From half bottle. Pretty ordinary champagne, nothing offensive but nothing great either. Lighter in style, with a bit of almondy quality; slightly herbal as well. Seems a little high-toned and the palate isn't too rounded.

Probably starting to enter into its plateau. Very bright nose, with a slight hint of bread there. Very vinous, with some green apples as well. The palate has a nice heft that works well with the acidity, and there's good mineral intensity too. Very bright and pleasant, certainly ready now, but a ways to go, if you prefer a touch more age.

Disgorged April 2013. My favourite champagne tonight. This clearly was searing on the nose, showing tons of acidity, tart lemons, and just all-round low-dosage character. On the palate, this is actually very well-balanced, and the ripeness of the vintage helps with the taut style. It's certainly not as wound up as some of the other bottles I've had, and I found this all in all quite enjoyable.

#29-10, 13% abv. Heady, high-toned, and volatile on the nose, at least at first, though that may also have been a problem of the wine being too warm. That volatility tapered off when we chilled this down a bit, but the palate does come off too heavy-handed and ripe for my palate. There's a bit of high-tonedness in the form of some aldehydic bitterness that I'm not fond of either. Good acidity and broader fruit, but a hit of alcohol on the back end. The spaetlesen from Dellchen are far better wines.

#28-13, 13.5% abv. White fruit -- this definitely has that 2012 white fruited acidity. There's that floral hint that I love in 2012 as well, but the palate is fairly light, in comparison to the heavier 2009. Nice acidity and freshness, and despite the half-degree more alcohol than the 2009, this wine is definitely more balanced. It's a decent wine, but this would be better if it were a spaetlese. #justsayin

I've quite enjoyed previous bottles of this, so I'm not sure what happened here. The nose is reduced and smells like Campbell's chicken broth (yeah, that's right). The palate is exceedingly dry, with a lot of roundness, although there's almost no fruit at all here. Super weird showing. No overt flaws either.

Corked! All the more a shame, since there seemed to be some really nice fruit here.

#51/584. I had the feeling this was corked, but the TCA also never really blossomed. It was a little musty and stinky though, and thin on the palate. You could find wisps of that lovely Leroy aroma, but there was definitely something clouding them. Not a sound bottle.

Not in a good place at all right now. Far too tight, with a lot of reductive stink as well. It blew off a bit in the glass, but never really did come around. A very taut wine, with tart red fruit, and some brown spice as well. The tannins are really grainy, but at the end of the day, the youth on this makes it really hard to assess. It didn't seem to have the polish that I've worried about on the more modern Pousse wines, but it's certainly no Gerard Potel wine either.

It's a decent effort for the vintage, but I don't think that this has ever been a wine that wowed me (I've far preferred the Chave or the Allemand from this year). There's clear stems here, and that pops up on both the nose and palate. The fruit is extremely light, and shows really, really red. The palate doesn't have the heft that I want, and while there is a bit of salinity and brine, the pepper and spice shows too wispy for my taste. Clearly a weaker Jamet -- a decent wine, but hardly one to go out of your way to find.

The nose on this isn't as good as the palate, but this is clearly a serious Barolo, well worth paying attention to. The nose is black-fruited, with a slight bit of volatility and balsamic character that does seem to blow off. It's quite monolithic right now, which is probably expected given how young this bottle is. There's a lovely brown spice on the palate, coupled with some intense fruit that gives this a slightly exotic character. It's rich and thickly textured, with tannins that are still very grippy. This is a concentrated wine that needs at least a decade more to reach its full potential.

Clearly a great wine. The nose here shows a heightened amount of eucalyptus and other green herbal elements, as one would expect. Underneath those elements is a dense core of black fruit, as well as a little bit of dirt. The palate is clean and elegant, with a crisp minerally finish and resolved tannins. Generous fruit belies the age of this, and the black fruit provides a lovely sweetness to balance some of the more herbal aspects of the wine. This is one of the most convincing Aussie wines I've ever had.

My final bottle of this. The cork came out well enough, but the top of the bottle smelled positively rancid. I thought this wine was initially corked, but air helped to get rid of the stink and left me with a classic aged German wine, with lots of gasoline and just a slight hint of sweetness. There are lots of stone fruit aromas and flavours, but very little of the attendant sweetness. Not heavy, this has a slightly oily texture on the palate. And excellent showing for my last bottle.

#06-90, 9.5% abv. A very light auslese, showing plenty of spicy character. There's a white fruit tone that feels like lychees here that I like a lot. The palate shows its age, but is by no means tired. A moderate amount of sweetness here, and while this is a broader wine (and clearly no Mosel riesling), there's still good cut here.