Calvados, sauvignon Blanc, Gre...

Pete Schell's Papillon and I have had a thing going for a while. If I spy it on a wine list it's often what I'll go for as it consistently delivers a great drinking experience and matches a range of foods. This year it's 66/31/3% grenache/cinsault/counoise 3%. Spacious, sapid and energetic, it's all raspberries and cranberries daubed with exotic spice, rose petals, sour cherry, dried herbs and stone. That whoosh of sour red plum at the end gets me every time. So good! (95) DAVE BROOKS, thewinecompanion

This is 66% grenache, 31% cinsault and 3% counoise. Always the shapeshifter is Papillon.
Cool and fresh. Lively and bright. A chillable, slurpy, crunchy red emerges. Red cherry, raspberry, cranberry, alpine herbs, some menthol-like lift, aniseed and pepper, a touch of white chocolate. Good energy here. Some real get up and go. Freshness implicit. Cool. MIKE BENNIE, The Wine Front

Light cherry red hue. Raspberry, blueberry and anise aromas. Bright on the palate: juicy raspberry fruits with hints of rosemary and dusty earth adding complexity. The freshness of the acidity makes for a deliciousness that really appeals, and tannins kick through at the back end to dry the finish. STUART KNOX, The Real Review

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

This wine has dropped the Bozeto styling and is now simply called Exopto. New name, same vibrant, great-value Rioja. This pan-regional expression of Rioja’s three principal grape varieties is conceived as a lively, easy-drinking introduction to the range. Most entry-level wines from this region are based on Tempranillo (a variety easier and more profitable to grow), yet here Garnacha represents 65% of the blend. This Garnacha hails from very old vines in the sandy, river-stone terroirs of El Agudo and Al Casillón at Alfaro (Rioja Oriental). The Tempranillo is drawn from a selection of mature vines in Ábalos (high-county Rioja Alta), and some Ábalos Graciano adds freshness and finesse.

The wine ferments in a combination of concrete and steel tank, then ages for six months in concrete and 5,000-litre oak vats. These days, Tom includes a measure of semi-carbonic maceration for extra buoyancy. Opening with perfumes of dusky berries and well-judged spice, this is a wonderfully aromatic, restaurant-friendly wine. It’s a wine that impresses with its precision rather than power. Even so, the warmer year gives an open, juicy wine and a great deal of drinking pleasure: spice, vibrancy and velvety flow flecked with notes of espresso, dried flowers and wild woody herbiness to go with its smoky blackberry fruit. If you’re looking for a bright, succulent grower Rioja, few will deliver better value than this.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

It’s a new plot of vineyard (on the estate) and this is the first year where there was enough crop to make/release a wine. It was fermented wild in old oak and then matured in a (not new) 1000l foudre.

Time in old oak was important here because it’s added texture to what is, at heart, a structural white wine. It’s a wine of skin and bones, stones and spices, its dryness a key part of its appeal. We’re almost into brine territory here, or stones sitting in a saline solution, perhaps. It knows what it wants, and it wants for food. This is a good, interesting wine, worth buying and drinking, and future releases will be worth following. CAMPBELL MATTINSON, The Wine Front

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

The 2021 Chianti Classico is fabulous. Bright and punchy, with terrific resonance, this wine shows just how compelling the vintage is. Readers will find a Chianti Classico of dynamic energy and volume. Dark red cherry, purplish fruit, lavender, rose petal, spice and a gentle kiss of French oak build into the sumptuous, vibrant finish. Superb. The 2021 was aged in 500-liter barrels (5-6% new) for 14 months and is a blend of fruit from Greve, Gaiole and Radda. ANTONIO  GALLONI, Vinous

This has a fresh character with ripe cherries and raspberries as well as dried flowers, bark and stones. Polished and textural with a medium body and vivid acidity. Focused and fresh with chalky tannin structure and a linear finish with notes of citrus and minerals. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold. JAMES SUCKLING

A saturated purple/magenta hue, the 2021 Chianti Classico is lush and fresh with aromas of black raspberry, black cherry, violet, and fresh leather. Plush and inviting, with bright acidity along the sides of the palate shining through, it offers a velvety texture with a long finish. It’s polished but not oaky and has a very refined feel, with medium to full body and a long and balanced finish. Drink 2026-2040. JEB DUNNUCK

