PJ Wine's 2025 Wine Of The Year Is.......

 

2025 is quickly coming to an end; some will be sad, some will rejoice, but no matter how you feel about it, I think we can all agree it’s been a wild year for sure. But with the end of the year comes one of the greatest things that will ever happen to a New York wine drinker… Our Wine Of The Year! 

Every year, we amass some of our favorite wines for our Wine of the Year blind tasting. We taste wines from the past year that have impressed us and really over-delivered for their respective price points. We then place them in brown paper bags to remove any bias and we taste!

Tasting blind can be quite humbling but also very educational. Sometimes, you are sure you are tasting a specific grape, and it turns out you weren’t. This type of tasting lets you analyze the wine’s components, break it down, and see how it stacks up against the competition.

This year, we had forty wines as contenders for our Wine of the Year, but only one can come out on top. The winner is… Oenos Mittas Naoussa Xinomavro 2022! I know, the name is a handful, but let's break it down. Oenos Mittas is the name of the winery/family, Naoussa is the place in Greece, and Xinomavro is the variety. Hopefully, that clears this up.

That’s right, a Greek wine won our Wine Of The Year blind taste-off - how cool is that?! If you are a wine enthusiast, you owe it to yourself to experience this wine, because that is exactly what it is, an experience. The bouquet is hypnotizing as it wafts from the glass, crushed strawberries, sour cherry galore. The wine displays a beautiful medium-bodied red color, akin to fresh Nebbiolo. The palate is texturally soft, focused, and very structured, finishing with fine semi-firm tannins. 

Who would like this wine? Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo drinkers will go crazy for this wine. If you enjoy the wines from Sicily’s Mount Etna, this will be right up your alley. If you enjoy medium-bodied wines with structure that unwind in the glass, revealing more and more, you will love it!  

We are stoked that a Greek wine won our Wine Of The Year, a wine that might not get the attention it deserves will now. Our top three wines of the tasting couldn’t be more different from one another, but each is exceptional at what it offers. The Oenos Mittas Naoussa Xinomavro 2022 just offered an incredible, unique experience and we love that.

Enjoy!


Oenos Mittas Naoussa Xinomavro 2022
Shelf Price $28.99
Sale Price $24.97

A traditional Greek red wine made from organic 100% Xinomavro grapes by young winemaker Yiannis Mittas in the Naoussa region, known for its intense red fruit (cherry, plum), earthy notes (leather, tapenade), spice, and firm tannins, offering a complex, food-friendly profile often compared to Nebbiolo, excellent with lamb, and valued for its quality and value. 

The Mittas family is one of the oldest in Naoussa, one of the most well-known appellations for the red variety Xinomavro, in northern Greece. Xinomavro offers higher acidity levels and lower alcohols while balancing the tannins. The soils in Naoussa are characterized by more clay and less sand, as well as considerable limestone, compared to neighboring areas. The climate here is continental. The style of the wines being made by Mittas is broadly traditional. Low-intervention farming (the vineyards are now fully converted and licensed as organic) and wine making are the general rule. The wine is aged for a year in French oak barrels, 25% first use, and then for an additional year in the bottle. The wine opens beautifully with a bit of time in a decanter. 

 

2nd Place   Loren Crossing Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2023
Shelf Price $28.99
Sale Price $21.97

Loren Crossing came in at second place, out of forty wines, in our Wine Of The Year 2025 blind taste-off!

A super-savory nose of bay leaves, cracked pepper and sage, with layers of dark chocolate, ripe plums, blackberries and coffee. Silky on the palate, with robust, opulent red and dark fruit, juicy acidity and ripe tannins that feel well integrated. Over-delivers for a value wine. - James Suckling

Handpicked grapes picked from Napa Valley, with a large portion grown in St Helena. Destemmed and crushed for native yeast primary fermentation in closed-top vats on the skins for 24 days. The wine was racked to 40% new French oak barrels from Seguin Moreau, Boutes, Taransaud, and Nadalie for complete malolactic conversion, followed by 16 months of aging
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon & 10% Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec & Petit Verdot

 

3rd Place  Chateau La Canorgue Luberon Rouge 2023
Shelf Price $23.99
Sale Price $18.97

Third place finisher in our 2025 Wine Of The Year blind taste-off!

Organic / Biodynamic
A truly transporting wine with beautiful dark, spicy fruits, classic garrigue aromas and flavors of wild Provencale herbs. It would be an amazing pairing with roasted lamb or anything on the grill. Provence in a glass!

60% Syrah, 30% Grenache, 10% old vine Carignan and Mourvedre. Sixty acres of terraced vineyards surround the property. Average vine age is 30 years old. East-west exposure on the northern slopes on clay-limestone. Biodynamically farmed, all grapes hand-harvested. Traditional vinification methods are used with indigenous yeasts and fermented in stainless steel. Aged in large foudres. 

Nestled in the hills just below the spectacular perched village of Bonnieux, this idyllic property is run by Jean-Pierre and Martine Margan. The building is from the 17th century and has been inhabited ever since. Springing from the hill is a very strong fountain which supplies abundant amounts of water in even the driest years and the rolling hills behind the property are covered with grape vines, truffle oak trees and 200 year old cherry trees. The Margans know that they have something very special going, and their approach to viticulture reflects this. The sixty acres of terraced vineyards surrounding the property are farmed organically and biodynamically and the average age of the vines is over thirty years old. In the last few years, Canorgue’s wine has become incredibly popular in Europe, and this was only intensified when the region around this estate was made famous in Peter Mayle’s book A Year In Provence. They are undoubtedly at the top of their appellation and the quality level of the wines produced here can often rival those produced in the prestigious vineyards of the southern Rhône valley.