WHAT AND HOW ?
Visual aspect : golden yellow colour, beautiful brilliance. Fine bubbles.
Nose : fresh, pleasant. Notes of pears and greengage.
Palate : pure, very different from the nose, peaches and a hint of lemon. Beautiful finish.
Match with food : aperitif, tartar of monk fish and marinated salmon.
Comments : It’s all finesse and elegance.

WHEN AND WHERE ?
The castle of Pierry, an 18^th century country seat, has been the beautiful setting of SommelierS International’s latest tasting (in november 2014), dedicated to Winegrowers’ Champagnes. About 200 cuvées crafted by Champagne winegrowers were tasted in the Kings Gallery of the castle in the presence of Serge Dubs and Philippe Faure-Brac, both best Sommelier of the World, as well as Michèle Chantôme, président of the sommeliers of Morocco.

Le Cèdre Malbec Vintage 2011

This is as close as Malbec gets to a Port-style wine. It is rich,
lightly nutty and well balanced between sweet black fruits and
acidity, with firmer tannins that promise aging. Drink at the end of
a meal, like a vintage Port.

Wine Enthusiast November 2014

You may know the varietal as Argentina’s best export, but its roots are French. Get to know the grape’s more structured, transatlantic cousins with some of our favorite French Malbecs available in the U.S. [...]

Argentinian producers have done a terrific job of marketing Malbec as a concept, with the word itself in big type on bottles—but in much of Europe, the grapes aren’t necessarily listed on wine labels, or they go by names Americans have never heard of. So it takes a little more investigation and effort to understand Malbec’s French cousins. [...]

Luckily, Malbecs from France’s Cahors region, where it’s the only game in town, are much easier to track down. Cahors is just east and slightly south of Bordeaux—where, not incidentally, Malbec was the primary grape before 1860—and it’s known for producing intense, tannic and inky-black Malbecs. It’s one of France’s most underappreciated areas, without a doubt. [...]

It took the wine list at Cherche Midi, Keith McNally’s new bistro on New York’s Lower East Side, to acquaint me with my favorite Cahors of all, Chateau Du Cedre’s Le Cedre 2011 ($55). Everything this producer makes is worth seeking out, including Chateau du Cedre Cahors 2011 ($24), with its hearty black plum taste.
But the pitch black Le Cedre, the chateau’s go-for-broke premium product, boasts a host of contradictions, and as in all great wines, they are all elegantly synthesized. It’s rich, but not heavy. It’s full of sweet black fruit flavors—cherry, blackberry—but it has a long, precise finish that does not weigh you down. A note of tar keeps things interesting. And it paired fantastically well with the prime rib at Cherche Midi. These are red-meat wines through and through.
If you’ve been living on a diet of “Solid Red Wine,” Le Cedre is a first-class ticket to the next level of Malbec.

Extract from What to Drink Now: Getting to Know French Malbecs
By Ted Loos on March 26, 2015

The castle of Pierry, an 18^th-century country seat, has been the beautiful setting of SommelierS International’s latest tasting, dedicated to Winegrowers’ Champagnes. About 200 cuvées crafted by Champagne winegrowers were tasted in the Kings Gallery of the castle, in the presence of Serge Dubs and Philippe Faure-Brac, both best Sommelier of the World, and Michèle Chantôme, président of the sommeliers of Morocco.

Champagne Le Clos l’Abbé Blanc de Blancs Brut Harvest 2007

Visual aspect : Very pale yellow, silvery tinges. Fine bubbles.
Nose : fine, with herbs and spices, bergamot, slightly citric.
Palate : Pure, with more vegetable notes, citric (lemon, yellow grapefruit). Good presence of bubbles. The finish is superb.
Match with food : combava scallops Carpaccio.
Comments : A very beautiful Champagne.

The years best collectable wines

In 2014, just over 17000 wines were reviewed by our editors and, from that total, a mere six percent merited the Cellar Selection designation – a marker for highly rated wines that exhibit the potential to evolve and improve for many years. From this already choice sampling, we colled our Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2014 list – all the must-haves of the year that deserve a spot in your cellar.

Château du Cèdre 2010 Le Cèdre Cahors (N° 49)

This is a great vintage of Le Cèdre. With dark tannins and impressive structure, it is big and fruity while never overwhelming. Dense black fruits, bitter cherries and dark chocolate combine with mineral, juicy acidity. It’s a wine to age for many years, don’t drink before 2018.

Crème de Cassis and spring flowers!

When visiting the region earlier this year, Jeb Dunnuck from the Wine Advocate took a close look at the 2004 vintage in Gigondas. Here are his impressions on our wines:

Santa Duc Tradition 2004
Easily one of the top estates in Gigondas, Yves Gras’s Domaine Santa Duc produced one to the top wines in 2004. His straight 2004 Gigondas is a blend of 75% Grenache, 15% Syrah and the rest Cinsault that was aged in foudre and large oak tanks. Coming from a variety of terroirs, it offers a rich, meaty profile with notions of spiced meats, roasted herbs, sappy spring flower and assorted cherry and dark berry fruit all emerging from the glass. Medium-bodied, nicely textured and balanced, it’s a solid effort that should continue to drink nicely through 2019.

Santa Duc Prestige des Hautes Garrigues 2004
The top wine of the estate and a big step up, the 2004 Gigondas Hautes Garrigues comes from 50- to 80-year-old vines located around the estate and is a blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Mourvedre. Aged in a combination of new barrels and tank, it sports a still inky purple color to go with awesome aromas and flavors of creme de cassis, toasted spice, licorice and hints of charred beef. Full-bodied, vibrant and pure, with fantastic depth and concentration that hides ample underlying tannic grip, enjoy this knockout Gigondas through 2024.

Pierre Cros settled on 25 ha of vineyards and as much olives, almond trees and truffle oaks. He is a great “winzer-artist”, a real benchmark in the Minervois, if you look look up how often we wrote about him and his wines in this guide during the last 10 years. He considers himself as a “peasant” and tells usthat he learned to respect his clients from his father and grand-father,who both of them had been bakers in Badens. Besides classic grape varieties of the AOC, Pierre Cros keeps ancient, almost forgotten and even “non-beloved” (mal aimé) grape varieties (as for example the Aramon) and introduced new varieties from abroad.

The mythic cuvee of the winery (Les Aspres) stands atop the podium once again. Similar to previous vintages, the 2011 unifies intense, warm fragrances of ripe fruit, spices, cedar wood and eucalyptus. Toasty aromas and cocoa join the full-bodied, smooth and concentrated taste on the palate, underlined by elegant but tight tannins and delicate spices that lead the wine to an intense final. A true apotheosis!

Three stars also for the Vielles Vignes 2012: A centennial Carignan that spend a short time in oak barrels. Sweet spices, concentrated fruit, fine and supple.

This cuvee partly fermented in oak barrels (20%). Slight lemon aromas and a lot of zest in the nose, perfectly balanced and fresh on the palate, this wine is still young it will light up over the next years. Savour from 2015 to 2020.

The estate was created in 1902 in the heart of the Côte des Blancs. Paul Lebrun started to make his own Champagne in 1931. Nowadays, his grandchildren, Nathalie and Jean Vignier, cultivate 16,5 hectares of Chardonnay around Cramant and Sézanne.