Disgorged 01/17. Zero dosage. 76% PN / 24% Chard. Cool green apple, touch of honey and flint.

Disgorged 01/17. Zero dosage. 71% Chard / 29% PN. Lots of red fruit, which may sound odd, as the base is mostly Chard (and oddly enough too, the 13 Shaman, which is mostly PN, showed green apple notes to me when we tasted it right next to this Shaman Rose). This shows a really fruit driven, with lots of strawberry forming the core of the palate for me....retasted this morning from the leftover bottle. Creamy red fruit, along with some fresh cut green apple, pear. Some nice saline in the finish and a light biscuity note.

Disgorged 09/17, with zero dosage and 100% Chardonnay. FWIW, in my other TN from earlier in the year when I was at the winery, the disgorgement date was 02/18. The bottle last night did not seem as structured as that one, showing golden apple, bread dough, lime skin and tangerine. This took some air to wake up for me, too.

Disgorged 03/18, which is pretty recent I suppose. 100% Chard, zero dosage. Solid notes of citrus, and the same tangerine note as the Avize/Cramant, but more focused in the Chouilly for me. Lime and mineral close the finish.

Disgorged 09/17. 70% PN / 30% Chard, zero dosage. Lots of lemon-lime in this bottle tonight, with grapefruit in the background. Finishes with a salty/mineral note. This was not the best of the single plots for me tonight, and I have consistently liked Crayeres before. Have several left in the cellar, will try another soon.

Disgorged 05/17. 100% PN, zero dosage. This was the best Marguet of the night for me, and reaffirmed why this is on my WOTY list for 2018. The length, fruit depth and balance of this wine is really superb. Deep flavors of black cherry with a lovely saline finish of red fruits and citrus. Excellent showing again tonight.

Disgorged 06/17. 57% Chard / 43% PN, zero dosage and FWIW, sans soufre (which the Marguet labels do list the sulfur addition). Minty and yeasty nose. Tangy strawberry, lime, with terrific acidity and energy. This wine really showed well tonight, and at lighter price than the single vineyards, it certainly stood in to challenge the Crayeres and Bermonts tonight, too.

Disgorged 09/17. 100% Chard, zero dosage. This is stony, with golden apple, light grapefruit and what I told the group reminded me of mango. I got a few raised eyebrows and some comments as to that remark, but I stand by it. When I taste wine, I let the sensory attach an image/word and mango was what popped into my head. I own some more of this wine and want to isolate this bottle next time and see what I find....retasted this morning from leftover bottle. The CO2 is gone as I didn't close it very well, leaving it still. A brisk lemony core, polished and in balance. As a still wine now, it drinks like a well-built Chard with integrated acidity.

Disgorged 05/18, 100% PN, zero dosage. This comes from the bottom section of the 6 acre slope, and it tastes different than the Resonance, which is the upper slope. Raspberry, lime skin, stone fruit and good structure with a clean, minerally finish. This showed terrific.

Disgorged 05/18. 70% Chard / 30% Pinot Blanc, zero dosage. There isn't much Chard grown on the M-C slope, and even less Pinot Blanc but Dominique makes a little of this wine, which from what I can tell is the first vintage to produce it. This was the most newly disgorged of all the wines last night, and of note too is that there isn't any of this wine in CT inventory yet. I got lucky finding some in the US and plan to go back and see if the shop has any left, as I will take it all. This wine for me was thrilling. Fleshy, lightly smoky, showing peach and nectarine (thank you Paul for that descriptor, as it was spot-on), along with melon. A few others last night too seemed to like this bottling a lot. Lovely stuff.

Disgorged 04/18, 100% Chard, zero dosage. This is the first TN in CT on this wine. This came off a little sweet for me, according to my notes. Smoky aromatic, granny smith apple, lime, tangy and lightly stony. MY thought is that I didn't get my head around this when well enough, especially so as it was one of the final champagnes I tasted (of about 20). I have several bottles of it, as I went long on getting more prior to the event, given it is Chard from what is mainly a PN producer. Will open another soon and isolate it so I can get a better impression...retasted this morning from leftover bottle. Bright and lively, and it really complements the breakfast flavors we are doing very well, allowing the acidity to pop. Gentle pippin apple, with a good imprint of bright citrus. Glad I have several of these now for the cellar as this is a good drink. Also, the premise of retasting, with a different context (last night vs this morning) reinforces the importance of setting for tasting notes.

Disgorged 04/18, 100% PN, zero dosage. The fruit for this bottling comes from the oldest vines on the hill, and is also bottled sans soufre. My notes from last night say 'a wine that makes me think'. This is an indication to me that I had to really work to get this wine. My notes have the word 'cranberry?', apple, minerals, tangy, crisp and rocky. This is also the most expensive of the cuvees (alongside the Presence, which is not PN based). I'll be curious to see how I read this wine the next time I open one, to see if the distinctiveness is there again, and if I can sort it out better....retasting from the bottle leftover from last night. I closed the bottle of really well, as the CO2 is still quite present. Being able to taste this again this AM, in a different setting over breakfast, really made a difference. I can now get the wine into focus. The color of this is light gold, and the flavors belie the color which for me show an oxidative quality. Bruised apple, savory with some raspberry/red fruit. My hunch is that the sans soufre approach to this is making its impact, as this is distinctly different in tone and taste than the rest of the M-C range. I'll plan to send Dominique a note and ask her if my experience here is consistent with the Concordance bottling, and if this was the style she was going after.

