Bordeaux Wine Blog

A friend of mine who is a Burgundy fanatic claims that red Burgundy never tastes better the next day. Decanting wine is also very much the exception in that region. I once had the honor of visiting one of the most hallowed domaines in the Côte de Nuits and, with my Bordeaux background, innocently asked the cellarmaster if he recommended decanting his wines. He looked at me aghast and replied that this was “comme le viol chez la femme” (i.e. he compared this practice to raping a woman!). Needless to say, I adopted a low profile after that…

Bordeaux, however, is another kettle of fish.
I nearly always decant red Bordeaux and have about a dozen decanters for large wine dinners.
In my experience, Bordeaux almost unfailingly benefits from aeration greater than simply removing the cork. And, as opposed to Burgundy, it is not at all rare for a Bordeaux to be better the next day, or even the one after that.

Can you decant a Bordeaux too far in advance? Sure, but I think there is far more risk of too little exposure to oxygen than too much…
A rough personal guideline: young wines can benefit from decanting 4-8 hours before a meal and older wines 2-4 hours.
Of course, people have different definitions of young and old, but I’ll take a stab at a personal definition. Young: less than 5 or 6 years, with old starting at that point. This is keeping in mind, of course, that there is vintage variation and that an oaky great growth can still seem young even after a decade or two – which all goes to show that no there are no hard and fast rules to do with wine appreciation.
What about (unquestionably) very old wines? My experience is not that great here because I have few wines more than 30 years old. However, I quite like a modified version of the François Audouze method i.e. uncorking even an ancient wine a half hour or hour beforehand and then either serving from the bottle or decanting as decided upon tasting a sip.

Also, temperature plays an important role here. I enjoy my red wines with a slight chill. This particularly adds to the enjoyment of young wines as far as I’m concerned.

I am partial to attractive decanters and, unless you are tasting blind, you can always place the bottle beside it to complete the picture. In addition, I have frequently found beautiful decanters on sale for a pittance at flea markets and second-hand shops because there is no stopper to go with the carafe. This suits me just fine because I never use the stopper!
Some people get very anal retentive about wine glasses, which I can understand to some degree, but surely the shape of a decanter is not that important – even if I do use a wide-bottomed decanter specially designed for young wines on occasion.  Esthetics play a role here as does the decanter’s “pourability”, ie. how easy it is to pour from without dripping. I mention this because I have one decanter that looks just great, but is a pain to pour from without spilling.
I also have one magnum decanter which comes in very handy on occasion.

Of course, decanting is also useful to separate the wine from its sediment even though I don’t often find heavy sediment in Bordeaux. Being a traditionalist, I use a candle and am conservative in stopping long before the last minute when tipping the bottle.

I almost always stand bottles up days or weeks before serving, which lets the sediment settle. I don’t, however, go so far as to use a wine basket, like the Burgundians, to catch the sediment at an angle on the bottom.

At a time when the wine consumption, especially of red wine, is dropping around the world, the use of decanters can seem terribly antiquated, pretentious, and bourgeois, especially to the young. How many twenty-somethings would think of using one? Not to worry, decanting is for “advanced beginners” and I’m convinced that budding wine lovers will get there sooner or later.

Other than for blind tasting, I don’t routinely decant white Bordeaux. The exception is some old Sauternes that looks magnificent in a fine decanter.

Located west of the town of Saint-Estèphe, Château les Ormes de Pez has belonged to the Cazes family of Château Lynch Bages since the 1940s. Ormes is French for “elm trees,” and although the eponymous grove of trees has long since disappeared, the label depicts a stylized elm. The 37-hectare vineyard is planted with 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot. Replanting is done with mass selection from within the vineyard.

There are two main soil types: gravel overlaying quartz and river stones for the the Cabernets and clay-sandy soil for Merlot. Proximity to the the Gironde Estuary (just 3 km.), accounts for a temperate microclimate.
The wine is made in conjunction with the team from Lynch Bages and aged in 50% new oak barrels.

Designated a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2003, the estate decided not to be included in the revised 2025 classification. In terms of reputation, Les Ormes de Pez is widely seen as one of the best crus bourgeois of Saint-Estèphe, on a par with Phélan Ségur and nearby Haut Marbuzet. Prices are reasonable, and the wine has a regular international following.

I checked my cellar book and saw that I had just one bottle of Les Ormes de Pez, from the 2009 vintage. I am a great fan of the 2009s, frequently preferring them to the more heralded 2010s.  I figured that the wine should be ready to go and decanted it two hours ahead of Sunday lunch.

