FRANCIACORTA

The NV Franciacorta Pas Dosé (no dosage) lifts up with a bouquet of dusty dried flowers, limestone-like minerals and green apples. It’s sharply focused and teeming with vibrant acids, taking on an almost-salty and undeniably savory character, which builds tension through the close. This finishes bone-dry with lip-smacking citrus-tinged fruits that just begs you to take another sip. It’s a blend of 80% Chardonnay to 20% Pinot Noir. Drinking range: 2021 - 2024 Rating: 91 Eric Guido, www.vinous.com (Dec 2020)

This 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir blend has 50 month ageing. Plenty of rich, nutty autolytic characters. Notes of marzipan. It is creamy and full, quite firmly structured, with a delicious dry finish. Rating: 18 Sarah Marsh MW, The Burgundy Briefing (May 2020)

Pronounced red-cherry and bruised-peach aromas here – somewhat surprising for having only 10% more Pinot than the Brut plus having a long 60 months on lees. Spicy, coffee and toast notes emerge from the time on lees, complementing the fruit core. Fruit and lees richness fills out the mid palate and balances the absence of dosage, though a flinty mineral streak pushes through the finish. I'd like just a little more elegance and finesse here, but it has plenty of character. Rating: 16.5 Tim Jackson MW, www.jancisrobinson.com (Apr 2020)

80% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Noir. 50 months on the lees. This shows a more leesy aroma than the straight brut but it's still the fresh lemon fruit that dominates. A little creamier on the palate, very precise and dry on the finish. There's a more mealy, savoury quality on the finish, giving greater complexity. Not expensive given the time on the lees. Rating: 16.5 Julia Harding MW, www.JancisRobinson.com (Apr 2019)

Prosecco’s runaway success has led retailers to experiment with other Italian fizz, with the crisper, more incisive style of Lombardy’s Franciacorta among the styles to benefit. Closer to champagne than prosecco in production methods, grape varieties, style and price, the best are really polished, stylish wines. Corteaura Pas Dosé Franciacorta Brut DOCG NV is dry, racy with interwoven flavours of fresh fruit and buttered toast. David Williams, The Observer (Dec 2017)

Having reviewed the great-value Brut made by L&S's impressive Franciacorta producer Corteaura late last year, here's an equally well-priced example of Italy's real answer to Champagne, a brisk, super-dry blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with lovely incisive acidity and plenty of fresh orchard fruit and baked bread flavour. Rating: 88 The Wine Gang - www.thewinegang.com (Mar 2017)