Bibendum Wine Co.
Bibendum Wine Co.
Bibendum Wine Co.
Bibendum Wine Co.

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The Bibendum Bulletin I

Your weekly update on what's happening at Bibendum
The Bibendum Bulletin I

Our first tranche of 2024 white Burgundies are starting to arrive. The headline news is that 2024 heralds a return to a more classic model of white Burgundy: delicious wines of modest alcohol, bright acidity and cool fruit flavours. The not-so-good news is that, following the harem sacrum growing season, yields were severely affected. Verget lost in the region of 30% of their fruit, yet Jean-Marie Guffens and Julien Desplans have crafted some of their most exciting wines in a decade; pure, precise and floral whites of satiny texture and chalky tension. And, as always, for this benchmark producer, the pricing remains extremely fair. 

Also in this edition, we highlight two new Italian values and a trio of great reviews for Bannockburn's recently-released 1314 wines. 

Verget Mâcon-Pierreclos 2024

Verget Mâcon-Pierreclos 2024

Sitting at the crossroads between the Mâconnais and Beaujolais, Mâcon-Pierreclos owes its fame to Jean-Marie Guffens, whose wines under the Guffens-Heynen label (mainly from the Le Chavigne lieu-dit) match the best of the Côte de Beaune for intensity and character. So, it’s great to see this vineyard now appear under the Verget label. This négoce bottling is made from low-yielding vines over 50 years old. 

The vines are situated on particularly rich limestone at the top of the hillside. Made exclusively from first pressings and matured in foudres for eight months, the result is an alluring, balanced white Burgundy showing notes of citrus peel and poached pear set against a zippy, zesty core of fruit. There is a hint of good reduction here, just a touch of struck match that adds complexity to the fruit.

“The regular 2024 Mâcon-Pierreclos is a strong performer, mingling notes of pear and bread dough with an attractive touch of reduction. Medium-bodied, lively and impressively deep and fleshy for the year, it's produced from old vines facing Le Chavigne.”
89 points, William Kelley, The Wine Advocate
Verget Mâcon-Pierreclos 2024
Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Le Haut de la Roche 2024

Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Le Haut de la Roche 2024

Located on the Roche de Vergisson, this exceptional vineyard missed out on Premier Cru status solely due to its altitude of 400 metres. Regardless, with its southeast exposure and stony limestone base, Jean-Marie Guffens considers the site far more worthy of the classification than many of the Mâcon’s new Premiers Crus. (Particularly considering global warming and the public’s thirst for fresher wines with lower alcohol.) The vines here were harvested at the very end of the vintage, with low yields bringing a marvellous core of compact fruit offset by a spine of ripe minerality and crunchy freshness. Vinified entirely in oak with 25% new barrels, it possesses excellent (Premier Cru!) intensity and length, silky texture and tension, with a long, palate-scraping finish.

“The 2024 Pouilly-Fuissé Le Haut de la Roche is another of the high points in the range this year, offering up aromas of white flowers, crisp orchard fruit and freshly baked bread, followed by a medium- to full-bodied, satiny and racy palate with chalky depth and a saline finish. It's another success for this consistently excellent cuvée.”
92 points, William Kelley, The Wine Advocate
Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Le Haut de la Roche 2024
Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Terres de Pierres 2024

Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Terres de Pierres 2024

Not be confused with the Mâcon-Villages of the same name (Verget releases multiple cuvées under the name Terres de Pierres, which means ‘stony land’), this cuvée is a blend of both free-run and press juices from a rollcall of excellent vineyards in Vergisson and Fuissé. Les Croux (exposed to the west) and the pressed juices of the Premier Crus Sur la Roche and Les Crays bring the cool, mineral line; the south-facing vines in Les Moulins and Les Littes contribute density and layered texture. So, you get both the steel and the silk. The wines fermented naturally and aged in stainless steel vats (70%) and used barrels for six months without stirring. 

The most steely and compact wine so far, it’s a wonderfully composed white Burgundy with citrus and mineral notes, a rocky, tightly wound texture and a piercing, long, chalk-drenched finish. It’s a wine of great class. Wine writer Gerald Asher once said: “If luxury is never cheap, pleasure need not be expensive.” So, if the price of top Meursault and Puligny leaves you giddy, you know what to do. This wine’s typical depth, power and complexity will be revealed with time. It is still a pleasure to drink now, but three-plus years of aging would be ideal.

