Pinon 1996 Vouvray Moelleux "Cuvee Botrytis" 500ml - Pre-arrival (Arrives Mid-September)

We've had the good fortune to taste this wine a few times over the last 20 years - it's an astonishing and beautiful experience, certainly in the top rank of Loire sweet wines of the past 50 years, with it's combination of vibrant fruit and bracing acidity. Here's Chris Kissack again who has written about this wine numerous times..."A mid-golden hue, giving no clue to the plainly fantastic wine that awaits the lucky drinker. The aromas speak plainly of strong botrytis, with scents of praline and toasted nuts, along with dried apricots, confit oranges, ginger and aniseed, but there are also salty and minerally suggestions. It offers a curious but undeniably enticing combination of rich, noble rot character with very fine minerality, but it is nothing compared to what the palate has in store. Here the wine reveals its incisive and vibrant character, with a very fine, granulated minerality, with mineral-talc energy. An incredibly direct style, impressing with a mouthful of powdered flirt through the middle which dominates the finish and length, with a sorbet-like intensity, with a sweet, desiccated-fruit character lurking behind. The acidity is just superb, a needle of incisive structure piercing the core of the palate. It feels so long, with just stunning poise. A stupendous wine, surely one of the greatest wines from Vouvray in the 1996 vintage, and to be frank one of my most memorable Vouvray experiences ever."