Winery Pointillart & FilsLe Demi-Sec Champagne Premier Cru

Collectors contemplating the dizzying spiral of prices often decide that the time is ripe for profit-taking. Some may decide that they will never drink their way through their cellar, while others feel they could not in good conscience enjoy wines that, in many cases, have appreciated tenfold since their purchase. Many, or most, collectors begin with wine enjoyment rather than investment as their primary goal. Still, as prices continue to climb, it becomes harder and harder to ignore insistent p ...

I was with some wine students in Chablis, visiting the affable Guillaume Michel of Domaine Louis Michel. The 2018 vintage in Chablis was prolific, though Guillaume’s team pruned the vines as hard as normal. Guillaume has a little more than a half-hectare of the smallest of the grands crus, Grenouilles (8.74ha in production in 2018, most of which is controlled by the cooperative La Chablisienne): delicious in 2018. And, after a year’s pruning and vine-tending, after hand-harvesting and scrupulous ...

The voice drops a little; the tone grows more reverential. Everyone knows; everyone understands. There will be wry allusions to a quest, perhaps even the grail. Sacrifice is expected en route; failure (always forgiven: a badge of honour) beckons on every side. Kitted up, your hopes armour-plated? I might be talking about planting vines on a cleared slope, or simply about taking the corkscrew to a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine, but you all know by now what’s meant. Pinot Noir. ‘Pinotism’ ...