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    Buying decisions from trend setting trade and The Buyer tastings

    Tasting: Wine
    Château Haut Gléon

    Pairing the wines of Château Haut Gléon with 3-star Michelin cuisine

    In order to prove the food-matching potential of its wines, Languedoc estate Château Haut Gléon took the brave decision to set up a wine-pairing dinner of its range with 3-Michelin starred food. The cuisine of Gilles Goujon at Auberge du Vieux Puits is notoriously complex with one dish involving an oversize oyster that’s sealed in a smoke-filled bubble that you can only reach with a hammer. How was the meal and how did the wines match up? The Buyer’s Victor Smart needed no encouragement to jump on a plane to Languedoc to find out

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    Tasting: Wine
    Beaujolais

    Lisse Garnett on being carried away by Bien Boire en Beaujolais

    Bien Boire en Beaujolais is a wine fair like few others – a cool meeting of minds and vignerons, where the Gamay has an undertow and the brass band plays the hits of Radiohead. Most of what happens in Bien Boire en Beaujolais stays there – because participants have little or no recollection of ever having been. The Buyer’s Lisse Garnett bought a ticket and reports back (remarkably well) on 15 of the standout wines, and points out that, contrary to the wine fair, what happened in Beaujolais does not stay in Beaujolais – in fact a good deal of the whole swerve of contemporary winemaking, it could be argued, from natural wine to crunchy quaffers, was born and migrated from this very special part of Burgundy.

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    Tasting: Spirit
    Rum punch

    Marina Ray on St Kitts in search for the perfect Rum Punch 

    A basic rum punch recipe involves: one part sour, two parts sweet, three parts strong and four parts weak, but how else can we pimp this Caribbean cocktail and make it stand out from the next bar? To find out, Marina Ray travelled to St Kitts & Nevis to take a two-day Kittian RumMaster course, then sampled a wide range of differing rum punches from bars by the road, on the beach, in the bush and in the swankiest of hotels. Rum punch is served everywhere here, 24/7, which does mean… rum punch for breakfast.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Swig

    Roger Jones picks the top buys from the Swig portfolio tasting

    Swig has been a key importer at the forefront of the New South Africa movement but there is so much more to its portfolio, argues Roger Jones who highlights wines from R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia, Flint, Domaine Castera, Chateau de Messey, Henri et Gilles Buisson and Stephane Ogier as examples of fine wine at sensible prices as well, of course as his old chums from Hemel-En-Aarde in SA, Restless River.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Domaine des Tourelles

    The vision of Faouzi Issa at Lebanon’s Domaine des Tourelles

    The wines of Domaine des Tourelles can be seen as ‘off piste’ because of their limited use of oak and use of unusual varieties, but that’s one of their greatest strengths, argues Justin Keay who tastes through the range of this exciting Lebanese producer, alongside owner/ winemaker Faouzi Issa. New wines include an orange wine made with fruit from 150 year-old Merwah vines, fermented in terracotta; plus a tense, racy white made from Merwah and Obeidi – wines which Issa believes recalls Lebanon’s winemaking heyday of the 1940s and 50s.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Szamorodni

    Tokaj’s botrytised, dry, flor-aged Szamorodni: adventure in a glass

    Legend has it that the first sweet wines of Tokaj were created in the Thirteenth Century when a war delayed the harvest which ended up full of botrytised berries. True or not, Lisse Garnett was in Hungary to separate fact from fiction but also to make a fascinating personal discovery of dry Szamorodni which is a wine style here which uses botrytised fruit with the wine then fermented under flor and aged oxidatively. The results are spectacular and like an intellectual exploration in a glass, as Garnett reports

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    Tasting: Wine
    Ca’ del Bosco

    Why Ca’ del Bosco Franciacorta is no substitute for Champagne

    Alain Ducasse’s three Michelin star restaurant at the Dorchester was the setting for the launch of Ca’ del Bosco Edizione 45 and a full range tasting of Maurizio Zanella’s other Franciacortas from this prestigious North Italian estate. Dodging the blue lobster risotto, ceviche, caviar and top cuvées from the Vintage Collection was our own Victor ‘take-one-for-the-team’ Smart who came away suitably impressed.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Vajra