Verget Pouilly-Fuissé Terres de Pierres 2024
Bannockburn 1314 Chardonnay 2025

Bannockburn 1314 Chardonnay 2025

Fruit for the 1314 Chardonnay is sourced from several blocks across Bannockburn’s organically farmed Estate, including a healthy dose from the pedigreed 1976 plantings. This is a barrel selection of the Estate’s 2025 crop, so the cellar practice is as it was for the Estate wines. The fruit was pressed as bunches to hogsheads (10% new) for fermentation. As is always the case, the oak is faultlessly integrated, and 85% of the wine underwent full malolactic conversion, followed by seven months of maturation on lees with no stirring. Only marginally less intense than the Estate bottling, this is an accomplished Chardonnay imbued with fleshy stony-citrus flavours, ocean-spray freshness and long, satiny length. The outstanding 2025 vintage has elevated this wine to another level. 

“The core of fruit flavour here is just simply delicious. In fact this wine pretty much rates as a ‘wow’ for deliciousness. It tastes of hay and yellow stonefruit, popcorn and pears, with a fully-integrated lacing of cedarwood oak. It’s a wine of excellent fruit intensity and also of out-and-out succulence. Yes please. Love this.”
93 points, Cambell Mattinson, The Wine Front
Bannockburn 1314 Chardonnay 2025
Bannockburn 1314 Pinot Noir 2025

Bannockburn 1314 Pinot Noir 2025

From the gamut of the Estate’s organically farmed Pinot Noir blocks planted in 1976, 1997 and 2004 to MV6, 114 and 115 clones, 1314 is a bona fide mini–Bannockburn Pinot. As always, this wine saw a healthy slug of fruit from the iconic close-planted blocks and comprises a selection of barrels chosen for their freshness and early drinking appeal. The fruit fermented with 15% bunches, and the wine matured in hogsheads (15% new) for seven months. Even by Bannockburn’s standards, this is pretty damn good. It’s spicy, subtly earthy and floral, very much an expression of Bannockburn, with succulent raspberry and berry fruit and wonderfully slinky tannins. At this price, it’s a rare achievement to deliver a Pinot Noir this accomplished and rooted to place. Then again, this is Bannockburn.

“Such a pleasure. This is a lovely expression of Pinot Noir. It’s earthen and undergrowth-y and cherried and spicy, with squeaky/grapey tannin and a keen juiciness through the finish. 100% yes to this. This wine has Bannockburn written all over it.”
93 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
Bannockburn 1314 Pinot Noir 2025
Bannockburn 1314 Shiraz 2025

Bannockburn 1314 Shiraz 2025

Shiraz has made a couple of cameos in Bannockburn’s 1314 range over the years, but from the 2024, its place is now locked on. As with the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, vine age plays a significant role in the quality here, especially considering the price. The fruit hails from the both Bannockburn’s historic, 1974-planted Range vineyard as well as 1990 and 1996 vines on the Winery Block. Picked for brightness, the fruit was destemmed and fermented on skins for seven days before being pressed off to mostly old hogsheads (10% new) for nine months’ maturation. Bearing all the hallmarks of a great Shiraz vintage, it is vibrant and inky with ripe plums, dark cherries, and meaty notes trailed by hints of blood, violet and spice jostling out the glass. The palate is svelte and juicy with dark fruit and pepper spice framed by fine, dusky tannins. A touch of earthy minerality adds complexity to a wine that already overdelivers.

“Made from estate-grown fruit and matured in hogsheads (10% new). Just as good, if not better, than last year's impressive and very well-priced release. An impressive crimson purple colour. Aromas of dark fruits, freshly cracked black pepper, florals and spice all precede the richly flavoured, gently structured and very well-balanced palate. This is a wine that will look even better over the next four to six years.”
95 points, Philip Rich, The Wine Companion
Bannockburn 1314 Shiraz 2025
Corzano e Paterno Toscana Rosso Il Corzanello 2024

Corzano e Paterno Toscana Rosso Il Corzanello 2024

Organic. This is Corzano’s delicious, easy-drinking entry-level red—an IGT Toscana Rosso bringing together Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon with a dollop of Merlot. Named after the medieval fortified farmhouse on Corzano’s property, fruit for this wine chiefly grows on the estate’s cooler sites, and the winemaking is tuned towards preserving the wine’s vibrant aromas and bright-fruited charm. Accordingly, the grapes are given a pre-fermentation cold soak for a week or so before the wine begins fermenting naturally in stainless steel. “We are not looking for lots of structure,” says winemaker Arianna Gelpke. So, the juices are separated from their skins after only a few days to continue their fermentation in stainless-steel vats.

This is Tuscan value at its finest: a supple and bright wine for the table and good cheer. It’s all sweet-fruited raspberry and black cherry backed by anise and blue flowers bound by chalky Tuscan tannins and freshening acidity. Ready for drinking now, this lip-smacking rosso is the kind of wine where one bottle is rarely enough. Try it with anything from barbequed chicken or silky ragù to woodfired pizza—a wine for all occasions.

Corzano e Paterno Toscana Rosso Il Corzanello 2024

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