Disgorged 02/18. 100% PN, zero dosage. This is the top of the slope, where as Efflorescence is the bottom portion and they taste very different to me. The Resonance showed for me a lot of structure and grip, leaner too. The tannins were almost grainy in tone for me. Very stony (my notes have this underlined) with raspberry fruit. Probably the most structured wine for me of the entire day, across both Marie Courtin and Marguet. Very good but will need air and or time... retasting now this morning from last night's leftover wine. Red berry with some earthiness showing, including a light loamy note in the aromatic. Even now with being open overnight (and much of the CO2 is gone), the wine remains stony, a slatey imprint which I really like. For being the cheapest wine in the M C range, this is very good for the price.

Disgorged 02/17, 100% Chard and zero dosage. Nutty and round in tone, with some citrus. It stuck out in the tasting as it doesn't have the intensity and complexity of the M-C wines.

Disgorged 10/17, 100% Chard, 3 g/l dosage. Distinctly floral. I was so enamored with the aromatics on this bottle that I failed to write any other TNs. This bottle disappeared quickly, too.

Disgorged 10/17. 40% Chard / 60% PN, 3 g/l. This to me showed tight and grippy with apple and mineral, honey and what I call lime chew, a soft citrusy candy flavor. I didn't get this enough attention so my TN falls a bit short.

Damn it. I have this on my short list for WOTY so I pull this bottle on the fly during our champagne event to share with everyone and it's frigging corked. Adding to the pain is that I just paid a premium to source this very bottle, well above the release price when these first came out. AGGH!

Disgorged 06/16, 100% Chard, 2 g/l. As with the Savart Expression that I pulled spur of the moment, so too this Dame. The Expression was corked (AGH!) yet this Dame was fine. Regrettably for my TNs, there isn't one and the crew polished it off so we'll have to go with that the Dame was well-received.

We drank this alongside the entire range of Marguet bubblies. This wine is still, made sans soufre and is listed on the bottle at 11.5% ABV. Opened yesterday, retasting today at 66f (room temp) from a burg stem. This reminds me of Santa Cruz fruit, such as a Big Basin or Rhys, with a solid core of cherry fruit that is lithe and pure. Finishes with some stony tannin. It's cool to drink still Ambonnay PN, to get a sense of what the fruit tastes like without the champagne process being applied to it. Cherry and plenty of slate through the finish. Unique, glad I have another in the cellar for another time to share with others.

This was opened last night, as part of a flight of reds that were preceded by a # of champagnes we had tasted. There is enough left in the bottle for some retasting today. Sampling at 66f and through a burg stem, no food. These 2011 Kisers continue to march right along, with a moderately jammy core of red apple and spicy red fruit. Little prickly acidity in the finish, where there is another push of red apple and some mineral. I've never thought the 2011s were going to age a long time and yet 7 years out from vintage, they continue to show well. This is drinking just fine.

Revisiting today the leftovers from the bottle we opened last night. So, it's had plenty of air. Lots of stuffing in this wine, mixing some new french oak, brambly, juicy fruit and some moderate acidity, all working together. This is already showing nicely, with the oak needing to settle in over the next few years. It's seasoning the wine well, adding just a touch of that barrel tannin to the edges.

Opened and right to my glass to write this TN. In the past, I would have decanted this well as I have found it to be the most coiled of Steve's syrahs. Some age is starting to make a real nice impact on this wine, as the burly side has softened away. With just 15 mins of air, this shows a cool mix of cedar, creosote, rosemary, charcoal, a touch of sweeter-tone fruit is dark, with a A-1/cooked meat note. Damn, this wine is really rounding out. We'll see if a few hours of air causes it recoil.....

Opened yesterday, and funny enough, was tasted alongside the 2012, which we had not planned. The 2012 this AM seems to be gone, so someone took the remnants with them and this 2014 seems to have been barely touched. We simply had too much red at the end of the night and I think many people got their palates tapped out. This vintage of Riverain is unlike the 2012, as that wine shows the savory, whole cluster evolution that is really treating that wine well. In this 2014, the whole cluster is either buried under the fruit, or was hit with less of it--I simply don't find it. Instead, this comes through as more modern CA in tone, with a plusher core, darkly colored and rich in the finish. Whereas the 2012 seems to be finding a home in the N Rhine flavor camp, this 2014 is finding a sexier, more plush expression. In the 2014, the fruit is blacker, there is a maple syrup note, along with a dark, jammy plum. Kind of too bad that this bottle got lost last night, as it's drinking beautifully, bold. My sense on the 2014 is that it will drink better younger, with the pleasure it gives, and the absence of the savory/complex structure of the 2012. No harm in enjoying these now, especially during these winter months.

We opened this last night, to go alongside a # of varied reds. So, it's had plenty of slow ox air. Nearly 1/2 bottle left, not sure how in the midst of so many great reds that were left behind last night I will get through them all! This has the SR sexiness, of the cocoa-tinged oak married against some darker red and black Cab fruit, which shows as tarry, cedary Cab flavors, with some emerging herbal notes. This is squarely modern Cab, reminding me of the SW Merlot with that same flavor profile. Some decadence, pretty approachable now and probably better in 3-5 years as the remaining wood softens in and the Cab flavors can come all the way forward.