    Mike Turner: Why G.D. Vajra is one of Barolo’s best kept secrets

    Producing wine in a world-famous region such as Barolo can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the prestige means that your bottles will always have a market, but all too often the personalities and individuality behind each label can take a back seat to the fame of the name. On a recent fact-finding trip to Piemonte, The Buyer’s Mike Turner found a Barolo producer whose wines, and the stories behind them, highlighted the quality, charm, and sense of fun that can be found all over North-West Italy’s most famous set of vineyards.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Wiston

    Justin Keay: England’s Wiston Estate and the power of dreams

    When Wiston Estate won WineGB’s best UK contract winery award last year it was the fourth time this West Sussex-based winery had received this prestigious accolade. Richard and Kirsty Goring, who run the estate, have been busy planting new vines and opening a swanky new cellar door shop, which joins the equally-swanky on-site restaurant, Chalk. Winemaking-wise Wiston has also seen changes with head winemaker Dermot Sugrue departing after 16 years, still wines now a definite thing and a change of distributor from Swig to Fells. Justin Keay popped over to Pulborough, met up with the team and tasted through the new wines.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Armenian wines

    How GInVino’s Armenian wines are perfect fit for the on-trade

    Although sommeliers and consumers alike have become increasingly familiar with the individual qualities of wines from Georgia, Armenian wines are a lesser-known quantity. This is all the more reason for the on-trade to embrace the, argues Justin Keay, as they tick a variety of key boxes – they are gastronomic wines, made with autochtonous varieties, grown at high altitudes on ancient vines. In fact, there’s a good case for saying that these are the oldest wines on earth. Keay reports from the GInVino tasting and recommends a variety of wines to put on your buying radar.

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    Tasting: Spirit
    Foursquare

    Barbados’ Foursquare distillery on making good affordable rums

    After almost three decades producing rum in Barbados, Foursqure is still considered a newcomer, but with Mount Gay no longer producing 1703 Master Select, this most enterprising distiller senses a gap in the market, says Geoffrey Dean. Reporting from the Caribbean, Dean tours the plant and tastes through Foursquare’s range whose premium rums have a distinctive second maturation in a variety of used casks.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Chateau Sainte Roseline

    How Provence’s Sainte Roseline is an estate moving with the times

    Victor Smart tastes through the new whites, rosés and reds of Provence estate Château Sainte Roseline with owner Aurélie Bertin at Petersham Nurseries’ La Goccia restaurant in London. The challenge, Smart argues, is for this producer (who also owns and manages Château des Demoiselles) to keep moving with the times as well as keep one foot in its traditional past through which it has accomplished so much… especially with the pressures of drought, climate change and bureaucracy.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Australian Shiraz

    Roger Jones: 24 latest Australian Shiraz with a new reined-in style

    As tastes change, both of wines and the foods they’re matched with, so winemakers are responding with different styles of wine, levels of alcohol, tannin and acidity. Nowhere is this more true than with Australian Shiraz. Two decades ago these wines delivered a heck of a punch with high concentration and alcohol levels. Retired Michelin star chef and New World wine expert, Roger Jones, looks back fondly as he samples and recommends 24 of the finest new style Australian Shiraz from the latest vintages.

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    Tasting: Wine
    California wines

    Justin Keay: 12 new California wines to put on the radar

    California wines are changing with the future looking bright for alternative varieties, and wines made by new winemakers, producing contemporary styles for a younger demographic. The well known names and heavy hitters are still holding their own, argues Justin Keay, but it is in the middle bracket – the wines that sit between blue-chip estates and supermarket wines – that you can discover amazingly good value.

