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Staff Favorites - Giovanni Bueno
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Reviews
2014 Alexandre Le Brun "Cuvée Revelation" Extra Brut Champagne
Review Date: 08-22-2022
Monsieur Alexandre Le Brun has enchanted us down a somber, tree covered lane bursting with red and yellow leaves, gentle spice in the air. In the distance there are pear trees groaning under the weight of the impending harvest, yellow skins shiny in the early morning. The earth exhales a heady aroma that beckons us along this lane until we reach the door of a dark cellar, salty, poignant with yeasty, bready aromas pouring out from the slit underneath. We clamber into the cellar and there is a glass of 2014 Cuvee Revelation poured mysteriously for us. One sip and we awaken, not in a cellar after all but transported nonetheless by this glorious champagne.
Price:
$79.99
Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne
Review Date: 05-10-2022
Often imitated, seldom replicated, and in this day and age when little is left that you can rely on, Billecart Salmon Rose is the old friend you can trust. Made with a nearly traditional blend of champagne's greatest grapes, this wine pulses with life and makes a heady companion to poached salmon, grilled langoustine or even a rich and fatty tuna tartare.
Billecart-Salmon "Brut Réserve" Champagne
Review Date: 05-10-2022
The classic, hard to get these days and even harder to put down once you've popped that top and gotten it into a glass. Fresh, with hints of flowers, stone fruit and a gentle yeasty scrumptiousness that has you crying out for more. Please come down and get some before it all disappears again.
Pierre Mineral Brut Rosé Champagne
Review Date: 05-10-2022
Bursting with pomegranate, cherry and petunia sweetened air, this is an exemplary Rose champagne. You know a K&L direct import when you see a wine that should cost way more but there it is, right within budget. You'll love what this wine brings to your next fish dinner, or next cheese-filled book club meeting.
Price:
$39.99
Pierre Mineral Mesnil "Vieillie En Fût" Grand Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne
Review Date: 05-10-2022
You know that when K&L staffers immediately buy a wine opened up at a staff tasting that it's a winner. Pierre Mineral's Viellie En Fut is read to deliver on all your expectations. Treated as a luxury wine, but for a price we can all take a swing at. An autumnal nose of apple and pear skin and a hint of sweet spice transform on the palate into a riotous, mouth filling celebration of bright citrus, subtle stone fruit and the slightest salty finish. Don't sleep on this.
Price:
$49.99
Pierre Mineral Brut Champagne
Review Date: 05-10-2022
Bright shimmering green apple, hints of white flower and a fresh mineral tang on the palate make this a serious Champagne without a serious price tag. All the confusing rules behind whose fruit goes into whose wine could be in the conversation with this wine, but when you pour it into a glass and take a sip all conversation fades to the background and you'll only care that this is really good wine.
Price:
$34.99
Ariston Aspasie "Cépages d'Antan" Brut Champagne
Review Date: 02-05-2022
This is not just a wine for the wine nerd. Cepages d'Antan could very well be portal from the past into the future of Champagne, using once forgotten about grapes native to Champagne. Cloy and veiled initially, this wine really starts to open up with air, so if you're not one to decant Champagne, try it out with this special blend. You will be rewarded with a bouquet of different citrus from a touch of mandarin peel, to plucky lemon and even some buddha's hand? Then the butter cracker comes through and the extended lees pays off as swirls of heady savory herbs come into the finish. Who knows if climate change means we move back to some of these forgotten varietals, but at least you'll know what everyone had been missing when we get there.
Price:
$99.99
Egrot Extra Brut Champagne
Review Date: 02-05-2022
What's not to love about extra brut Champagne? Imagine a wine maker who knows that they have delicious fruit and they take that fruit and make a delicious wine, and then they have such confidence with that wine that they bottle it with just a whisper of lifting dosage. Egrot's Extra Brut has a beautiful minerality to it, and a hint of salinity as if it was plucked from the sea. The finish is brisk and almost stern, but more like the love of a Grandmother who knows what's best for you. Bruised cherry, fatty Marcona almonds and a doughy savory character speak to the mastery of lees contact that Elisabeth Goutourbe likely has written into her DNA.
W.B. Saffell Limited Edition Batch #1 107 Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (375ml)
Review Date: 02-01-2022
Andrew and David do a great job of delivering you the heady nuances of this whiskey--I'm just here to hype. This bourbon is everything you want in an American whiskey, leaping across the room from any glass it's poured into to smack you with deep caramel notes and fragrant earth and spice. Even taking small tasting sips like we do at work, this whiskey lingers on your senses, creating a cacophony of smells and flavors that will be sure to delight even the casual lover of whiskey. If you've already got a bottle of this, grab another, you never know when you might run out.
