Reviews
December 2024 93 Points View From the Cellar
The Chablis “Grand Régnard” bottling from Maison Régnard is a blended bottling that includes fruit from several premier crus and grand crus in the cuvée. The 2021 version is excellent, offering up a bright and complex aromatic constellation of green apple, pear, a touch of lemon peel, oyster shell, chalky minerality, a wisp of anise and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied, precise and complex, with a lovely core of fruit, a fine foundation of minerality, lovely balance and a long, complex and quite classy finish. This is lovely juice. 2025- 2050.
December 2024 91+ Points View From the Cellar
Maison Régnard’s 2022 Chablis “Montmains” is crafted entirely from hand-harvested parcels of vines, with ninety percent of the cuvée raised in stainless steel tanks and ten percent in older oak casks. The wine’s aromatic constellation is bright and complex, delivering scents of apple, pear, a complex base of chalky soil tones, just a touch of paraffin, white flowers and just a whisper of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied and still fairly youthful in personality, with good depth of fruit at the core, fine soil signature, a good girdle of acidity and a long, well balanced and still quite primary finish. This is of course already quite approachable, but in reality it is still a young wine and more precision and complexity will certainly develop if the wine is given just another year or two in the cellar to blossom. It is a very good bottle of Montmains in the making, but its best drinking days are still a couple of years down the road. 2025-2050.
December 2024 90 Points View From the Cellar
All of the grapes used for the Chablis “Saint Pierre” bottling from Maison Régnard are hand harvested, which is a fairly rare occurrence for villages level bottlings in this region, where many examples are still made from machine-harvested grapes. The wine is fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks and the 2023 version comes in at a svelte 12.5 percent octane in this vintage. The wine’s bouquet is lovely, wafting from the glass in a mix of lemon, pear, chalky soil tones, a touch of beeswax, a nice touch of Chablisienne straw tones and a topnote of citrus blossoms. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and youthfully complex, with a lovely core of fruit, good soil undertow and grip, lovely balance and a long, poised and focused finish. This is a very good example of Chablis AC. 2025-2040+.
December 2024 94+ Points View From the Cellar
The 2017 Roederer Estate “l’Ermitage” Brut Millésime is crafted this year from a cépages of fifty-two percent chardonnay, forty-six percent pinot noir and two percent pinot meunier. It was finished this year with a dosage of 7.5 grams per liter and offers up a beautifully refined and complex nose of apple, bread fruit, bread dough, a lovely base of white soil tones, gentle smokiness and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and still youthfully brisk, with a fine core of fruit, excellent soil inflection, elegant mousse and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is already tasty, but like all of the past releases of l'Ermitage from Roederer Estate, this wine is built for cellaring and it will be an even finer drink five to ten years down the road! 2025-2055+.
December 2024 94 Points View From the Cellar
The 2020 Clark Road Vineyard bottling is the second new single site cuvée from Roederer Estate. It is effectively the mirror image of the Apple Alley bottling, as the cépages here is pinot noir dominant, with seventy-seven percent of this varietal augmented by twenty-three percent chardonnay in this vintage. The wine includes ten percent vins clairs that were barrel-fermented. The wine was disgorged in February of 2024 and finished with a dosage of five grams per liter. The wine’s aromatic constellation is refined and complex, wafting from the glass in a mix of apple, tart white peach, pâtissière, a fine base of soil, incipient smokiness and a nice touch of white flowers in the upper register. On the palate the wine is bright, young and full-bodied, with a fine core of fruit, excellent mineral undertow and grip, elegant mousse and a long, complex and very well balanced finish. This is excellent wine in the making, but give it a bit of cellaring to allow its secondary layers of complexity to emerge. 2027-2050+.