Non-French wine ranking | First-half review 2020

In order to best reflect the diversity of the wines we sell, we’ve just selected one wine from each domain for the sake of this ranking, the highest-priced one.

First and foremost, let’s note that non-French wines sold on iDealwine represent just 2.9% at auction. This is a proportion that’s growing every year, with more and more enthusiasts seeking fine wines from all over the world.

Some of the biggest names from America, Italy, Spain, Germany and others have more than proven themselves so far this year. Fortified wines, mainly from Portugal, have also seen some notably high bids, particularly in their most mature vintages.

This ranking is dominated by a bottle from Screaming Eagle, star of the Napa Valley, which sold for €2,947 in the 2010 vintage. This is a wine that has seen remarkable growth, since it would have sold for 500 or 600 euros less around a year ago. This region is represented by two other domains in the top 20. One is a bottle of 1979 Oakville from the famous Opus One, a domain that brings together the savoir-faire of Constellation Brands and Baron Philippe de Rothschild. The other – sold for €491 – comes from the little Domain Colgin, taken over by the LVMH group in 2017. This domain, well-reputed in the Napa Valley for a long time, groups together several little vineyards, and it’s the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon cuvée from IX Estate (8 hectares on Pritchard Hill) that got to be in our top 20.

Accompanying Screaming Eagle on the podium are two Portuguese wines, a 2011 Quinta do Noval port and a Madeiran wine in an amazingly mature vintage: 1820. A revolutionary year in Portugal, which undoubtedly adds a certain hint of intrigue to this bottle. Note that the word ‘solera’ usually means that the wine is a blend of several vintages. When we’re talking about especially old Madeiras, the vintage of the base wine is often labelled before subsequent years are added, so this particular bottle is likely to be made up of vintages from the 1820s rather than just from one year. Note the five other 5 Ports and Madeira wines in the table!

4th place goes, perhaps surprisingly, to a German domain! A bottle of Egon Muller’s ice wine went for €1,228. This is a high price to be sure, though it’s nothing like the sums reached by some of the domain’s trockenbeerenauslese (TBA) that we’ve had the chance to offer over the years. We await the next bottle with bated breath…

And to finish off the top 5, we have an Italian cuvée! For the first half of 2020, it’s Tuscany that has trumped its rival Piedmont thanks to the Masseto cuvée from Tenuta dell’Ornellaia, a 100% Merlot from 2001 which went under the hammer for €992. Another remarkable appearance is a wine from Gianfranco Soldera in its 2008 vintage. This is a bottle with a bit of history, since this star of the Siena region saw its casks vandalised and emptied in 2012, with an 80% loss concerning the 2007 to 2012 vintages! Aged 75, Gianfranco Soldera had to see the fruits of his labour run literally down the drain…Still, this means that the remaining wine has become collector material, hence the sale of this bottle for €737.

And in Spain, the perpetual duel between Vega Sicilia and Pingus has so far turned in favour of the former: €982 for the Unico cuvée compared to €759 for a 2004 Pingus. Two wines from Bierzo and Priorat are also featured in the top 20.

As you can see, we look for the best at iDealwine when it comes to non-French wines. It’s becoming harder to justify leaving these names out when putting together an exceptional cellar!

If you have any bottles you’d like to sell with us, get a free estimate here

See all the non-French wines on sale

Here are all our other first-half reviews by region:

Burgundy

Alsace

Bordeaux

Rhône

Loire Valley