Price:
$49.99
Damien Hugot Grand Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne
Review Date: 08-14-2021
What a fantastic wine! It’s an attractive, medium-intensity yellow color that bounces with life when you pour it into a glass. Loaded with ripe yellow pear, vibrant golden apples, and lemon confit on the nose, your mind will want to wrap itself up into a scarf and dream of autumn with red and yellow leaves dancing in a swirling breeze. Biscuit, buttered baguette, and fresh-from-the-oven brioche round out the lees characteristic of this wine made by a family whose savvy has been passed down by 25 generations. The acid, marled with limestone and finesse, is balanced and nuanced, creating a beautifully refreshing wine. You’ll want it by itself and for apéritif with some potted meats, mousses, and cheese. Or you’ll want to pop it open just after you’ve taken that roasted pork leg out of the oven, crispy skin snapping and crackling at the table.
Price:
$34.99
Chartogne-Taillet "Sainte Anne" Brut Champagne
Review Date: 07-21-2021
You aren’t going to find many centuries-old-families that plow their ancestral fields by horse in Champagne; the Chartogne-Taillet family respects the ancient terroir of Merfy (7 km north of Reims) as religiously as the Benedictine monks did back in the 7th century when the old lieu dits were first sanctified into history. The Sainte Anne bottling captures all of the nuances and variety in the different vineyards that winemaker Alexandre Chartogne obsesses over. When you pour it into a glass, the bubbles burst forth in a flurry of metallic almond colored clouds. Notes of bruised orchard fruit and gentle macadamia nut leap out of the glass. The beautiful velvety mousse comes at you with bright raspberry and ripe strawberry and a clean and juicy finish. For balance and complexity, Alexandre mixes in some reserve wine to give this wine the round smooth taste that you can talk about for days and days. Who better to celebrate these days than a winemaker in Champagne that lives and breathes terroir.
2013 Launois "Special Club" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne (Ships as a 1.5L Due to Bottle Size/Shape)
Review Date: 06-23-2021
You’ve got to get your hands on this 2013 Launois Special Club. Launois Special Clubs have been known to disappear like a desert cactus flower by the light of the morning sun. Swelling aromas of biscuit and gravel wrap themselves around yellow pear and squeezed lemon in a hug of bright acidity fresh enough to cut through the fattiest of sausage. The chalky finish of the wine reminds you that Launois makes its home on the fat chalky outcrop of Le Mesnil Sur Oger and the Chardonnay from this region sings with beautiful acidity. This is a wine that might not make it to that pork chop or fish dinner, before it succumbs to your tastefully gathered aperitif spread. Make it a special night, buy a Special Club.
Price:
$64.99
Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Brut Nature Champagne
Review Date: 01-23-2021
Baron Fuente’s Brut Nature disputes the notion that zero-dosage added to the wines in Champagne yield terse, withholding and stoic results. The cold wine growing region, which shares a latitudinal line with the border between Canada and the USA has historically relied on the addition of sugar to its wines in the final stages to add palatability and eschew its reputation as the ultimate heartburn kindle. 6 years resting sur lie and wholesome additions of Chardonnay’s juicy, rich costars Meunier and Pinot Noir, help to lift this wine into the perfect pair for hearty seafood dishes or anything that would benefit from the zip of acid. On the nose it’s all sharp lemon peel, juicy pear, touch of grassy herby qualities with fine buttery cracker. The medium finish feels clean and brisk, with hints of tea and a honey dry varnish with a touch of gunpowder. The bubbles, unbuoyed by that dosage, are soft like angels wings and never fight your palate.
Baron-Fuenté "Esprit" Brut Champagne
Review Date: 12-26-2020
What I love about our Direct Import Champagne program at K&L is that you never have to wonder if you’re getting your value’s worth; just like knowing the sky is blue and grass is green, the Champagne we bring in directly to our store bubbles with the worth of a good purchase. Whether it’s a bottle or case you take is the only hard choice. Baron Fuente Esprit unites the three powerhouse grapes of Champagne into a bouquet of crushed rock, pears and yellow apple, hints of grassy herbs and buttery cracker. The flavor is sophisticated and doesn’t shy away from expressing the extended period of bottle maturation that you could never dream of in a bottle of this price. The smooth and fine bubbles are easy going and elevate the richness in this wine which should help it to pair up with spicy Thai food or savory Sichuan cuisine. Pork rinds and warm savory pot pies filled with creamy chicken or leftover turkey would be great too.
Ariston Aspasie "Réserve" Brut Champagne
Review Date: 12-20-2020
My wife and I drink a bottle of Champagne every Friday, we call it Champagne Friday. It’s been running strong for almost a year now and I am amazed that we haven’t gotten around to Ariston Aspasie Réserve. The price wrongly directed me to think that this wine would ride the middle of the road in terms of quality and taste and I’m always happy to admit I’m wrong when the reward is this good. In the bright and sultry nose it’s all lemon peel, pretty orange flowers, toasted almonds, flaky croissant and a hint of orchard fruit demonstrating the power of this 40/30/30 ratio of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. You can really taste the zippy, zingy and punchy flavor of the exceptionally well grown cool climate grapes and world class wine making facilities. We enjoyed our bottle with a succulent and fatty pork chop--not too intensely flavored but rich in flavor and the biting acid of this wine really helped to make the flavors sing---but aperitif and after dinner cheese would also make this sing.
Price:
$34.99