The Best of 2015: A Vintage to Remember

Wine Team New York | June 10, 2023

This Sotheby’s Wine selection explores the benchmark 2015 vintage through several star wine regions around the world, revealing the nuances of a historically great harvest that elicited some of the best showings in years from many top estates.

Every vintage manifests uniquely for each appellation and even sub-appellation, as different soil types, grape varieties, climates, and farming practices shape the impacts of the year. But for growers, certain characteristics were consistent across much of Europe, and even the United States. By and large, 2015 was hot and dry, relieved by serendipitous rains that often arrived in the nick of time to refresh thirsty vines. While yields were trimmed, concentration was excellent, leading to a group of stunning, intense wines with superb age-worthiness.

In Bordeaux, where the vintage was hailed as the greatest since the monumental 2010, the season’s dry warmth was tempered by cool nights and late precipitation that bolstered freshness and aromatic complexity in the grapes. Saint-Julien was a standout, with stars Château Léoville Poyferré and Château Talbot showing spectacular richness and power balanced with a classic Left Bank cut.

In Spain, the oldest vineyards proved most resilient when heatwaves hit in 2015, making the Familia Torres Mas La Plana an absolute must-buy. A legendary bottling that is arguably Spain’s best-known Cabernet, it’s crafted from a vineyard over 50 years in age, where plants rooted deep in sand and stone produced a dense, peppery, dark-fruited powerhouse.

In Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s robust 2015 vintage, Domaine Charvin released what some critics have called possibly its finest bottling ever. Across the Atlantic, Napa icon Colgin met with similar luck, as its IX Estate Red – drawn off an idyllic east-facing slope of Pritchard Hill – debuted to multiple perfect scores.

Consider the list below your curated Sotheby’s Wine guide to buying the best of a year that’s already proving to be a major highlight of the decade.