The Golden Monkey Awards of 2025
Exclusively, from the tardiest wine journal in the world!
To commemorate the passing of 2025, we are launching a re-brand of the Indelible Wine Stain “Wine Stains of the Year”.
Ladies and Gentlemen and “Winestainers of the World” - welcome to the…
Golden Monkey Awards 2025
Golden Monkey Wine of the Year
Philippe Gonet, “Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs,” Champagne 2011
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger were an overly touchy friend? Well, here it is. We are touched, in a good way.
This bottling sits comfortably in that “serious Blanc de Blancs” lane.
The one with the toasted and grilled nuts, the moka-smoka accents, the brioche, the creaminess. But then, what’s that? a citrus lift?
There is a minerality that won’t stop making eye contact. It’s awkward at first.
But then… we love it and we know you will too.
Other Wine Magazines’ Wines of the Year
While we toast to our top pick, here’s our usual look at what our rival publications deemed as some of the best of the best in 2025:
La Revue du Vin de France (France):
Jean-Marc Burgaud, Morgon Côte du Py 2023
One of the highly regarded wines of the year is a Gamay from the volcanic slopes of Morgon that marries dizzy-dazzling mineral freshness with concentrated red fruit...but we should note that it is now happy to be known as Mr. & Mrs. Dizzy-Dazzling Mineral Freshness.
Gambero Rosso (Italy):
E. Pira e Figli, Barolo Mosconi 2021
From Piedmont’s steep, calcareous slopes emerge Nebbiolo that sings of tar and roses, iron and licorice like a wine-centric, Italian version of Mary Poppins. Maria Poppini, if you like.
Decanter (UK):
Clos Apalta 2022, Colchagua Valley, Chile
One of Decanter’s standout wines of 2025 is this rich Bordeaux-style blend from Chile, where power meets elegance. It makes us think of plush dark berries growing in an espresso-dust dessert.
The Wine Advocate (International):
Ramey, Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay 2022
In a year of red noise, WA highlighted this Chardonnay as outstanding instead. It’s a wine with a Dr. Jekyll soul and a Mr. Hyde streak. All lime-oil brightness and saline snap on the surface but with a sudden turn into toasted almond richness that might stalk the foggy London nights.
Vinous (Europe):
Clos Apalta 2022, Colchagua Valley, Chile
Vinous’s 2025 panel couldn’t ignore this Andean heavyweight. A velvet-gloved bruiser of a blend, layering black plums and cassisiness over Polished tannins.
Wine Spectator (USA):
Château Giscours, Margaux, Bordeaux 2022
Top honors went to this classic West-Bank Bordeaux. Faintly dangerous, intense fruit character with impeccably tailored tannins. A Peaky-Blinder.
Wine Enthusiast (USA):
Catena Zapata Adrianna Vineyard White Bones Chardonnay 2023, Argentina
Stony minerality, mineral stonality, citrus brightness and bright citrus-ness make you forget everything you thought you knew about Argentine whites.
Jeb Dunnuck (USA):
Clos Apalta 2022, Colchagua Valley, Chile
Jeb’s palate lined up with Vinous this year. He lauded Clos Apalta as one of the most compelling wines of 2025, a bold yet refined expression of Cabernet-styled synergy from South America.
James Suckling (International):
Château d’Issan, Margaux, Bordeaux 2022
Suckling’s fancy also came from Margaux. Silky as a silk merchant on the silk road. It takes a lot of effort to seem effortless.
It looks like a great year for South America and Margaux!
Golden Monkey Winery of the Year
Llopart of Penedès
Llopart is the kind of estate where continuity becomes substance rather than slogan. The family’s documented involvement in viticulture goes back 600 years, over 25 generations.
The estate at “Can Llopart de Subirats” occupies an important place within Penedès and like a few others, aligns itself with the demanding standards of Corpinnat.
We’re awarding the “Golden Monkey Winery of the Year” not for volume of product or visibility at wine events, but for their consistency and pure intent.
Llopart’s work is built on patient viticulture, long ageing, and a clear refusal to treat sparkling wine as something casual or disposable. Their Corpinnat cuvées lean into the indigenous grapes, Xarel·lo, Macabeu and Parellada, with extended lees ageing that gradually reshapes fruit into deep layers and structure, where texture and mineral detail matter as much as aroma.
These are serious sparkling and still wines.