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    Tasting
    wanderlust tasting main

    Wanderlust tasting: Mattia Scarpazza’s sommelier review

    With so many tastings in the wine trade calendar how do busy buyers, importers and sommeliers decide which ones to go to? What makes one stand out over another? What do sommeliers, in particular, look for when they go to a trade event? To find out we asked Mattia Scarpazza, head sommelier at Petersham Nurseries, to attend the recent portfolio tasting of the fast growing Wanderlust Wine that is quietly supplying many of the hip and happening restaurants in the country.  

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    Tasting: Wine
    Toro

    How 1st generic tasting revealed a range of wine styles from Toro

    The UK’s first wine tasting dedicated to the wines of Toro was a real eye-opener, writes Robert Mason. This North-West region of Spain has long been associated with concentrated, high alcohol red wines made from its own Tempranillo clone. But last month’s tasting in London, coinciding with the 35th anniversary of the Toro DO, displayed a wide range of wine styles that were as unexpected as they were refreshing.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Guidalberto 2021

    Why Guidalberto 2021 is a wine that stands on its own two feet

    At the global launch of Guidalberto 2021, the point was made and emphasised that Guidalberto is not the second wine to Sassicaia, but a standalone wine. A Bordeaux blend, it was first produced by Tenuta San Guido 23 years ago as an experiment with Merlot and as a wine made for early consumption by a broader audience. Despite this, aged Guidalberto wines dating back to 2002 were used to show its durability with the estate’s Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta and importer Armit Wines’ Brett Fleming explaining the wine’s unique identity.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Daniel Lambert

    Elizabeth Gabay MW top picks from Daniel Lambert’s tasting

    Daniel Lambert is just as bound to share a controversial viewpoint about the wine trade as he is to introduce buyers to new and exciting wines. Eschewing a London venue for his fifth portfolio tasting, and basing it in Bristol instead, Lambert believes that the wine trade is too London-centric and proved the point, he believes, with the outcome of the event. Elizabeth Gabay MW was there for The Buyer, talks to Lambert and picks out the interesting wines from the new producers on show.

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    Tasting: Wine
    Champagne Guide Online

    Anne Krebiehl on Tyson Stelzer’s Champagne Guide Online

    Long regarded as one of the world’s leading commentators on Champagne, Tyson Stelzer has had an atypical route to the profession – as an Australian teacher from the Gold Coast. With last Thursday’s London launch of his Champagne Guide Online, however, his expert analysis becomes more readily accessible as Anne Krebiehl MW discovered when she met him for lunch, an event that included just one or two rather special bottles.

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    Tasting: Wine
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    Tasting Bodega Argento and Otronia with Juan Pablo Murgia

    The conundrum of Juan Pablo Murgia, head winemaker at Grupo Avinea, is a familiar one for Argentine winemakers… despite branching out into different styles of winemaking, using a wide range of grape varieties, all roads lead to Malbec – what the group and country is known for and what drives the wine business there. Just prior to today’s World Malbec Day, Justin Keay sat down with Murgia to taste the new wines of Bodega Argento and Otronia, talk Malbec, terroir, and the huge issues facing the exporting of wines from Argentina.