At age 17, this Ormes de Pez was medium-old in appearance, with a browning rim. The most salient feature of the bouquet was the blackcurrant aromas so typical of fine Médoc, completed by truffle notes along with a bloody and ferrous component.  The latter followed through onto the palate to the extent that, if served blind, and overlooking the very Bordeaux finish, I might have taken it for an Hermitage! Anyway, this Ormes de Pez combined a textbook Médoc Cabernet flavor with the virile side of Saint-Estèphe. This made it a fine wine at table, to match a veal stew, but on its own a rather dry finish came to the fore. This aftertaste was tannic, but a little leathery and neither polished nor resolved. My English friends would advise holding on to the wine longer for the tannin to round out, but I fear that this would be at the expense of the fruit…
Therefore, in my opinion, this was a good time to drink 2009 Les Ormes de Pez – a distinctly vinous wine with meatiness and plenty of character, if not the most elegant profile.

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I have a soft spot for the Channel Islands, England with a French accent, partly because a branch of my wife’s family comes from Alderney.
Having had more than enough of 40 plus degree temperatures this summer, I was seeking refuge in a cooler climate and therefore delighted to notice they had just introduced direct flights to Saint Helier, the capital of Jersey, and jumped at the opportunity.

Jersey was once very popular with English tourists, but cheap package holidays in the south of Spain changed that. The local government is hoping to turn things around by cooperating with Easy Jet to attract more visitors, including from abroad, and to provide better infrastructure.
I was to learn that the Channel Islands are neither part of Great Britain nor the United Kingdom, but “crown dependencies” with their own currency and sometimes quirky laws.

Only 22 km separate Jersey from France. People once spoke a local patois here derived from Norman French, le jersiais, but this has all but disappeared. However, many, if not most, of the place names are French.

I can’t travel anywhere without taking a look at the local wines so was necessarily intrigued to discover that there was one commercial winery in Jersey, La Mare Wine Estate, and sent them a message asking to visit. I received a kind invitation to do so from winemaker Jordi Sanvincens Moreno, a Catalan with extensive experience, including several years in… Indonesia, where he made wine from refrigerated containerloads of fresh grapes.

La Mare is located in Saint Mary parish in the northern part of the island.
I had decided not to rent a car during my one-week stay on Jersey and so went everywhere by public transport. On balance, this proved to be a good decision. Anyway, my wife and I took a bus to Devil’s Hole, a wave-carved chasm on the coast, and walked from there to La Mare where we were warmly welcomed by Jordi and Andrew Smith, a South African in charge of vineyard management.

Starting out as an 18^th century apple farm that later went into a long decline, the La Mare estate was restored in 1968 by Robert and Ann Blayney, who began planting vines in 1972, later expanding to include a cider mill, a distillery, and the production of Jersey black butter (a traditional local preserve made by slowly cooking apples, cider, sugar, spices, and liquorice).
The winery opened to visitors in 1976 and grew into a major tourism attraction. In 1997, ownership passed to Trevor and Jane Owen. A modern winery and distillery were later developed, alongside visitor facilities and event spaces.

Perhaps the first thing to know about La Mare is that the vineyard is tiny: 3 hectares, or about half the size of La Tâche in Burgundy. The estate makes approximately 10,000 bottles a year of two wines: a white, Domaine de La Mare and a red, Bailliage de La Mare. A huge share is sold at the cellar door and virtually none is exported. The white is produced from little-known early-maturing grape varieties such as Orion  and Seyval Blanc.  The 2025 proved to be a clean, well-focused, wine with a subtle floral bouquet and a tart, tangy, refreshing flavor.

Made from Pinot Noir, Rondo, and Regent grapes, the red is chaptalized to the extent of adding 1.5% alcohol by volume. The color is bright purplish red and the nose spicy and sweet. The wine is once again tangy on the palate with good tannin and a vigorous fruity flavor followed by a shortish aftertaste. As much a I found the white a very creditable effort, I was more partisan to the red La Mare. And imagine serving it blind!

Jersey obviously has a maritime climate and the choice of grape varieties reflects that. The soil can best be described as sandy loam on granite. The average yield is 14 tonnes per hectare. It should be noted that there are no constraints whatsoever in viticulture and wine production in Jersey. This latitude is exhilarating and has led to constant experimentation. For instance, a sparkling Solaris is in the works.
However, La Mare’s unique nature also has its drawbacks. There are no colleagues with which to share equipment, which is quite expensive to import, particularly since Brexit. La Mare have won awards for their wine and cider at the International Wine and Spirit Competition and are also proud of the sprits they distill.
They are very attuned to tourism and my wife and I enjoyed a meal at the restaurant there.
In short, if you go to Jersey, I think that visiting this rather esoteric winery would be a very worthwhile choice.

