Gimonnet made no Paradoxe in 2005, 2009 or 2010, and, in refreshing honesty virtually unheard of in Champagne, Didier Gimonnet questions whether 2007 offered the structure or complexity to do justice to the style. It’s certainly a more immediate wine than usual for Gimonnet, more fruit-focused and without the typical complexity, structure or acid drive […]
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2005 was a tough season in Champagne, and I find myself frequently shaking my head as to why prestige cuvées were released in this very powerful vintage at all. In this context, Gimonnet’s Special Club is not only refreshingly, surprisingly well poised for the vintage, it’s a remarkable champagne by any standard. This wine romps […]
readMillesime de Collection is the same wine as Gimonnet’s Special Club, bottled on the same day but disgorged later, for a later release. Tasted here from magnum, the contrast is surprising. With notes of flinty reduction, more expressive spice and grapefruit and more pronounced minerality, this is a wonderfully complex wine with a long future […]
read2010 was greeted with much excitement at Mount Mary, the first full release since 2006, and heralded as one of the great vintages. This was also the first with Sam Middleton heading the winemaking team. Three years later, the results in bottle certainly support the hype. There is an elegant refinement at play in the […]
readGrigio is all the rage right now, but it’s tough to find anything worth drinking at this price. La Bossa is a fresh and tangy rendition, packed with grapefruit zest and pear flavours and finishing refreshingly clean and dry. $9 at Cracka.
readIt’s easy to misjudge Mt Difficulty’s pinots on first impressions. These are not flamboyant crowd pleasers, but rather tightly-coiled, structural wines, engineered for the long-haul, with aspirations that many New World pinots can but dream of. Target Gully leads out with a wonderful assemblage of fragrant morello cherry fruit of beautiful precision and outstanding persistence. […]
readOver the past sixteen years, the vines of Bell Hill have slowly bored their way into the bedrock of New Zealand’s finest pinot noirs. There is now no doubt that this estate has reached the lofty echelons of the top handful of makers in the country, and it is this wine that confirms it. There […]
readI’ve had the privilege of assessing the beautifully defined champagnes of the Fourny brothers multiple times in Australia and France over the past two years, and I am delighted to report that these wines are on a slow but unmistakable trajectory of ascent. The latest rendition of Cuvée R is built around the splendid 2008 […]
read2011 was a warm season in Central Otago, making for a deeply coloured, concentrated and full-flavoured Felton Chardonnay of generous fig, white peach and grapefruit. A blend from Felton’s three Bannockburn vineyards, with a fruit profile that contrasts with impressively full fermentation complexity of struck flint and charcuterie. For all its flamboyant generosity, it’s held […]
readNeudorf is Nelson’s most respected name in pinot noir, and releases like this are the reason. This is a pinot of elegance and definition, with a core of black cherry and blackberry fruit, laced together with fine, silky, yet confident tannins. Classic Neudorf tension of acidity draws into a long and refined finished, with a […]
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