Vinous (95)

Translucent yellow. Seductively perfumed aromas of passion fruit, pear nectar, white peach and orange zest, along with suggestions of jasmine and tarragon. At once concentrated and lively, offering vibrant, mineral-laced orchard and pit fruit flavors that are complicated by a suave, steadily building floral nuance. Finishes with a strong jolt of minerality, repeating florality and noteworthy persistence. This wine's blend of power and finesse is quite something.

James Suckling (96)

Focused and complex on the nose with stone, sliced cooked apple and hints of toffee. Full-bodied, with a density and freshness and liveliness. Vivid and energetic. All about class here. Drink or hold.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (90-93)

Pale clear colour. A gentle fresh apple nose, this has notable tension on the palate, not a rich, ripe rounded Meursault – but that is not the intention anyway. The attack suggests that this is only just ripe, but the finish indicates that it was picked at a very good moment, otherwise you wouldn’t have this length of flavour. Fine tension to finish.

Tim Atkin MW (95)

You know class when you taste it, and this is certainly that. Deservedly established as one of South Africa's most consistently outstanding Chardonnays, this has the structure and concentration to age, with no malolactic at all, 22% new wood and complex, nuanced, stony flavours of lemon zest, oatmeal and stone fruit – Drinking to 2028

Wine Advocate (97-99)

Produced from Montrachet Clone vines (what Mark Aubert calls “the citrus circus clone") grown in Rutherford AVA, the 2018 Chardonnay Sugar Shack comes bounding out of the glass with a sit-up-and-beg nose of candied lemon peel, green mango, guava and lime leaves plus hints of honeysuckle, toasted almonds, crushed stones and nutmeg. Full-bodied, the palate is electric with concentrated citrus and tropical fruits and the most amazing tension, featuring a satiny texture and very long, pristine finish.

Hailing from the acclaimed vineyards of Burgundy, France, Boisson Vadot Meursault les Grands Charrons 2018 offers an unrivalled luxurious taste journey. Utilising the skillful hand of Boisson Vadot, a viticulturist with generations of winemaking heritage, this exceptional creation embodies excellence.

A product of Chardonnay grapes, this captivating white wine delivers a fervent embodiment of the unique terroir it originates from. A judicious use of oak barrel fermentation and ageing intensify its distinctive undertones of apple, pear, and toasted nuts, further pronounced by an elegant mineral touch. Its medium to full-bodied robustness, compelling complexity, and bright acidity whisper of its potential to age beautifully.

Boisson Vadot Meursault les Grands Charrons 2018 encapsulates the opulence of its provenance, satisfying the most discerning of palates. A testament to the artistry and rigorous dedication of its creators towards delivering absolute perfection.

The Real Review (97)

Medium red colour with a trace of purple in the rim. The bouquet is pepper-spicy, stemmy and savoury, with a whiff of new kid leather, while the palate is elegantly structured and yet firm, tremendously intense, taut as a bow-string, and magnificently balanced. This is a stunning pinot of a complex, bunchy style, already drinking well, with more held in reserve. 17 JUN 2020

Wine Advocate (98+)

The outstanding 2018 White Stones Chardonnay epitomizes the expression of the grape in the cooler-climate and high-altitude location of the Adrianna vineyard in Gualtallary. There is rectitude, austerity and elegance, a subtle wine with great clout and intensity that comes through as chiseled, focused, symmetric and pure, more in the style of Roulot than Coche-Dury, with superb integration of all the elements and fine minerality. This is more about the place and vintage than the grape, which feels like a good way to transmit the chalky soils of the selected plots. Simply superb, possibly the finest vintage for this bottling so far. 6,600 bottles were filled in May 2019.

Tim Atkin MW (97)

Right up there with the best Chardonnays Chile, and South America, has ever produced. This stunning wine comes from five specific blocks within the Quebrada Secain Limarí. Tangy, chiselled and refined, with very stylish oak. It’s the kind of thing that could embarrass a range of Puligny-Montrachet Premiers Crus in a blind tasting. Simply stunning

Wine Advocate (98)

The 2018 d'Yquem is all lime cordial, grapefruit oil and mandarin peel to begin. With a little coaxing, the fireworks really begin, letting off a whole array of honeysuckle, candied ginger, dried pineapple, lemon pastilles, chalk dust and sea spray scents, followed by a savory undercurrent of shaved almonds, allspice and baking bread. The palate is an exercise in polish and poise, featuring the most gorgeously creamy texture and bright, sparkling freshness, framing all the densely laden tropical and citrus fruit layers, finishing with a powerful BANG of profound floral and spice perfume. It is wonderfully sweet, yes, but that—paradoxically for a "sweet wine"—is almost beside the point.

