This wine is made from two parcels which are found on the border of the communes of Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet. The first, which is to the left of the Clos des Perrières, has clay/limestone soil and a subsoil of volcanic rock which allows a healthy root system to develop in this limestone-rich environment. The second is on the upper slope and overlooks the Perrières quarry. Here the soil is heavily limestone, partly as marl and partly as white rock. This is interesting for the way it brings mineral notes to the wine. During tastings it often find notes of white pepper and other spices both on the nose and on the palate.

PENFOLDS X Thienot Lot 1 175 Blanc de Blanc, Champagne

PIERRE GIMONNET & FILS Millesime de Collection Vieilles vignes de Chardonnay, Champagne

This Katherines Paddock Chardonnay combines the richness, drive and classicism of one clone with the fine-boned flinty structure and chalky notes of the other. It is stylish with the modern expression of Australian style Chardonnay: tense, taut and sulphidic. It reclaims the middle ground where body, flavour and palate weight co-exist with structure, texture and restrained acidity. This single-vineyard Chardonnay has well integrated natural acidity with rich varietal expression.

At Mount Mary they aim to make a Chardonnay of great length that is able to reach a balance between complexity & finesse. Unashamedly Burgundian in concept, local Yarra Valley practices are employed to fully express the unique terroir, including the wine not going through Malolactic fermentation as Mount Mary's cool-climate leaves the fruit with ideal acidity when picked. Matured in 20% new French barriques with the remainder in older barrels and large casks and along with grape solids, this is a Chardonnay of impressive texture and complexity.

Product Information: Salon's newly released 2013 Blanc de Blancs comes from a challenging growing season that is emerging, at least with respect to the region's top cuvées, as one of the most underestimated vintages of the last 15 years. With a dosage just 5.5 grams per litre, the 2013 Brut Blanc de Blancs Le Mesnil possesses a complex, fruity bouquet mingling aromas of orchard fruit with notions of lemon oil, exotic fruits, spring flowers, almond and hints of menthol and buttery pastry. It's full-bodied, rich and dense, with lively acids. Maker: Salon champagne stands apart as something truly special, shaped by its distinctive terroir and grape variety. It comes from the Côte des Blancs, from the singular cru of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, crafted solely from Chardonnay grapes harvested in exceptional years and is of one man's vision Eugène-Aimé Salon. The first vintage of Champagne Salon was 1905 by the hands of Eugène-Aimé Salon, a remarkable man with unwavering ambition. In love with champagne and captivated by the terroir of Le Mesnil, Eugène-Aimé Salon created a Blanc de Blancs Champagne. Initially it was only for his personal pleasure – but by 1920s he began to share his passion with the rest of the world. Champagne Salon comes from a single hectare plot called 'the Salon garden' and nineteen other small plots in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger selected by Eugène-Aimé Salon at the beginning of the 20th century. The wines are aged in cellar for an average of ten years, after which they finally start to reveal their complexity and finesse. The fact that Salon still conserves bottles in its cellars from nearly every vintage is testament to its legacy. To demonstrate how rare these wines are, just 37 vintages were produced in the 20th century, a unique phenomenon in the world of wine. Vineyard: 2013 is a cool, late-ripening vintage in Champagne, hallmarked by October harvest in cool but sunny conditions. Despite a challenging growing season for some producers, this is a superb Salon with a long, resonant finish. After a cold winter, budbreak was relatively late. The weather was rainy throughout the spring, followed by hail episodes in the Côte des Bar, in Vallée de la Marne and in Côte des Blancs, notably in Epernay. In mid-July, the weather turned hot, sunny and dry until early September. Unfortunately, the rains returned until the end of the month, causing damage and precipitating a virulent attack of gray rot (botrytis) in some locations. Harvest took place at the beginning of October. The houses that managed to contain the attacks of gray rot and to pick the grapes during the mild days of October succeeded in making excellent wines with a classic, chiseled profile that has become only too rare in the interim. Nose - Browned Pastry, Orange Cream, Floral Honey Orange cream, floral honey and lemon peel, backed up with delicate browned pastry, milky oyster and nut oil complexity that speaks of the long lees ageing. Palate - Creamy, Fine Mousse, Salty Edge Full-bodied, rich and dense, with lively acids, notably complex and incisive. Finish - Taut, Lemon Peel, Chalky Fine mousse with a savoury/salty edge freshening up the finish.

