We carry out an analysis of the full set of ten $$\bar{B}\rightarrow D^{(*)}$$ $\overline{B}\to D^{(\ast )}$ form factors within the framework of the Heavy-Quark Expansion (HQE) to order $$\mathcal {O}\left( \alpha _s,\,1/m_b,\,1/m_c^2\right) $$ $O\left({\alpha }_s,,,,1,/,m_b,,,,1,/,m_c^2\right)$ , both with and without the use of experimental data. This becomes possible due to a recent calculation of these form factors at and beyond the maximal physical recoil using QCD light-cone sum rules, in combination with constraints from lattice QCD, QCD three-point sum rules and unitarity. We find good agreement amongst the various theoretical results, as well as between the theoretical results and the kinematical distributions in $$\bar{B}\rightarrow D^{(*)}\lbrace e^-,\mu ^-\rbrace \bar{\nu }$$ $\overline{B}\to D^{(\ast )}\{e^{-},{\mu }^{-}\}\overline{\nu }$ measurements. The coefficients entering at the $$1/m_c^2$$ $1/m_c^2$ level are found to be of $$\mathcal {O}(1)$$ $O\left(1\right)$ , indicating convergence of the HQE. The phenomenological implications of our study include an updated exclusive determination of $$|V_{cb}|$$ $|V_{\mathrm{cb}}|$ in the HQE, which is compatible with both the exclusive determination using the BGL parametrization and with the inclusive determination. We also revisit predictions for the lepton-flavour universality ratios $$R_{D^{(*)}}$$ $R_{D^{(\ast )}}$ , the $$\tau $$ $\tau$ polarization observables $$P_\tau ^{D^{(*)}}$$ $P_{\tau }^{D^{(\ast )}}$ , and the longitudinal polarization fraction $$F_L$$ $F_L$ . Posterior samples for the HQE parameters are provided as ancillary files, allowing for their use in subsequent studies.