'Jancis Robinson' White Mixed Case - £247.70 (2 bottles of each)
Lunae, Etichetta Grigia Vermentino 2017 Colli di Luni Delicious salty peaches on a palate where grip and structure play upfront. Rigorous intensity on the mid palate with a long limey pull to the end. (TC). 12.5% alc. Drink 2018 – 2021. 16.5 points
Dom FL, La Croix Picot trocken 2015 Savennières Chenin Blanc. Certified organic. Does anything in the world smell quite like Savennières?! As if someone ground up steel wool, tarragon, chalk, lemon peel, petrichor, beeswax and honeysuckle into a powder, freeze-dried it and then flung it on ice-cold mountain-stream water and held it to your nose. Then you taste it and it’s all rigid and arms-tightly-crossed-across-the-body and bony shoulders, and you think: #issues. Then you feel annoyed because you paid good money for this and really, there must be more. So you go back. Sniff hard. More of the above bewildering stuff. Taste again. Hint,tiny hint, of honey. There’s a reverberation in those skinny bones. As if someone plucked the string of a harp and you heard it in your own bones. You go back. This angry rigid little wine is starting to get under your skin. Dust. Rain-wet dust. It tastes of dust. Really? Is that good? It is. It tastes of dust and the outline of honey and that cold, ancient, cold, smooth of stones that have been washed by centuries of river. It’s not a wine for contented sipping. It’s a wine for hard, pissed-off, no-excuses soul-searching. And hard goat’s cheese. Or, if you’re a beautiful at-peace soul, chuck it in the cellar for a few years and when it’s got over all its teenage issues, bring it out and have it with fish pie. (TC). 13.3% alc. Drink 2018 – 2028. 17 points
Gunderloch, Als wär’s ein Stück von mir Riesling 2015 Rheinhessen So smoky. Struck match and a whiff of biscuity spice. Fiercely direct, steely lime, long and determined and proudly dry. There's a spine-tingling ascetic purity to this wine that is almost piercing. I've said drink from this year, but personally I'd hold it back another year or even two. (TC) 12.5% alc. Drink 2018 – 2024. 17 points
Jean-François Jacouton, Granit Viognier 2016 IGP Collines Rhodaniennes Gauzy nectarine and floral perfume. Fine and light, especially for a Rhône Viognier, with a slim seam of green acidity and some lightly toasted almonds. Not much on the mid palate but it pulls through on the finish. (TC) 12.5% alc. Drink 2018 – 2019. 16 points
Muxagat, Os Xistos Altos Rabigato 2014 Douro Crisp as cold aluminium on the nose. Citrus, broom flower and chamomile tea, elegant and genteel despite a waxy texture. Refined cut of acidity. Spicy finish. Glitters with minerality. Begging for a Moroccan salted-lemon tagine. (TC) 12% alc. Drink 2016 – 2022. 17 points
Boulevard Napoléon Grenache Gris 2015 IGP Pays d'Hérault Rich and voluminous. Oaky vanilla sweetness at the moment still layered over the fabulous acidity and length, but the framework is beautifully there and a long slipstone of grapefruit-pith bitterness running through the palate. I'd give it another year to let it mesh. (TC) 14.5% alc. Drink 2019 – 2025. 16.5++ points