Product Information: The NV Brut 7 Crus is a very pretty. Bright, mineral and intensely vibrant, the 7 Crus is full of energy and refreshment. 7 Crus is a blend of two harvests: in this case, 60% is 2021 from 1er Cru sites; and 40% is 2020 from Grand Cru sites. The reserve wine was raised in neutral, 600-litre oak casks from François Chidaine and Didier Dagueneau. The breakdown is 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir. Even at this first level, the wine is aged for three years on lees. It was disgorged with 6 g/L dosage. This is the most immediately seductive cuvée in the Agrapart range, yet it is still extremely fine. It’s long, deep and saline with some gentle grip. Sadly, we do not get nearly enough. The reviews below refer to a previous disgorgement. Disg. March 2024. The Agrapart range begins with a non-vintage wine called 7 Crus. The name refers to the seven Côte des Blancs villages from which the wine derives. These include Avize (from younger vines aged 20 to 40 years), Cramant, Oger, Oiry, Avenay-Val-d’Or, Coligny and Vauciennes. Like all Agrapart wines, the fruit is from 100% estate-owned and farmed vineyards. Maker: In 1894 at the beginning of France’s lively Belle Époque “the beautiful era” or Europe's golden era between 1871 to 1914. Arthur Agrapart started the family domaine that would become Champagne Agrapart & Fils. The estate has weathered many storms, including World War I, an economic depression, and the German Occupation during World War II, which devastated stock by millions of cases throughout the region. In the 1950s, Arthur’s grandson Pierre set out to rebuild the family business by making wines of quality rather than following the commercial trends of the day. Pierre’s sons Pascal and Fabrice took over the reins in 1990, farming their own vineyards along the prestigious Côte de Blancs, as well as blending and bottling their own wines. By the early 2000s, upon realising the brothers did not have the same goals for the future of the estate, Pascal began the long-term process of dividing the estate in two. His vineyards would become the backbone of Domaine Pascal Agrapart, focusing on the unique single vineyard cuvées that he had championed since the early 1990s and the remaining family vineyards would provide the fruit for the assemblage cuvées, 7 Crus & Terroirs, still bottled under the Agrapart & Fils label today. Pascal has been joined by his eldest son Ambroise and their ultimate goal is to produce only wines bearing the Pascal Agrapart label. Philosophy: The winery is based in the grand cru village of Avize, famous for its cuvees of 100% Chardonnay. Pascal and Ambroise farm 10 hectares from some 60 different vineyard plots in the Côte de Blancs, including Oger, Cramant, Oiry and Avize. They farm using only homeopathic vine treatments, composts, manures, and regular plowing. The Agraparts were one of the first families to bring the draft horse back to the vineyards, and named a cuvee in honour of their first four-hooved friend, Vénus. In plowing the old-school way, they expose the clay and limestone soils to immune-boosting properties of the wind and sun. While they once were the object of ridicule, they now lead a return to authentic, ancestral practices. Their quality control extends to manual harvests, a selective triage of the grapes, and the use of native yeasts during fermentation. Malolactic fermentations are employed to round out the intensity of these mineral-driven Champagnes. The wines age on their lees for an extended period of time, and then are racked to both stainless steel and neutral oak barrels—the latter being a rarity in Champagne before Pascal started using them. All wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered. Nose - Apricots, Pears, Fennel Vibrant fruit here, with peaches, apricots, lemons, pears, almonds and spicy anise notes. Palate - Intense Minerality, Pillowy Palate, Citrus Peel medium to full-bodied, ample and pillowy palate. Finish - Chalk, Lingering Citrus, Saline White flowers, chalk and citrus linger.

In the 20 years since its foundation, Radio-Coteau has developed a cult-like following among the cognoscenti of The New California. Eric Sussman, winegrower and proprietor at Radio-Coteau, lives by the tenet, “the best fertiliser is the farmer’s shadow”. With his small team he makes some of California’s most exciting, nuanced and fresh cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, from a range of coastal-influenced vineyards in Western Sonoma County and the Anderson Valley. Sussman has led a storied career spanning four decades and two continents. A New York native, he studied Viticulture and Agricultural Science at Cornell University, focusing on organic viticulture. Two formative years in France followed, apprenticing at Comte Armand and Jacques Prieur in Burgundy and Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux. Sussman credits these seasons in France with solidifying his interest in crafting wines that speak of place, and the use of organic and biodynamic farming and low-intervention winemaking. He returned to the States in 1997, working at Bonny Doon and Dehlinger before starting Radio-Coteau in 2002, with a name that loosely translates to ‘broadcasting from the hillsides’, or more colloquially as ‘word of mouth’, a phrase that stuck with Sussman since his time in France. The Wingtine Chardonnay is named after a specialised cultivation tool, the wing tine shank. It is used by Radio-Coteau—and more broadly in the Sonoma Coast area—to cultivate their Goldridge (sandy loam) soils. Its unique design lifts and fractures the ground vertically and horizontally, reducing tractor passes while maintaining soil structure. The cuvée is sourced from both Radio-Coteau’s biodynamic estate vineyard and the Heintz Ranch Vineyard, just a stone’s throw away in Occidental. The estate vineyard’s SeaBed plot is home to several of the Wente clones, the original of which arrived from Burgundy in 1912. Described by Robert Parker as “one of the greatest Grand Cru sites for Chardonnay in California”, Heintz Ranch is an organically farmed site with mature vines (30-plus years old) and an excellent diurnal range, ensuring fruit with rich flavours and balanced acidities. Sussman believes the balance of the two parcels delivers the most striking result. The fruit was hand-harvested in late August from both sites, whole-bunch pressed, and fermented in a combination of concrete egg, stainless steel and neutral oak. Long and slow élevage on lees followed with no bâtonnage, and the wine went through full malo before being bottled without fining or filtration. Compared with Radio-Coteau’s Savoy Anderson Chardonnay, the Wingtine is the more delicate, floral and mineral-driven style (the Puligny to the Savoy Vineyard’s Meursault?). It’s a delightfully vibrant and expressive coastal Chardonnay; pure and focused, layered with orchard fruit, zesty citrus and fine texture before a classy, lingering and flint-scented finish.