James Suckling (98)

Stare into the abyss and it will stare back at you! This has such an incredible depth of dried-flower and fresh-herb notes that you could get lost in the bouquet, before reaching the sleek and enormously mineral palate. So pristine and dazzling at the super long finish. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (97)

This is another rock-star chardonnay from here with dried-apple, pear-skin, crushed-stone and peach-pit character. Full body. Creamy texture. Phenolic form and a long, flavorful finish. Drink or hold.

James Suckling (95)

This has rich, lemon and lightly grassy aromas in a very fresh, pure and focused mode. Some fresh-pastry and chalky notes, too. The palate is succulent and piercing. Some smooth, lees-derived texture sits nicely around the fresh, lemon flavor with pastry-like resolve. Impressive textural complexity really makes this special. Drink over the next six years.

James Suckling (99)

I love the aromas of lavender, sandalwood, sliced apples and pears. Some gunpowder and slate undertones. Full-bodied, yet formed and tight with minerality and brightness. Vivid acidity gives this energy and depth. Drinkable, but will age beautifully.

Vinous (89-91)

The 2018 Puligny-Montrachet Village comes from the 12 parcels located around the appellation. It offers attractive dewy green apples, freshly sliced pear and hints of mirabelle on the nose, which needs a few swirls of the glass to awaken. The palate is well balanced with orange zest and citrus lemon and hints of lime, all matched with a fine bead of acidity, the 15% new oak neatly folded into the finish. Recommended.

Vinous (93)

The 2018 Gaia & Rey offers up a whole range of tropical and orchard fruit flavors, showing an extra kick of creaminess that is surprising given the cool vintage and the decision to fully block the malolactic fermentation. Passion fruit, pastry, spice and a kick of well-judged oak build nicely in the glass. The 2018 finishes with lovely tension and energy.

Tim Atkin MW (96)

Named after the range of hills in the cool, north-west corner of Rioja, Gómez Cruzado's top white is a cuvée of Viura and 25% Tempranillo Blanco, Calagraño and Malvasía. Aged in concrete eggs and barrels, it's a leesy, sappy, complex blend with notes of beeswax, vanilla and lemongrass and a salty tang. Wonderfully complex.

Burghound (93)

(Outstanding) Here there is enough post-bottling reduction to largely mask the nuances of the more floral-suffused aromas. As is typically the case, there is more refinement but less size, weight and power to the delicious and gorgeously textured medium-bodied flavors that display excellent length on the citrus-tinged finale. This youthfully austere effort will require at least a few years of patience, but it should be well worth the wait.

Wine Spectator (95)

From green clay and pebbly silex soils, the 2018 Vouvray Le Mont Demi-Sec offers a clear, intense but elegant and sublime nose that intermixes ripe fruit and ginger aromas with spicy-flinty notes. Very well articulated and precise on the nose, it is lush and intense on the palate, with a good structure and complex finish. This is a highly promising Vouvray whose combination of 14% alcohol and unfermented sugar asks for a couple of years of cellar aging. The finish is salty, pure, tight and vibrantly fresh. A gorgeous, highly energetic wine. Tasted in May 2019.

