3/19/2022 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Classic mature Bordeaux immediately upon opening. Bouquet of dried flowers, old library, ripe black fruits, smoky tobacco, leather, cedar and coffee bean, undergrowth and damp earth.

Silky and smooth. Savoury earth, pencil shavings, dried red fruits, liquorice and autumn leaves. Fine and clean.

12/4/2021 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Wild flowers, sweet crunchy, bright black and red fruits. Bell pepper, blackberry, blueberry, some tarry minerals, low key oak sensational. Velvet, smooth, sweet jammy fruits, delicious charming.

11/28/2021 - wineappellation wrote:

Very ripe almost jammy nose with floral and herbaceous notes. A bit simple and light palate.

11/9/2021 - csimm wrote:

Halloween in the Vice Versa Cave: The best young wine I’ve had from across the Atlantic and the absolute show-stopper of the night. The concentration, sophistication, and complexity, even at such an infant stage, are so compelling and palate-grabbing that the dark fruit literally arrests every other sense and forces one to be completely enveloped in the Lafleur’s mesmerizing dose of black and blue berries, graphite, charcoal, black ink, fresh soil, bitter chocolate, peony, and molten lava Kīlauea-meets-Netherlands black licorice obsidian notes. At 54% Cabernet Franc and 46% Merlot, it is a tower of power that is effortlessly balanced and focused. The chiseled frame does everything with exacting resolve to fashion the total physique of this wine so that its fruit core and tannic edging become one. It’s juicy and all at once a tight drum that strikes perfectly with every beat of the stick, finishing defined and sustained.

What happens with air you ask? Well, heck my friend, it makes ya even happier than peeling a whole Cuties clementine in one bust of the skin. It’s just so persistent and thrilling, with more gloss than a pro bowler and his favorite oiled-up ball. The mediaeval gravel component is dark and wet, but also uber-polished. The Lafleur is the 1% of the goth crowd who actually turned out cool and managed to jet off to Paris Fashion Week, hit the runway, and then hang out in Morocco for a week just to work on the perfect tan, being mindful not to dull the foot-long tattoo of Jack Skellington on her shoulder.

Between the 2018 Lafleur and the 2018 Bryant (one of the best Napa wines I’ve ever had), the “Quasi-War” between the Frenchie Armée de Camembert and the Yankee Cheddarhead Cowboys was a straight draw. “And YOU get a hundred; and YOU get a hundred….” The Lafleur was slightly chewier than the 2018 Ausone served next to it, with the Ausone finishing considerably drier than its Pomerol competitor. In fact, when a wine crushes the company of Ausone, Abreu, Pomontory, Lokoya, Pavie, etc, etc all in one sitting, it’s time to call K&L and sell your cellar just so you can afford a couple bottles of this magical juice.

To the yacht and island owners, venture capitalists, sultans and princes, financiers, popes, and all the things I will never be, I say to you fine people: Buy the Lafleur. Buy a lot of it. Cram your bathtub full of it and swim in the spoils of the best grape juice on the planet. To a peasant like me, this is a wine that is an experience, not just something to pour down your jughole. If I had another bottle, I’d treat it like the princess it is, nuzzling up to it next to a warm fireplace, reading it poetry all night, playing with its locks of hair into the wee hours as we giggle and reminisce about times begone. (What…? Oh, sorry. It just got weird didn’t it… Anyway…)

100,000 points for now, with potential to reach infinity to the second power after a decade of cellaring, though realistically, I don’t know that you need to wait until your kids get married and then get divorced before tearing into these. Epic wine.

7/27/2021 - jhngo wrote:

Oxd

2/19/2021 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

🍷 2017 Vosne Romanee
13.5%abv. Opened up immediately. Enticing, complex airy nose of fresh flowers, crushed stones, farmyard, bright red berries, sour cherries, pungent and sweet spices.

Silky, uplifting and minerally with more ripe fruits, oak and some animal nuances evolving. Precise and linear. An excellent elegant VR.