Grounded in place and shaped by the keepers of time.
Golden Monkey Vineyard of the Year
The Finca Piedra Infinita of Paraje Altamira, Uco Valley by Zuccardi
This vineyard sits on an alluvial fan, jam-packed with stones and calcium-rich rocks. In fact, in 2009, Zuccardi had to move thousands of truckloads of them just to plant and develop it. Those very same rocks were used in the winery!
The name translates to “Infinite Stones,” as a reminder to what it truly is.
It sits at 1100m above sea level, on the upper reaches of the Tunuyán River’s alluvial fan. Altamira itself gained “GI” status in 2013, and this site has become one of the clearest demonstrations of why that recognition matters: the identity here is driven by soil and altitude rather than by brand or style.
Zuccardi spent years studying the vineyard row by row, eventually dividing it into 12 soil-type variations to guide both viticulture and harvest decisions.
The flagship “Finca Piedra Infinita Malbec” is drawn from the shallower, stoniest plots, where the limiting conditions tend to produce a more tensile, mineral profile.
In the cellar, the choices are deliberately restrained. With native-yeast fermentations, a heavy use of concrete vessels and an approach designed to keep the vineyard’s character centrally focused rather than overlaying the grape and ferment character it with an oak or extraction over-coat.
Golden Monkey Winemaker of the Year
Greg La Follette
We are honored to award this great vigneron, the Golden Monkey for 2025.
He is one of those rare winemakers whose résumé reads like Al Pacino.
He’s been credited with designing-slash-redesigning 14 wineries and has been a consultant for UC Davis’ teaching winery.
He has played foundational roles with California “who’s who,” including helping to start La Crema, Hartford Court at Kendall-Jackson and launching Flowers into cult status.
He may well have been the last person to be mentored by none other than legend, André Tchelistcheff.
He can be credited for outstanding indigenous yeast research as well as his work creating a benchmark in the “gravity-flow-slash-green” winery.
We urge you to look him up… he has a long and incredibly interesting history.
Greg is an original.
An Indelible Wine Stain.
The Golden Monkey Wordstain of the Year
Other publications chose their words carefully:
Dictionary.com: “67”
Perfect for describing a wine with balance.
Merriam-Webster: “Slop”
Easily applied to those, bulk-produced, chemically enhanced (arguably) wines.
Oxford: Rage-bait (A.K.A. gaslighting)
Here at the Indelible Wine Stain Golden Monkey Awards, after a robust debate, mild chaos and a baguette-sword fight between Jake Botcher and Timotay Rollakin, our Wordstain of the year is:
Meaty
Not “Gamey.” Not “Umami.” Not “Porky.”
No, it’s Meaty.
A word for wines that don’t just have fruit, they have mass.
Texture like a’licking a chicken and aromas that suggest a winter broth.
We think that Pinot Noir can be meaty. Syrah lives in Meat Town.
Mature Rioja is the Mister Monopoly of Meat-Town.
Golden Monkey Food & Wine Pairing of the Year
Nicolas-Jay Estate, “Bishop Creek,” Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley 2021
paired with
Dry-Aged Duck Crown, Cherry–Duck Jus with Smoked Beet
Prepared for the Spring menu at our favorite - Le Poulet de Caoutchouc in Paris.
Bishop Creek Pinot 2021 reads like a gothic parade of black cherries, anise, roasted plum and forest-floor freshness.
You know that smell when you first split a granite block with a good mallet? That cool, dusty, mineral lift sits right on the mid-palate here, before the wine opens into something closer to blackberry crumble and dark spice.
The dish was built as a matching argument rather than a garnish. A dry-aged duck crown for depth and tension, with a farce slipped under the skin-duck leg confit, porcini, black truffle peelings, and toasted rye crumbs for texture and woodland resonance.
Smoked beet brings an earthy sweetness that behaves like Pinot fruit without turning the plate into dessert. A cherry-duck jus, mounted with just a touch of browned butter, ties acid, fat and dark fruit together…the whole thing is finished with a sneeze of fennel pollen and cracked black pepper.
Why this wins Pairing of the Year is simple and slightly brutal.
The Pinot and the dish don’t flatter each other.
They interlock like a Chinese finger trap.
Each tightens the other’s grip, and neither will let go first.
Cheers to all of you magnificent winners of the Golden Monkey Awards!
In memory of our beloved friend, Majid the Monkey RIP.