Matthew Jukes (19.5++)

I am informed by the top man at Klein Constantia that the price will be the same as last year’s superb 2017 and all of the likely candidates in the UK are likely to hold stock. It will require a little effort on Google and you will see that a large number of wine merchants will list 2018 Vin de Constance and while the prices swing around like no other wine I know, at £60 or so, for a half litre, it certainly makes sense to me and when you consider the sheer quality of this vintage, it is a bargain for this celestial experience. Stock is likely to arrive in September 2021, but do feel free to register your interest with your preferred wine merchant now. Vintage reports suggest that the build-up to the 2018 harvest brought the highest summer rainfall of the last six years and, combined with some of the coldest night-time temperatures on record, the vines were granted a very long and very slow growing season. These conditions have imbued extreme delicacy of perfume and flavour and also staggering concentration and length in this wine. It also means that the 2018 vintage has otherworldly characteristics and I cannot remember a young vintage tasting so refined and demure. Light bunches and tiny Muscat de Frontignan berries underline just how unusual this vintage was and with a harvest that was a fortnight later than average and crops down by about 15% all of these facts make sense when you taste this ethereal wine. Aged for three years in a combination of 50% new French oak barrels, a small number of acacia barrels, as well as large format foudres, this is both a sensual and also sensitive wine. For a start, the colour is incredibly pale – think a young Sancerre! But the viscosity is amazing when you pour a glass because the liquid moves ever so slightly slower and more deliberately into the glass. The lights come on and the brain fires up immediately and it takes you by surprise just how quickly your olfactory system senses that you are in the presence of greatness. I was in a state of heightened anticipation, long before I raised the glass to my lips and the reward is exquisite. The perfume and palate combine in an astral haze of delight with orange blossom, fig, lemon verbena, wild honey and acacia notes caressing your senses. The texture is super-smooth, incredibly long and unnervingly gentle. It certainly possesses the longest finish I can remember on a Vin de Constance and I have, very fortunately, a tasted huge number of vintages of this wine. If you have never tasted this wine before, please start with this vintage – it will blow your mind. If you have and you are a fan, this is a critical purchase for your collection. I cannot wait to add this wine to my cellar later in the year.

The Western Australian (99)

Let's put it this way. This is the closest I have come to awarding a wine 100 points...Stellar wine from a stellar vintage. The remarkable this is that this is a wine 100 percent barrel fermented in new French oak barriques with regular lees stirring for 11 months - and it certainly doesn't taste excessive, or even slightly oak. It has such high-fidelity purity with complex seductive aromatics of vanilla bean and light oatmeal with a cutting minerality and spicy lift. But the palate, oh the palate. This is where things start to explode. Power, poise and persistence with a dry savouriness balancing the intense ripe fruit. It is such a long finish with an ever so slightly, charry finish completing a remarkable wine

Wine Enthusiast (91)

Named after the producer's winery, this wine is a blend of fruit from different parts of the appellation. A little age has rounded out the wine, giving richness as well as a bite of acidity at the end. Although ready to drink, the wine will be even better from 2021.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (91)

(5-Star Wine) One plot is in Valvent opposite 1er cru Epinottes, the other opposite Forêts. There is more yellow in the colour here than the Petit Chablis, with an exceptional intensity that makes it almost hard to taste. Immaculate youthful bitterness and great length.

Tim Atkin MW (96)

A welcome relief from the blandness of many commercial Sauvignon Blancs, this is an ambitious, dynamically farmed white from the brilliant team at Reyneke. Sappy, reductive and nettley, with a flinty note that's reminiscent of a great Pouilly-Fumé and a long, saline finish. 2020-24

Wine Advocate (97)

The 2018 Chardonnay Upper Barn Vineyard was aged for 10 months in French oak, 46% new. It has a very classy nose of ripe peaches, fresh yellow apples and allspice followed by fresh ginger, cashew and acacia honey plus a waft of sea spray. Full-bodied, rich, satiny and with fantastic intensity and tension, it finishes very long and chalky. YUM! 600 cases were made.

Halliday Wine Companion (97)

This is a spectacular chardonnay, eschewing malolactic in the name of precision and freshness, while sacrificing nothing in the way of flavour and textural detail in doing so. A reductive riff of gunflint segues to notes of white fig, honeydew melon, nectarine and creamed cashew. A chassis of mineral and bright acidity carry the flavours long and broad, chaperoned by high class oak that is nestled into the fray. This will age beautifully over the coming decade, but oozes class and such poise already that it is difficult to refrain from opening a bottle or, at least in my case, finishing the glass.

Tim Atkin MW (95)

Every bit as good as the 2017, even though the vintage is less celebrated, this is an equal marriage of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc with an even lower pH. Grapefruit and elderflower flavours combine appealingly with the stylish vanilla oak, embellished by a herbal undertone.