Like Bellevue and Belair, there are several châteaux with the name Bellegrave in Bordeaux, which can be somewhat confusing. The most famous is Belgrave, the 5^th growth in Saint-Laurent-Médoc.

Bellegrave in Pauillac is a small estate (8.4 hectares of vines) at the entrance to the city of Pauillac when coming from Bordeaux. The château building is small and very attractive, as are the gardens that surround it.

The vineyard, wedged between Latour, Pichon Baron, and Lynch Bages is composed of 61% Cabernet Sauvignon and 39% Merlot.  As its name suggests, the soil is quite gravelly.

Bellegrave was bought in 1997 by Jean-Paul Meffre who originally had a vine nursery in the Gard department. His family had previously acquired two châteaux in Saint-Julien: du Glana and Lalande.

I have rarely drunk Bellegrave, but thought that a bottle from the 2015 vintage might be ready to go, so I decanted it two hours before lunch and gave it a whirl. I’m sad to report that I came away rather disappointed. This was the proverbial “doughnut wine” in that it started out big and spherical, but showed very weak on the middle palate and, truth to tell, on the aftertaste as well. It was certainly ready to drink, unlike the big guns in Pauillac. The technical fact sheet for the 2015 vintage at Bellegrave speaks of a very good year with just the right amount of water stress and very high yield (57 hectoliters/hectare). It may just be that high yield that accounts for the rather diluted quality of the wine.

More’s the pity since the terroir is top-notch and the chateau is lovely, as is the label. I can’t help but wonder what the results would have been under different management and with different winemaking. That having been said, it would be unfair to paint the château’s production as mediocre from having tasted just one vintage. I will certainly try to sample more recent ones when the opportunity presents itself.

I have always had a soft spot for Château de Malleret, a beautiful 350-hectare estate located in Le Pian-Médoc, a 5-minute drive from Château La Lagune, the first classified growth one encounters travelling north from Bordeaux.

With 54 hectares of vines, mostly in the Haut-Médoc appellation, Malleret is one of 14 Crus Bourgeois Exceptionnels

Many moons ago I worked for the Maison de Luze in Bordeaux at a time when they were a subsidiary of Rémy Martin and owned the château. Going to Malleret for lunch with important clients was always a pleasure and the richly-furnished interior was as impressive as the outside. The late Marquis Bertrand du Vivier, an archetypical aristocrat, presided over such meals with a dignity worthy of such prestigious surroundings.

Built in classic Second Empire style in the 1860s, the striking château replaced a centuries-old structure. In the hands of the Clossman and Du Vivier families for many years, Malleret is now owned by Louis Oberkampf, related to the Clossmans, who can thus claim to have possessed the château for 150 years (except for the eight years it belonged to Rémy Martin).   

The building and its grounds are listed historic monuments and to my mind the cellars are also among the most beautiful in Bordeaux.

On to the 2016 Château Malleret. The color made the wine seem older than its years, but not by much. The nose featured engaging notes of plum and lead, as well as subtle truffle overtones. This bouquet was soft and understated. The wine proved to be rather light on the palate. Seeing as I subject my wife to blind tasting, she guessed a very fine Médoc from not such a fine year. In the event, it was a mid-range Médoc from a very good year… 2016 is a great vintage in the Médoc and this wine, though relatively light in body, was well-structured. The follow-through on the aftertaste was attractive, but not very long. I came back to the wine the next day and it seemed to have put on more weight, but showed less elegance. It did lead to wonder about how often wines improve one, two, or three days after opening and it would be fascinating to organize a series of blind tastings to look into this.

I was aware that Donald Trump’s weaponized tariffs, applied to over 100 countries on an arbitrary and impossible-to-understand basis, had been challenged in the Supreme Court.
Seeing as he has packed courts on all levels with his cronies, I had little hope that the tariffs would be judged unconstitutional (executive overreach).
But, lo and behold, the Court just ruled 6 to 3 that this was indeed the case.
Hallelujah!