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    Instataste

    Tasting with pictures View All
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    • Waving the flag for the UK at  #Eurovision  with this bright, zingy, ultra fresh, slightly tart and very dry English dry Rosé from  #Folc   @drink .folc who have been championing premium English Rosé for the last five years thanks to its founders,  @elisha_folc  and Tom Cannon. This 2022 vintage is packed with acidity, flies around the palate and is a very welcome difference to the homogeneous, fruity Provence roses that dominate the category. Its a blend of nine grape varieties: all sourced from family-run vineyards in Kent, East and West Sussex, and Suffolk, including Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir Precoce, Bacchus, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and small amounts of Ortega, Rondo and Reichensteiner. The Cannons are also keen to make a sustainable wine and the new Folc’s bottle is made from 100% recycled glass and claims to have a 42% lower carbon footprint than non-recycled glass, with all its packaging also
    • From one Coronation to another. Thanks to  @chateausiran  for opening this bottle at lunch yesterday to toast Queen and future King. The wine was almost past its tertiary stage - everything you might expect from a 70 yo Claret - but the acidity was still there rock solid.
    • Bright, crisp, dark fruits, plums,crunchy on the palate, nice fresh acidity and a wine that can work with a myriad of dishes and going to work well with Easter Sunday Roast Lamb. Good example of what Cotes du  #roussillonvillage  AOP can do named after an indigenous flower that apparently retains its structure and colour long after picking. All of which also comes through from this old vine wine made from a blend of century-old Syrah, Mourvèdre Grenache & Carignan. Hides its chunky 14.5% abv very well. Made by  @liamsteevenson  MW and  @balthazarphwine  Benoit Bousquet using traditional winemaking skills to bring out rustic Roussillon for  #Bousquet &Fils  @immortellewines   @vineyard_productions   #wine   #frenchwine   #sommeliers   #winetasting  RS
    • Austria is in a very good place right now viticulturally – there’s an energy here and a wisdom about the best way to do things – for the wines but also the long-term health of the soil. There’s also real dynamism about grape varieties used – brilliant Grüner, Riesling and Blaunfränkisch of course, but also many more besides like this stunning Pinot Blanc from a quality-driven family of 5th-generation winemakers. All their wines are good but special mention goes to their Pinot Blancs of which there are three, the “Alte Reben” coming from 90 year old vines, the fruit rests for three days on skins and is part vinified in large oak and amphora. Greenish-yellow, ripe and rich with Williams pear, orange zest, green tea – plenty of power here but finesse and balance at the same time. Outstanding.
    • One of only 10 Masters of Wine actually making wine and the only one in South Africa, Richard Kershaw is fastidious about individual clones and vineyard plots. This outstanding Clonal Selection Chardonnay is a case in point – with fruit sourced from four clones in 11 sites with each batch vinified separately. He's making wine in Elgin whose cool climate gives great natural acidity to ‘tip the needle’ towards Burgundy. This is clean, precise, elegant with a refreshing 13.5% ABV and white fruit profile, teamed up with a mineral charge that keeps perfect balance. There is decent breadth – it’s not lean – and I liked it a lot.
    • There’s not many times in your life when you utter the words “The Romanée-Conti please” as the sommelier pours you a sample. The 2020 is an extraordinary wine that expresses itself as the most perfect manifestation of a Pinot Noir that is possible to make - impressive given how hot the vintage was (Burgundy’s hottest ever). Massive, beautiful power with an effortless confidence – fresh, vinous, pure, complex, rounded, delicate, layered, savoury – a mass of beautiful contradictions that meet with utter harmony and balance in your mouth. “Everything is perfect” my notes say – both as a descriptor of the wine and a state of mind. The Nadia Comāneci of Pinot.
    • Intense, inky dark (largely) Bordeaux blend from Bolgheri DOC that delivers good power and VFM. With 50% Merlot you expect fruit and the wine delivers ripe, black damsons and blackcurrant by the spade but with 30% Cab Sav and equal measures Petit Verdot and Syrah you also get a wonderful complexity and layers. The nose has tobacco, balsamic, bitter chocolate, while the initially warm, open palate has a tension and texture and a young (slightly green) tannic grip which manages to balance the wine well – there is a freshness which belies its 14.5% ABV. Intense yes, concentrated yes but also well put together – with or without food.
