There are people in life who you hang out with and feel energised and then there are others who suck your spirit - like the Death Eaters à la Harry Potter. The 2019 Touche Mitaine is thankfully the former. It is a barrel-fermented Chenin from 35-year-old vines planted on clay-flint. It is taut and precise, the combination of acid backbone and phenolics combining along with a salty note to leave you feeling pleasantly invigorated. You can expect wild herbs, preserved lemons, apples and pastry on the fine finish, which give a sense of purpose and direction. -- Rebecca Gibb MW

Produced from 35-year-old Chenin Blanc vines and vinified in oak barrels, this wine has a powerful and dense nose of spring flowers, pear, white peach, citrus fruit and spices, notably cloves. The palate of this full-bodied wine is dense and complex, finishing with a saline touch and racy acidity. Another resolutely gastronomic wine best served at the table. (Drink between 2022-2028)

92+ The 2019 Montlouis “Touche Mitaine” from Le Rocher des Violettes is a single vineyard wine from this lieu à dit, planted with vines in excess of thirty-five years of age. Touche Mitaine has very thin topsoils of clay and flint before one hits the mother rock of limestone. The wine is barrel-fermented and aged in oak, with seventy-five percent of the cuvée raised in used Burgundy casks that range from five to ten years of age and the other quarter raised in older foudre. The 2019 Touche Mitaine is a beautiful example of this fine vintage, offering up an elegant and very precise nose of apple, quince, a complex base of chalky soil tones, bee pollen, white lilies and just a touch of lanolin in the upper register. On the palate the wine is vibrant, focused and full, with an excellent core and soil undertow, bright, zesty acids and superb balance on the long, complex and utterly refined finish. This is excellent Montlouis, done in a quite dry style which befits the strengths of the vintage of 2019. Fine, fine juice.