L 14/13, 4 g/L dosage. Brochet is one of the few growers whose champagnes truly work for me. This bottle is no exception -- it's rife with a generous amount of tart apple that is so absolutely compelling.While this is certainly a little more acid-heavy than I generally care for in my champagne, the intensity of the fruit here really makes this a bottle of wine I'm perfectly comfortable enjoying.

Served double blind. Somehow I managed to guess this, though with the suggestion of viognier from a far more talented friend. Incredibly aromatic; almost like a gewürztraminer sans lychee. On the palate, my immediate reaction was "this is not the kind of white wine I like." Very rich and intense, with too many floral flavours. A very heavy wine, and while it's relatively low in acidity, this has definitely got it in spades for viognier, which is how I landed at Vernay -- one of the few viognier producers who can make the wine with a modicum of freshness. (I have to admit, I'm still pretty happy I can still blind taste reasonably well, five months into Covid.)

At first, I thought this was a little advanced for its age; tasting a little more like 2002 or 2007 than 2012. It wasn't in a bad way, but it didnt' have the freshness that I expected. Then, with air, this picked itself up in a really good way. It tightened up, and the acid started to come through in a brighter fashion. Nonetheless, this is a very fat and dense wine; perhaps lacking a bit of the verve that I've come to expect from the post-modern white Burgundy style. Quite peachy and juicy, but also with a hefty amount of (not bitter) oak. At the end of it all, very good stuff.

8.5% abv (AP illegible). Very rich and sweet, with a good amount of stone fruit on the nose, as well as a faint hint of sponti. Quite promising there, but the palate weakens a little bit -- this is lacking a lot of the nice riesling cut. Very ripe and sweet, but the saving grace seems to be this raw minerality on the palate. Not the most complex, but certainly quite enjoyable.

This is one of those nose better than palate kind of wines. Very 2015 syrah -- ripe black fruit, but counterweighted by olives, brine, and a bit of smoke. The palate is probably in a bit of an awkward phase right now -- it's a little burly and not showing very much complexity, but I suspect time will be this wine's friend.