    • Under-the-radar, natural and biodynamic Bordeaux blanc made in Barsac from a blend of 90% Semillon and 10% Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle grapes vinified in cement. The nose is complex and offers honeysuckle, wild meadow flowers, sweet Comice pear; the palate is at first quite lively, mineral-charged then has a waxy ripe citrus mouthfeel with hints of papaya. Delicious, fresh, gastronomic and worth seeking out.
    • Hundred Hills, Blanc de Noirs 2019, With this extraordinarily good 100% Pinot Noir from a boutique winery in Oxfordshire there’s no denying that English sparkling really has come of age – the quality of the fruit and winemaking is right up there. The wine is sourced from a single South-facing plot, the grapes having 100 days hang time in what was a long dry vintage. Everything is in its right place. Vigorous bead, tiny bubbles, the aromatics are heaven-sent, complex with red berries and ripe orchard fruit, meadow flowers, raspberry Mivi, shortbread; the attaque is sharp and incisive, broadening with a youthful and ample creamy mousse on the palate – delicious layers of flavour that reflects the nose but also has a distinctive red apple note and ripe nectarine. The acidity is firm, structured, cleansing with a lovely balance between crisp, clean and dry on the tongue and deliciously ripe
    • A truly great wine that’s in the sweet spot of its drinking window. Complex, fresh aromatics has candied lemon, peppermint and a hint of white truffle; the palate is taut, fresh and brilliantly balanced with tart au citron, yellow grapefruit, saline, white flowers and an incredible length. A great Sancerre.
    • Good start to the year and one to bookmark for Chinese New Year. Wonderfully bright, fresh, Chardonnay from  @xige_estate  high up in the Helan mountain terroir of the exciting  #ningxia  Chinese wine region. Close your eyes and this could be straight out of Burgundy. So clean on the palate. Crisp acidity. Fresh as a mountain stream. Exciting premium Chinese wine. As China opens its doors again this could be the year for China to catch up some lost ground for exports too. You can explore the full range with  @propeller .wine that has exclusive UK distribution. Ideal for indy wine merchants and premium restaurants. Very impressed. RS  @westburycomms   @christellechene   #chinesewine   #sommeliers   #wine   #winetasting   #winemerchants 
    • Stellar vintage of Comtes from the sunny 2012 growing season. On the eye the wine is light yellow with green highlights, tight fine bead; gorgeous aromatics – surprisingly complex and evolved for a new release – with a touch of reduction, a light brioche, toasty note and white field mushroom combining well with a chalky freshness and lemon zest. In the mouth the Comtes has a crisp attack, ample mousse, bright acidity that soon fleshes out to lemon curd, orange oil, creamy orchard fruit and butteriness. The finish is beautifully balanced, refreshing and rounded. Will develop into a gem but drinking superbly well right now.
    • Classic Chateau d’Issan with greater complexity and layers on account of it adding Cabernet Franc (3%), Petit Verdot (2%) and Malbec (1%) into the blend for the first time in its history (all three grapes from plots acquired two years ago from Pontac-Lynch). There is also less Cab Sauv in the blend (55%) than there was in 2019 on account of the reduced yield. (Merlot makes up the rest) Although it has another six years to really get in its stride there’s a lovely balance between intense richness and freshness – the tannins are oh so elegant and smooth, with just that little bit of sinew on the long finish. At this stage the nose is all about black and blue fruits, violets, just a hint of cigar box; the palate is layered and lively, concentrated and fresh, notes of blackcurrant berries, currants and damsons dominate. Really quite wonderful.
    • Stunning Bruno Paillard Blanc de Blancs – sleek and fresh – from a less fruity and ‘obvious’ vintage than the 2012 and sourced from two Grand Cru villages only. Medium yellow gold with green highlights; vigorous fine bead; the nose is far more complex than at first appears and evolves in the glass: at first you find bright ripe apple, citrus and a chalky freshness; then other hints start to appear - candied lemon, apple blossom, butter pastry, nut shells, smoke; the attack is crisp, tense, evolving in the mouth, layered, taut with a citron pressé note. Despite its tautness there is good balance here, with a fine, elegant ripeness to the fruit. Really clean, lean, focused and precise – and a wine that will last decades.
