I often recommend wines to friends and clients, and when I look at my recommendations there is a clear pattern: my recommendations are uniformly vivid, lively, and with an edge of hedonistic joy. Wine should have energy and tension rather than being impressively concentrated or intense. Some …
A Revelation in Pupillin
I have visited many wine growers over the years, and these days it takes a lot to truly surprise and thrill me. This is the unadorned truth of being a wine writer. But a few weeks back I was surprised and thrilled to my core by a young vigneron who is creating poetry and music with some …
Visit to Domaine Thomas-Collardot – Tasting the 2022s
Domaine Thomas-Collardot was one of my favourite discoveries in 2018. It's a relatively new, small estate making interesting, vivid, and pure wines in Puligny-Montrachet. That was now more than five years ago, and in the meantime, this domaine has given me with a great deal of pleasure in …
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Tedious or – Worse – Annoying Wines
This week I was planning a small yet, apparently, controversial expansion to the vin d'emotion scale to include the missing bottom end, meaning the wines I don't enjoy, or that are simply bad. This turned out to be highly charged. Calling a wine awful is clearly too much for delicate French …
Visit to Armand Heitz – Tasting the Red 2022s
I have not visited Armand Heitz since 2018, due to logistical reasons and other trivial issues. A significant number of things have happened with Armand in the interim, including a new chateau and an important expansion of his production. Armand Heitz has expanded in several areas, and while …
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