This red is precise, offering cherry, raspberry, rose, iron and tobacco flavors fused to a steely, dense and vibrant structure. Balanced and intense, building to a long aftertaste infused with fruit and mineral notes. Best from 2026 through 2045. BRUCE SANDERSON, Wine Spectator

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More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

From the fanatical attention to his biodynamic principals (which pre-date most in the area) to his commitment to all things sustainable - a solar farm here, a passive house there. He doesn't offer any of this information with bombastic bluster, he and his partner Valeria Vigano, mention them in passing with understatement and humility. All this is starting to get me itchy to taste the wines because, there's lots of sustainably run estates in the world these days who make mediocre juice, so I'm hoping Le Cinciole the excitement from the vineyard translates to the wines. They certainly do, they are brilliant!!

Sangiovese (70%), Merlot and Syrah. Ripe, crunchy fruit, red currants a touch of black cherry, red plums and a little white pepper spice sprinkled throughout. Lush fruits lead you in with their sweet embrace while the whole thing stays super fresh. Soft, supple tannins add real interest and give it a lovely backbone. At once completely smashable and serious enough to keep die hard Tuscan red fans very happy.

Sauvignon Blanc of the Year. Score awarded by the Halliday tasting team at the annual Awards judging. SW writes: Fermented in stainless steel tank (52%) and older oak (48%). Aged on full lees with no battonage. Pineapple, guava, perfectly ripe mango skin and lilikoi. Driving and elegant natural acidity and a wash of juicy tropical fruit with hints of glacé ginger and nutmeg spice. A fuzz of nettle texture and the wine finishes quite full bodied. It's a sauvignon blanc made with care, attention to detail and purity of fruit. (97) WINE COMPANION TASTING PANEL
 
This must be one of Australia’s top sauvignon blanc wines. And the value is pretty epic.

It’s got exceptional energy and persistence, a major feature is the tension in the wine, the torque of powdery pucker and the core of briny minerality. Around this, preserved lemon, a faint ginger lift, almond, attractive parmesan cheese characters, salt bush and gentle white pepper. It’s a compact and yet flavoursome white, refreshing as it is interesting and intellectual for the fanciers of fine sauvignon blanc. Cellar some too. MIKE BENNIE, Wine Front

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More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

The 2016 Xerico that we are offering today is an ode to the wines that Roberto's ancestors drank - Rioja without oak maturation. In place of the oak is cement and chestnut foudre's. The other connection with the past is that the wine contains 15% of the white grape Viura whilst the balance is Tempranillo.

Xerico is the name of the soil 'Xeric Torriothent'! This is a carlcareous marl soil from the Tertiary era on eroded slopes.

This wine is from three plots - El Pedrón, La Entrada and La Fuente Colas. The age of the vines range from 15 to 50 years old.

Fermentation is completed with natural yeasts in stainless steel and cement vats to retain freshness and minerality. As I mentioned above this wine doesn't see any oak and is aged for five months in cement vats and chestnut foudres.

Don't think of this as Joven style - it is much more serious. 

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TOP 50 Winemakers of 2022 - YOUNG GUN OF WINE

Fruit was sourced from two vineyards established in the 1940's and 1960's and uses about 70% whole bunch ferment and very gentle hand plunging.

The 2020 Léon is surprisingly tangy and bright for this warm vintage with just 13% alcohol. It's light in body and focused while 12-18 months on lees has provided a sense of roundness and texture to the mid palate as well as a touch of autolysis-derived pastry character to the apple and citrus fruit and lightly floral aromas. Vibrant, fresh and youthful. Best enjoyed in the first three to six years of its life for its energy. REBECCA GIBB, Vinous.com

The former Florilège comes with a new name this year. Predominantly from limestone soils but also silex, the 2020 Pouilly Fumé Léon offers a clear, deep, fresh and spicy, quite complex and iodine bouquet with great precision and mineral intensity. Aged in stainless steel, concrete and 20% oak barrels (228 and 500 liter), this is a rich and round, very elegant and aromatic Pouilly-Fumé with good mineral and fruity freshness and a long, intense and tensioned finish that reveals fine tannins and crisp grip. This is a substantial wine with excellent aging potential. STEPHAN RHEINHARDT, Wine Advocate

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More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!