11/26/2020 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Disgorged 2019, base 2014. Shinny mid gold color. Integrated and inviting. Chalky, yeasty, ripe apple, apricot, lemon curd, creamy and lactic with caramel, nutty and oaky flavours kicking in. Palate cleansing acidity, hint of honey and marzipan. Good weight and extremely focus and long. Harmony and complex.

Served just very slightly chilled with Zalto universal glass with some air to reveal its true quality.

8/18/2020 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Malbec, 15% Carmenere, 7% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. 22 Months maturation 85% in New French Oak 15% in Foudre.

Deep ruby. Violet and blueberry, cassis, cigar box, herbaceous, sweet vanilla, cinnamon, toasty oak and cedar. Very good freshness on palate, bramble fruits, tobacco, bitter chocolate . Crunchy and precise. Very fine tannins.

7/17/2020 - acyso wrote:

One of the best readily available wines made in my wine-consuming life so far. This is a yardstick by which I measure all other champagne; I ask myself, would I rather buy this, or an equivalent dollar value of Dom Perignon 2008? Usually, the answer is the latter. A little reductive as Dom can be sometimes, but that is shed with a few hours of air. This is the first bottle with which I've been able to truly sit down and drink, and it's no exaggeration to say that the last glass was best. Obviously youthful and fresh now, with brilliant verve and acidity, but this does not become shrill as some other 2008s can get. There is breadth to the fruit here, and it becomes all the more apparent as this warms up. What a brilliant sendoff for Richard Geoffroy.

11/15/2019 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Mid to deep ruby. Harmony nose, like some tarry smoky wind bringing in lavendar like high tone floral note. Then there are ripe fruits beneath the flower such as black and blue berries and plum. Underneath are earth, dark chocolate and xmas cake like sweet spices.

On palate it is rich like 09 and 10, or even better. Smooth and airy like silk yet intense and deep. There is such a fantastic tension between lightness and power kicking in from mid palate that reminds me the magic I experienced 1.5 years ago when I last tasted it. Endless finish. Having tasted many great 09, 10, 15 and 16 Bordeaux lately, I am certain again that this Canon 2015 is, again, worth 100 points.

2/23/2019 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Medium to deep ruby colorless rim. Intense aroma of violet, ripe blackberry, graphite, sweet spices, liquorice, toasty wood, some espresso and leather notes too. Supreme concentration yet perfectly balanced by its refreshing acidity. Great focus and long. 98+

4/18/2019 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Jamet's Equivoque first vintage - a hillside plot adjacent to Cote Rotie

Fresh flowers, peppers mulberry and ripe red berries jumping out of glass, with subtle smokiness, earthy and hint of wood. Plushy and clean, smooth tannins already with some tarry transparent minerality running through the palate. All supported by moutheatering acidity. Elegant. 100% Syrah.

1/11/2019 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Deep ruby core with fading, almost colorless rim. With air time, bursting aromas of blackberry, tar, bonfire, expresso, vanilla, nutmeg and black truffle. Silk like palate despite of its immense concentration of milk chocolate, mineral, ripe blue and red fruits, well integrated toasty sweet oakiness, earth, hint of savoury and nuttiness developing on the lingering finish. Layered, transparent and focus.

4/22/2018 - wineappellation wrote:

Restrained and jammy.

8/25/2018 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Mid ruby color. Complex aroma of violet, sandal wood, blackberry, plum, cigar box, smoky, sweet spices, tar like mineraity. Medium to full body, there are lot of subtances in there...waves of flavours coming out so layered and concentrated yet remaining ultra fine focus. Very long. Lots of ripe tannins, mainly primary and secondary stage now, best after 5-10 years. 97+

12/14/2017 - wineappellation Likes this wine:

Slox ox 3 hours. Deep ruby, pronounce and complex aroma of violet, earth, blackberry, toast, dark chocolate, graphite, sweet spices, well integrating oak. Supreme balance on palate, sharp acidity, rich texture, palate filling ripe sweet tannins, focus and concentrated mid palate of blackberry and blackcherry, sandalwood, graphite, cedar wood, clove, nutmeg. Delicious lengthy finish. So delicious now already, will easily age for two decades.