World Wine – Garnet red to purplish disc, good depth and clear. Expressive nose of ripe fruit, dominated by blackcurrant and strawberry purée with cedar notes. The attack is fresh and lively, the palate is round, fleshy with sap and tension. Nice length with ripe tannins and fine allies at a gourmet fruit.

World Wine – This 2016 vintage of Emilien is a real gem and one of the best wines I tasted in 2019. As with all vintages the first thing that strikes you is the glorious jewel-like colour. The nose is attractively fruity, with ripe red fruit aromas dominated by cassis and redcurrant with hints at sous-bois and gravel. The palate is silken, medium-bodied and precise, with velvety tannins paving the way for long and complex finish. A wine of great finesse, sensual in its youth but also with the potential to age and grow for several decades. The epitome of elegance and refinement.

World Wine – This is quite simply great drinking. A blend of 70% Merlot 20% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, the Duc de Nauves is Bordeaux made without manipulation so it is fruity, lithe, sensual and delicious. As someone who has had only one eye open to the wines of Bordeaux for most of my career, this wine actually made me smile! Here is a super, fruit driven wine offering amazing value for the quality.

World Wine – “Barthelemy” is Le Puy’s crowning achievement—the fruit is from their greatest, highest-altitude, poorest-topsoil site, which is treated even more minimally in the cellar than the “Emilien” above, and released several years after bottling. Like the Emilien, the Barthelemy is fermented in huge cement vats without human involvement. But, whereas the Emilien spends its first year in large foudres and its second in barriques, the Barthelemy is moved directly into barriques—gross lees and all—for its two-year elevage. During that time, it is “dynamized”—stirred gently in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise strokes—at each full moon, and the lees are subsequently subsumed over time. This ultra-labor-intensive method nourishes the wine and protects it against oxidation, and no sulfur is applied at any point in the process, from harvest to bottling. Even so, the Barthelemy is perfectly stable and can age for many decades, as proven stunningly in a one-hundred-year vertical tasting the Amoreaus hosted in New York last year. 85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon..

World Wine – "The bombastic complexity that defines Bollinger rises to a grand and flamboyant crescendo in the mighty 2012 season. True to the vintage, it presents a medium straw hue, deeper in colour, tone and mood than the dynamic 2008 before it. The pure red and black cherries of ripe pinot noir from the grand slopes of Aÿ are masterfully toned by the perfume and energy of the north-east-facing hillside of Verzenay, backed by the citrus zest of Le Mesnil and Oiry chardonnay. It’s simultaneously ripe, juicy, zesty and tense, with fruit presence of tantalising beauty seamlessly fused with fine chalk minerality and an acid line of sensational drive, yet at every moment perfectly ripe and effortlessly integrated. Fruit rightly takes a confident lead here, with the fig, spice, honey and roast almond of barrel fermentation and bottle age welling up in a rising background chorus. The modern era of Bollinger’s attentiveness in the vineyards and cellar characterises a style ever more pure and seamless. This does nothing to diminish the multifaceted layers of signature complexity of Bollinger. Indeed, it somehow manages to pull off the feat of achieving precisely the opposite, magnifying and focusing its myriad details with greater clarity than ever. This serves to present the mood of the season with more articulate typicity than ever, while celebrating all of the rumbling depth and power that we love of Bollinger. While it won’t live as long as the enduring 2008 (no house will) it achieves equal heights of fantastic line and incredible length. The result is consummately 2012, emphatically Bollinger and gloriously, irresistibly delicious." 98 points, Tyson Stelzer