Bordeaux, Feral Art et Vin: Russell and Sema Faulkner’s amazing natural wine shop in the centre of Bordeaux’s old city (February 2024). Compare their prices to ours in the UK and you may cry, and what taste they have!
10. Butlers Wine Cellar: Another wonderful indie wine shop, this one a Brighton institution (March 2024)
11. Wines of the Aveyron: I first visited this old wine region in 1989. Since then, it has crept onto the wine map and into our natural wine consciousness (2020).
12. Paradise Lost: A eulogy for two much-missed winemakers, Pascal Clairet of Domaine de la Tournelle (Arbois, Jura) and Dominique Belluard (Domaine Belluard, Savoie). Both are missed (2021).

My Blog, Wideworldofwine, was read by people in 119 countries in 2024. Around 32,700 views were from addresses in the UK. The USA follows (5,100), then followed by France, Australia and Nepal (the latter with 1,300 views). Eighteen of those 119 countries had just one hit apiece, but I’d love to know what those solitary readers from places like Vanuatu, Ethiopia, Laos, Kyrgyzstan and the Aland Islands read? I was a little disappointed to see only two views from Bolivia, seeing as I know two people living or working there.

I wrote six book reviews about newly published wine books in 2024. I’m going to part with tradition this time and not name one Wine Book of the Year because all of these books warrant a place on the shelf of any serious wine geek.

I’ve already mentioned Wink Lorch’s Jura Wine Ten Years On, an essential read for any Jura fan, and a well-timed and much needed update. So much has happened there in ten years. Camilla Gjerde gave us another excellent people-focused book, Natural Trailblazers. It features a group of people who are tackling the big issues in wine, but they are not all winemakers. Some get a mention further on in this article.

Natural Wine, No Drama by Honey Spencer is a real feelgood read about the natural wine movement, which she has been at the heart of for many years (despite her young age). It ranges from cutting edge producers to ways to enjoy natural wine. Max Allen is my favourite author writing on Australian wine, and having shouted loud that we are no longer seeing enough Australian artisan wines on the UK market in 2024, this book, Alternative Reality (about the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show) was timely. There’s an awful lot of great wine we never see.

Just before Christmas I reviewed two contrasting books. Pascaline Lepeltier’s (translated into English) One Thousand Vines is definitely a very important work. For its scope, detail and future perspective, it requires a focused read but will act as an important reference for many years to come. By way of contrast, Jamie Goode on Wine is a lighter read than his last, equally important, book. For a tenner you get forty-plus essays on everything from viticulture and winemaking to more philosophical questions. It’s the perfect size and price and will provide thought-provoking entertainment on wine’s bigger picture in easily digestible pieces.

During 2024 I went to several tastings and met some new wine people, some of whom you will doubtless hear more of in 2025. I do really miss my old wine friends from London and the South of England, which is why it was so good that there was a Real Wine Fair in 2024. What Les Caves de Pyrene, and Doug Wregg and the team, put on here is incomparable. I get to taste the best natural wines available in the UK and to meet most of those friends. The fun continued for me at Noble Rot Soho, for an equally incomparable small after party. Poulet and morilles in Vin Jaune was the star. That was my best meal of 2024 (Reviewed 20 June, following three Real Wine articles).

The best of the Edinburgh tastings in 2024 saw Newcomer Wines show their wares at Montrose (Timberyard’s new sister), whilst Modal Wines and Basket Press Wines both hit Spry Wines at the top of Leith Walk for their trade tasting venue. All of 2024’s tastings were good (Jamie Goode’s Bulgarian masterclass at the Hotel du Vin, Bergerac’s Maison Wessman at Tipo and Ally Wines in Stockbridge come to mind), but for one or two fabulous new discoveries, especially from Spain’s Gredos mountains, from Portugal (various regions) and from New South Wales, Graft Wine’s tasting at Hawksmoor in October would be hard to beat.

I did miss some big ones whilst being away. Tutto had a trade tasting, and Timberyard hosted their famous Wild Wine Fair once again. Equally, having been to Cork & Cask’s Winter Wine Fair in 2022 and 2023, I was sorry to be on holiday and miss that. I hope the small indie merchants and importers keep plugging away at the Scottish market. Their wines deserve to be in the shops.

As an aside, if anyone from Tutto reads this, could you let me know who is taking wines from you up in Edinburgh, as I know you can’t deliver to private customers here.

As for the wine shops, well a few of those I try to order from have featured in my most read articles. I did also write about Edinburgh’s Cork & Cask in October, and they remain the Edinburgh retailer I have bought most wine from in 2024. However, I must thank Smith & Gertrude, Spry Wines, Valvona & Crolla, Winekraft, and a new discovery, Communiqué Wines, for the wonderful bottles you are introducing to Edinburgh, and in most cases to budding fans of natural and low-intervention wines up here. Spry, the restaurant, and Montrose are smashing it with food and natural wine’s symbiotic relationship.

You may have read a few reviews of cider, or at least a few more than usual this year. That follows a couple of visits to Aeble Cider Bar and Shop over at Anstruther (Fife). I shall hope to continue to visit them in 2025.

I want to mention some STARS OF 2024. These five winemakers were all discoveries I made during 2024, when I first tasted their wines, the exception being the last one below, whose now solo output found a UK importer this year. They all have an extremely bright future if economics and harvests favour them.

