„Cinderella goes to the ball, or, in Twardowski’s case, the 2011 Pinot Noix Ardoise goes to a blind tasting, where its beauty receives far more acclaim than the other competitors, some of them of the highest pedigree. I won’t name and shame, but needless to say they make the Pinot Noix’s price of €70 look modest. De gustibus non est disputandum, however, and any tasting contest is only as good as its judges, whose identity in this case remains unknown to me. What I could deduce about them was that they seemed to be quite partial to a bit of oak. Sixty per cent new wood turned out to be a modicum too much for my liking, but I need not have worried. Daniel saw it exactly the same way, and from the second vintage on introduced a far greater proportion of second- and third-fill casks for the 14 to 18 months he likes to age his Pinot Noir in (lightly toasted) wood. It goes without saying that his wines are spared the indignity of pumping or filtration before they are bottled. For the gentlest extraction of juice from the fruit, Daniel Twardowski prefers a traditional basket press to the modern horizontal pneumatic press.“
