Tag: Blanc de Noirs
Ferrari Perlé Nero 2010
100% Pinot Nero. 6 years on lees.
This is brilliant. Beautifully fragrant, with super-ripe strawberry and golden stone fruits mixing with zesty candied grapefruit and papaya. It’s so clear and precise for a blanc de noirs, with no weightiness or toughness. Instead a spot of Pinot savour comes in the form of captivating, subtle complexities of smoky peppercorns, asian herbs and bitters. Lovely gentle autolytic richness. Very Ferrari – lots going on but nothing getting in the way of that beautiful fruit. 17.5
Jenkyn Place Blanc de Noir 2010
Blanc de Noirs 2010 was by some distance the best bottle I have ever tried of this cuvée. Ripe, developed flavours of frangipane and stone fruit pastries, apple compôte and apricot. Not massively complex but harmonious. Shows what these wines can do if they improve their consistency with bottle and cork problems.
16.5
Date Tasted : 07/02/2020
Raimes Blanc de Noirs 2016
The Blanc de Noirs 2016 is a new release, extremely youthful for now and wound tightly with slightly wilder apple and hedgerow fruit. Possibly some cool-fermented flavours bringing out the fruitiness here. Narrow for now, this will build really nicely. There’s extra definition in the other two cuvées for now.
15.5
Date Tasted : 07/02/2020
Harrow and Hope Blanc de Noirs 2015
70% Pinot Noir, 30% Pinot Meunier. Tasted back at the winery in Nov 2019 and awarded the joint highest score for ESW2020. This is impressive stuff. It seems a little more angular today (and possibly more open and oxidative than I remembered) but also brisling and tight. The nose is rather beautiful, broad with caramelised apricots, russet apple and sweet almond notes. There’s a gentle seam of butter and spice from some oak influence. The fruit almost goes black with wild blackberry and raspberry. Youthful on the palate, good flavour concentration and some real tightness. Excellent cuvée, perhaps a little more reservation in scoring than before. It needs time.
17.5
Date Tasted : 22/01/2020
Exton Park Blanc de Noirs NV
The Blanc de Noirs NV seems to have become a welcome fixture in the portfolio. I think the base vintage must have moved on from the last time I tasted as its lovely pear and blossom fragrance was just a touch tangy and direct. With a few more months in bottle this will open up.
15.5
Date Tasted : 07/02/2020
Camel Valley White Pinot 2015
The White Pinot 2014 is 100% Pinot Noir from the estate, showing quite quiet yellow apple and stone fruits with some gentle fresh strawberry sweetness and herbal touches. Bright, balanced and quite tight – it’s good but the Rosé has the extra star quality.
15.5
Date Tasted : 13/09/2019
Lyme Bay Winery Blanc de Noirs 2014
Blanc de Noirs 2014 (100% Pinot Noir) is a delight; sweet pear, white peach and raspberry fruit with some delicious savoury nuances. Crystalline clarity of flavour – ripe texture, slowly maturing but still pristine. Another excellent wine.
16
Date Tasted : 13/09/2019
Fox & Fox Meunier 2014
This is developing in the bottle now, with a little of the wilder side of Meunier coming out; initially some meaty, savoury dried mushroom, kerosine and Schweppes lime, then, with air, juicy pomelo and lemon syrup, bramble and nut butter. If it sounds outlandish or rich, it isn’t – whilst it carries some of the outgoing attributes of some Champagne expressions of Meunier, it is absolutely fresh, even delicate on the palate, with shimmering, integrated acidity. Unique.
17
Date Tasted : 13/09/2019
Fox & Fox Tradition 2014
Still in a fresh place with beautiful fresh, sweet redcurrant, raspberry and fresh ground almond fruit. Flashes of clementine and juicy golden plums, blossom and digestive biscuit ride a cool, classy single cream texture that is shared with Essence 2014. Delicious, perfectly woven acidity and immaculate golden fruit, mellowing rather than imposing; it’s so rare to find a Blanc de Noirs of this refinement.
17.5
Date Tasted : 16/10/2019
Fox & Fox Meunier 2014
95%Meunier, 5% Chardonnay. 34 Months on lees, 9 g/l dosage. Complex in a softly-spoken, quite elusive way; ripe citrus somewhere in-between pink grapefruit/pomelo/fresh orange, sweet red cherry and a very English crabapple jelly-like preserved fruit character. Also some tropical starfruit notes, and a little macaroon. Then fresh apple compote, gently spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. It’s bright but quite friendly on the palate; what impresses is a the intensity and length of candied citrus and the white pepper spice on the finish. Hides a lot of subtlety behind the freshness, and will develop well over the next 3 years.
17
Date Tasted : 09/09/2018
