Woohoo! What a way to kick off the week! PNV Bubbles from Napa legends over at Frank Family. They’ve been quietly making small lots of bubbles for a while (typically reserved for their club and winery visitors), and are one of Napa best-kept secret bubble houses! We were thrilled to taste this for last year’s PNV, and even more ecstatic when we won the bidding war! 

Only sixty bottles of this fantastic 2012 wine was ever made – just bottled this past December, after over 8 years on the lees in bottle and another couple years in barrel! This is a separate, extra-special bottling of their traditional Lady Edythe cuvee (which got 94 points from a top critic), so we're thinking 96 points… easy!

The cepage is 61% chardonnay and 39% pinot noir – all hailing from the Lewis vineyard in the cool and windswept region of Los Carneros. Flavors and aromas of ripe, golden delicious apples, buttered toast, orange creamsicle, with chipped flint rocks, tangerine saltwater taffy, and even some umeboshi – a Japanese salt-cured plum! Toasty accents of heady spice – like cinnamon and nutmeg – round out the flavor profile in the tremendous effort that is both rich and bright in equal measure. Intense acidity is tempered with this brown butter apple sauce note, with a cleansing finish reminiscent of green almonds. The wine boasts an exuberant freshness throughout – and a classic golden-hued weight and substance that puts it in the Taittinger Comte style.

This is definitely a “statement” bottle of bubbles that a lucky few will get to call their own! For the bubble monster who has everything – this is one not to be missed!