2019 Mas de Daumas Gassac

78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot, 3% Pinot Noir, 3% Tannat, 2% Malbec, 4% ‘rare varieties’. Red cherries, petals, night jasmine. As I found with the 2017 , the perfume on this wine is persistent, haunting and so lovely that it gave me goosebumps. And then massive intensity of fruit exploding through lightly webbed, sherbety tannins. Throaty, sonorous wine that tastes like liquid Morricone, Gabriel’s Oboe ; so beautiful I felt the wine almost like an ache in my chest. But don’t drink it yet. Give it five years, at least. (TC)

32% Viognier, 19% Petit Manseng, 18% Chardonnay, 14% Chenin, 17% Bourboulenc, Petit Courbu, Muscat Ottonel, Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, Muscat d’Alexandrie, Gros Manseng, Sémillon (France). Neheleschol (Israel), Amigne (Switzerland), Sercial de Madère (Portugal), Khondorni, Tchilar (Armenia), Albariño (Spain), Falanghina, Fiano, Grechetto (Italy). Heavy bottle. These guys are a bit insane. Look at those grape varieties.  Tangy nose, like yogurt stirred through with raw dark honey. Very, very floral on the palate – so much so that you almost don’t notice the weight and complexity, the focus and drive. A coiled spring of acidity through fruit that shimmers through the spectrum from English orchard to tropical and back again. Morello cherries, grapefruit, mango, green apples, greengage, white peach. And then, just as you get distracted by all the mouth-watering fruit, the spice starts to filter through, from back to front: white pepper, black pepper, clove, fennel seed. It builds and builds. Like a Mozart symphony, an edge of anger under the beauty. Clenched, taut, hard bones under the riffs and ripples of pretty fruit. This needs way more time to really be what it is. (TC)