NV Eric Rodez Extra Brut Ambonnay (34) Grands Vintages Grand Cru

Certified organic (Ecocert), biodynamic (Demeter). Tirage 2018. Disgorged January 2024. It smells like a summer thunderstorm and tastes, incongruously, like an African summer. If you ever ate drippingly juicy ripe pineapple at the top of a hot granite kopje with the smell of resurrection bush and red dust in the still, shimmering air, you would know what I mean. There is nothing about this expansive, tropically ripe, monumental wine that is not meant to spell drama. It is deliberately awesome, in the real meaning of the word. But it is also generous, enveloping and inclusive. It owns the room but gives space for everything else. You could just as easily pair this with macaroni cheese and you could with lobster Thermidor; with your best person on a night at home in trackie pants watching eighties reruns as with heels and tuxes in a high-ceilinged room full of glittering small talk. I know where I'd drink it. (TC)

Disgorged in April 2020 with three grams per liter dosage, the latest rendition of the NV Brut Cuvée des Grand Vintages wafts from the glass with inviting aromas of pear, toasted almonds, dried white flowers, honeycomb, peach and nougat. Full-bodied, elegantly fleshy and enveloping, with ripe but racy acids, a pillowy mousse and a nicely layered core, it's already quite expressive despite its recent disgorgement, but I suspect it will show even more depth and dimension with another year or two on cork.

30% Chardonnay, 70% Pinot Noir. Single vineyard. Bottled spring 2011. Vintages 2010 back to 2004. Moët have the same name. Rodez just thinks ‘vintages’ sounds nice with the French pronunciation. Very rich and intense. It really is wine, not champagne. Very winey indeed. You could drink this with a steak, it’s so long and dense. (JR)