1. Mira Nestarcová (Moravia, Czechia): Mira makes her own wines, and if you think she is in the shadow of her more famous husband, Milan Nestarec, you are wrong. She fashions a small range of varietal wines from unpruned and low intervention vines which are so exciting. From Basket Press Wines.
2. Las Pedreras (Sierra de Gredos, Spain): First tasted at Graft Wine’s Edinburgh tasting in October, a friend visited them subsequently. A real find by the Graft team because these people are stars of tomorrow.
3. Maison Maenad (Jura, France): Canadian-born Katie Worobeck has an impeccable CV and practises regenerative viticulture in Jura’s south, near Orbagna, not far from Ganevat, with whom she worked on moving to the region. Read about her in Camilla Gjerde’s book (mentioned above, books of the year). I was introduced to her by Russell at Feral (Bordeaux).
4. Racines Rebelles (Moselle, Luxembourg): Kaja Kohv was originally from Estonia but is now making outstanding and original wines on the banks of the Moselle (as the Mosel is called there). Another introduction from Feral in Bordeaux, Kaja was introduced to Russell there by that rising star of Germany’s wider Mosel region, Jonas Dostert.
5. Yannick Meckert (Alsace, France): I was introduced to Yannick’s wines when he was in partnership with Vanessa Letort (Du Vin aux Liens, imported by Sevslo Wines in Glasgow). Yannick has since gone solo, making wine near Obernai. He was swiftly pounced on by the astute Tutto Wines, who now import his wines, which he will find increasingly expensive now, on the UK market, where quite a few of us have realised his potential. Again, head for Camilla Gjerde’s “Natural Trailblazers” (p199) to read more about Yannick, along with friends Florian Beck-Hartweg and Jean-Mark Dreyer.

Indulge me a little with the non-wine stuff. If I had to give up either wine or music, I’m afraid it would have to be wine. I don’t only read about wine and music but two of my best reads of 2024 were music books.

Bass Culture by Lloyd Bradley (Penguin, 2001) for some reason had passed me by until I saw a friend was reading it. It’s effectively a history of Jamaican music, including ska, reggae and beyond, made in Jamaica and in England as well. It goes deep and it truly re-ignited a musical passion I had in the 1970s. Thankfully I still have almost all of those 70s albums as they are hard to get hold of in some cases today.

Rebel Music – Music as Resistance by Joe Mulhall (Footnote, 2024) is a reminder that in an increasingly nasty world, some things are worth fighting for, and that music has played its part in a number of struggles of one kind or another. In a few cases it still does.

My son bought me Rebel Music. My daughter is well known for her ability to find all kinds of wonders in charity shops. Aside from many items of clothing, she found Electric Wizards – A Tapestry of Heavy Music. Its scope is far wider than you might think. Written by JR Moores (2021).

As for listening to music, I was introduced by my son to a new record label this year, Analog Africa. Through them I’ve discovered disco guitar bands from Somalia and Cumbia Amazonica from Peru, but topping the list has to be an artist called Bitori whose recording “Legend of Funaná” was put out on Analog Africa in 2016, but which I discovered this year. Hot, danceable, accordion music from Cape Verde (AALP 081). It really is that good.

Joint record of the year, and equally exciting, was a Christmas present from my son. The band is Bab L’Bluz and the album is called “Swaken”. It’s like psychedelic blues rock meets Moroccan/North African trance rhythms. Recorded and released this year on Realworld, LPRW259.

Also, in 2024 we saw the release of Romance, the new record from Fontaines DC, which vies with Skinty Fa (2022) as their best so far (IMHO). XL Recordings, XL1436LP.

Another ’24 favourite is the latest release from BBC3 New Generation Artist and Mercury nominee Fergus McCreadie. A local boy, I saw him this year in Edinburgh with his jazz trio and friends to promote this album, and then later playing the Tango of Astor Piazzolla and others with an amazing ensemble in a small market town as part of the Lammermuir Festival. The album is called “Stream”.

Finally, I’m a big fan of ace bassist Stanley Clarke. My son-in-law’s brother lives in New York and he found a double live album, “I Wanna Play for You”, for just $14.99 second hand. I have temporarily stolen it. It seems to go for over £100 in the UK, which perhaps shows how crazy vinyl prices are here. I guess there’s just more vinyl over there, and less of a frenzy. Anyway, the LP includes musicians such as Jeff Beck, George Duke, Steve Gadd, Stan Getz and many more. You can get this on CD but I’m told some of the best tracks from this double album have been removed. I have until mid-January to make the most of it on vinyl and then I might just cave and buy it on CD.

Unusually I made no trips to overseas vineyards this year, though visiting Tim Phillips’s vines in Hampshire is always a genuine treat that cannot be beat. I wrote about that in “The Wonderful World of Charlie Herring” (23 August). Otherwise, my visits were to Nepal, plus a couple of trips north, to the vine-free Highlands. However, if you like wine travel I published two articles back in October choosing my favourite wine regions from a tourist perspective.

I’m not sure what 2025 will bring, but I hope that fellow wine lovers get to drink some fabulous bottles. Hopefully those that I drink and write about will give a little vicarious pleasure too. Remember, I don’t get paid for this so even a little feedback means a lot.