    • 1982 was a classic vintage, of course, but also the start of the renaissance of Bordeaux wines. This fully mature 2nd growth, opened as part of a Léoville Poyferré 100th anniversary tasting was in a sweet spot, holding up so well and still with years ahead of it – so fresh and nicely poised is the acidity/ balance with the fruit hanging in there. Brickish red; the aromas are tertiary with cassis, tobacco, mushroom, soy, wet earth; the mouthfeel is fresh, silky smooth with sweet cassis to the fore and a eucalyptus twist on the finish. There is structure still with good balance, a sturdy core of acidity holding the wine together and maintaining delightful freshness. A stunning example of elegant, well-aged claret. Interesting was how much it changed in the glass. It was opened an hour before tasting (and not decanted) it was so full of life, then died
    • Louis Roederer Collection 243, the second release of Roederer’s re-incarnation of Brut Premier – a numbered, multi-vintage release based on the 218 vintage (60%) complemented by reserve wines from a ‘solera’ established in 2012, 10% aged in oak. It’s a smart idea and, like the inaugural 242 last year, has its own identity - more voluptuous compared to the more high-toned 242. Pale gold, energetic, fine bead; Inviting aromas of lemon tart, orange peel, all-butter pastry, stone fruit, white flowers and cream soda; there is a leesy breadth to the nose which, like the palate, is surprisingly complex; After a crisp attack the mid-palate has a luxurious mouthfeel – pillowy with considerable breadth and roundness with a textured, saline finish. On the way there are bright fruits and acids, a nuttiness, with a cleansing crispness on the upper palate. Excellent.
    • Here’s a lovely, easy drinking but also pretty grown up wine from the @YarraValley’s  @yeringstation  Victoria’s oldest producer with vines dating back to 1838. Not sure how many of those are in this The Elms Pinot Noir but at around £10 in @Waitrose it has got lots of savoury red notes and lovely freshness topped with a bit of spice on the tongue and a long elegant finish that would do very nicely against a Friday night pizza. This is the sort of Burgundian style Pinot Noir that the Yarra does so well and is made by up and upcoming winemaker Brendan Hawker who missed out on a career in medicine to turn to looking after vines instead. He says Yering is investing in “precision viticulture mapping” so it can “hunt out” the right areas to pinpoint parcels of fruit for key wines such as this luscious Pinot Noir. There
    • 2020 was a warm vintage in Bolgheri and there’s a plumpness to the fruit alright but it never overpowers in this classy red primed for earlier drinking. To look at the wine is deep ruby red with purple-red edging; the blend is Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot – generous and ripe – but with a youthful grip to the tannins. On the nose you find ripe red fruit, cherries, redcurrant, a hint of cream and milk chocolate, a lift of violets. In the mouth the wine is approachable, ripe, structured, with a sinewy streak at the core which is crying out for a ragu sauce, at this early stage of its life, for balance. In terms of winemaking the wine is vinified in steel and concrete then aged in wood barriques – 25% new – for 12 months, then blended and finished with another three months barrique-ageing.
    • Is white port Portugal’s ‘best kept secret’? More gastronomic than ruby or tawny and best served like a white wine. Kopke produces 1.5m litres a year across all categories and is arguably the leading brand. They still have this beautiful 1935 in barrel – made when Elvis Presley was born – and is bottled according to demand. Deep brown, drier style (81g r/s) with obvious complexity – dried figs, molasses and spice tin. The acidity is still a bright 5.2 and the alcohol (because of the evaporation over the years) is now 21.5% A true vin de meditation.
    • Rosé 2021, Château Galoupet, Cru Classe de Provence Worldwide rosé expert Elizabeth Gabay MW says that she’s always attracted to a rosé in a non-clear bottle as it has a story to tell and is not playing the ‘pretty in pink’ game. This is certainly the case with this debut release from Möet Hennessy’s latest project in Provence, a premium barrel-aged rosé from a rediscovered house which has a long history, but which has undergone some radical rethinking. First, the glass is amber so that 70% of it can be made from recycled glass, there is also a second wine which comes in a flat recycled plastic bottle. In organic conversion, and under the helm of ex-Krug’s Jessica Julmy, the château is aiming to be a standard bearer of sustainability in the region. As for the wine it is very classy indeed and sits quite comfortably alongside the other premium