Wine Reviews

This Blanc de Noirs from the 2009 vintage is in the perfect place for those of you who love Champagne sitting in that expressive, secondary and tertiary phase of life. There’s a rich nuttiness, like toasted hazelnuts, caramel, and brioche that is very enticing. The palate embodies those qualities in spades, with an enveloping creamy, salty decadence, supported by ultra-bright acid tension. The finish is bone dry, long, and expressive, and layered with saturating baked orchard and stone fruits, culminating with the scent of just-shaved black truffles over zesty pasta. Talk about rich!

Wow—this is something else. Poised exquisitely between tertiary complexity and youthful freshness, it unfurls aromas of white and black truffle, black cherry and spiced plum, mingling with pulverised river stone and toasted hazelnut. The mousse is voluminous yet exceptionally fine, resolving into bracing acid tension alive with zesty, flamed grapefruit-peel brightness. Full-bodied, saline and refreshing through the long finish, this masterful 2012 is crafted entirely from Pinot Noir.

Positively invigorating. Polished, refined, beautifully textured with the mineral elegance of the finest Champagnes in the world. A whole host of enticing mineral accents, like white truffle, wet slate, graphite, and iron. On the attack, the mousse is focused at first, then builds into an enveloping expansiveness. From that effervescent, expressive mousse comes a chalky mineral character that fuels the lengthy, bone-dry, acid-driven, layered finish. One of the most exceptional Champagnes you will taste this decade.

Baked orchard fruit of apple and pear, with a kind of salted quince character that becomes the resolution of the two crisp fruits, melding into a creamy palate expression supported by an ultra-frothy, superfine mousse, resolving with the kind of mineral tension that comes from the best Champagnes in the world. It’s like wet river stones or slate, crushed up, and pulled from a river fed by mountain spring water. So fresh, so energetic and invigorating. That a Champagne can elicit such a visceral reaction is a testament to its brilliance.

This longtime grower, with approximately 12 acres of vines, began producing Champagne under its own label in 2008. Beautifully fine-boned, it offers citrus and orchard fruit framed by an ultra-fine, persistent bead. Expressive salinity and wet-stone minerality run throughout, with an undercurrent of hazelnut and stone fruit carrying the long, mineral-driven finish.

This Vermentino is explosively aromatic, bursting out of the glass with lemon-lime fruit, lime blossoms, a touch of honeysuckle, and salty sea-spray minerality. Medium-bodied, with a luscious fruit core of orchard and stone fruit, and a long, saline-acid finish. At 12.5% alcohol, it’s a fabulous lunchtime wine and pairs well with hard cheeses and charcuterie.

This blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Mourvèdre comes from grapes sourced from the Napa and Sonoma AVAs. Sweet berry fruit, redolent of candied watermelon and salty sea spray notes, with a bright, frothy mousse through to a medium-bodied, fruit-driven finish.