Weekend Pack 2023

This cracking dry sparkling wine is 100% Chardonnay from a single parcel of vines just north of the Chermette cellars at a place called Le Bois-d’Oingt. It’s a 2.5-hectare southwest-facing site on limestone/clay soil, so perfect for Chardonnay. The wine ages for 18 months in bottle, minimum sulphur is used, it is neither fined nor filtered and very little dosage liqueur is added (4 g/L). Already the story is ahead of the vast majority of Champagne these days!

This shipment is a blend of 2018, 2019 and 2020 and is showing creamier, lemon-curd intensity and more length than previous bottlings—perhaps due to the low yields and warmer vintages involved. There are well-pitched notes of pear, citrus, chamomile, toasted hazelnuts and subtle buttery brioche, while the palate is vinous and focused, balanced by stony acidity. We love the fine, airy bubbles in this wine as well as its fresh, sculpted energy and finesse. If you don’t know this wine, do yourself a favour; French sparkling wine this impressive, and at this price, does not grow on trees.

Certified organic. Chèvrefeuilles (pronounced ‘shev-ruh-foy’) is French for honeysuckle, the perfume of which you cannot escape during springtime in the southern Rhône. Olivier is a sucker for the character and freshness of old-vine Clairette, which now accounts for half the blend in his delightful citrus- and white-plum-scented Les Chèvrefeuilles Blanc, with the remainder made up of 25% Roussanne and 25% Grenache Blanc. The fruit grows on the domaine's cooler, east-facing sites, where the prevalence of limestone helps to preserve freshness. Where the Arbousiers white below is drawn from the estate's oldest plantings, this wine comes from vines planted in 2010 and 2011.

The fruit is pressed as whole bunches and ferments on heavy solids with natural yeasts before resting on its fine lees in concrete for eight months before bottling. The result is a succulently mouth-filling white Rhône, with pulpy textures, citrus pith and chamomile aromas and flavours balanced by some lip-smacking salty minerality (from the Clairette) and a vibrant, juicy close that deliciously manages to be both mineral and floral. Terrific value.

Pérez’s entry-level Mencía comes from multiple remote parcels of 30- to 60-year-old vines dotted around the slate-rich hillsides of Valtuille and Villafranca del Bierzo. The blend also takes in a splash of Godello and Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet)—a legacy of the traditional make-up of Bierzo’s vineyards. Pérez destemmed 90% of his fruit in the pursuit of something pure, refreshing and juicy, and the wine fermented wild in stainless-steel tanks. Bottled early to capture all that joyous, mouth-watering Mencía character, this is an excellent port of call if you fancy a detour from Cru Beaujolais or Loire Cabernet Franc.

Pérez's 2021 release has got everything we look for in a wine from the easy-drinking leagues: authenticity, refreshment and fun, with a large side order of place. Putting the value to one side, the great achievement here is that the striking fleshiness of fruit is finely offset by the bright, fresh structure—a balance reflective of the altitude and the diurnal contrast (warm days followed by cold nights). Filled to the brim with sleek and vibrant fruit, it’s a deliciously animated Mencía. Full of succulent verve, gravelly tannins lend length and gravitas. A real charmer.