What I didn’t know was that the case against Trump had been brought by a wine importer!
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/21/busi … isk-takers

What’s significant here is that no major US corporation, many of whom have lost a lot of money due to the increased tariffs, stepped up to challenge the authoritarian president.
Reflecting the political environment in America and the fear that reigns there at the present time, none of the big guys had the cojones to say “stop this madness”. How pathetic

The wine company, Vos Selections, is in New York
https://vosselections.com/contact-us/

Their website had a section entitled “Fighting the Tariffs”
https://vosselections.com/tariffs-blog/

The US is learning that protection is ultimately counter-productive (this is one of the oldest and most widely agreed-upon ideas in economics, going back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo) as the cost of living rises and the average American is hurting – not to mention the ill-will and anti-Americanism Trump has created around the world.

I mention pyrrhic victory because within 24 hours, smarting from his defeat, Trump blithely announced that he would retaliate by applying an across-the-board 10% tariff on imports from every country on the planet. Will this unbelievably petulant response give rise to yet another court case?
Who knows? With Trump pushing presidential power to new extremes of questionable legality, most anything is possible…
Let us look at what happened in Bordeaux. Trump pulled the figure of a 15% tariff on French wine imports out of a hat. And, compounded by an increasingly low US dollar to euro exchange rate, sales on Bordeaux’s most important export market have unsurprisingly slumped. Of course, that penalizes the local wine industry, but also consumers of Bordeaux in the US.

The whole theory behind protectionism is that by raising the price of imported goods, homegrown industries will get a boost. But does anyone really think that Bordeaux wine lovers will automatically turn to California wines? In my opinion, most such people already have a lot of Bordeaux in their cellars and will simply wait until the prohibitive import duties are a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the US president plays havoc with the rules of international commerce and law.

There’s a new kid In town, i.e. a new appellation: “Bordeaux Claret”.

For anyone who wishes to go into the technical details, here are the official criteria, in French, under “cahier des charges”: https://www.inao.gouv.fr/produit/bordeaux-claret-24339

As we all know, there is a more than a little schadenfreude going around about the plight of Bordeaux. Sales have plummeted more than in any other French red wine region and, in response, roughly 14,000 hectares of vines have been uprooted since 2020. To put things into perspective, that’s more than 50% of the combined vineyard area of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune!!!
The people who are suffering are not the fat cats in three-piece suits, but the little guys, some of whose families have been making wine for generations. These are really tough times. The reasons for the drop in demand are multiple. Obviously, the Bordelais are not blameless, but red wine consumption has also been decreasing worldwide.

Something clearly had to be done and the radical reduction in vineyard area (government subsidized on the proviso that winegrowers commit to not replanting vines for 20 years) was the first step.

To help sales, the powers-that-be decided to introduce a new appellation starting with the 2025 vintage. The very first bottles have just been released. Of course, there is the point of view that this new appellation will only create unnecessary confusion and muddy the waters. I can see this to the extent that “Claret” is a very British name that is either unknown or considered prissy on Bordeaux’s largest export market in both value and volume: the US.
It is likewise an unknown term on the hugely important French market
What’s worse is that the guys in the Côtes du Rhône want their Claret appellation as well!
L’AOC Claret voulue par les côtes-du-Rhône pour leur vin rouge léger et édulcoré
And then there’s the risk of misidentifying “Claret” as “Clairet”, a different sort of wine altogether with a similar-sounding name…

On the plus side, give credit to Bordeaux for trying to dig itself out of a hole. Of course, not all initiatives succeed, but people are at least attempting something new. The idea is that wines entitled to Claret the appellation will necessarily have a lighter color and less tannin than those required for Bordeaux Rouge and, here’s the biggie, can contain up to 7 grams residual sugar per liter. To give you an idea of what this means, experienced tasters can perceive 1–2 grams/liter of sugar and for average consumers it’s more like 2–4 g/L.Furthermore, it is suggested that the wine be served chilled. Clearly, young people in particular are being targeted. This is all a pretty radical departure from traditional Bordeaux.

I called the Syndicat des Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur this morning, but the person I spoke to was only qualified to talk about the technical aspects of Bordeaux Claret rather than the story behind it and how it will be promoted. Marketing is evidently very important in order to prevent this new product from being a big flop. Unfortunately, however, the promotional budget is funded by sales of basic Bordeaux, which have greatly diminished…

Bordeaux Claret was launched at the Wine Paris trade fair in February 2026. I wasn’t there to taste it, but an English friend, a Master of Wine, was. He said that the wine was fruity, upfront, and did indeed seem to suit young consumers. This same friend explained that even on such a traditional market as Britain, generation Z is unfamiliar with the term Claret, so that rebranding it should not be a problem. Mention was made above of the need to lower prices. Well, current price levels (about 8-10 euros a bottle) are unquestionably competitive compared to other regions, so the challenge is more to provide people with a satisfactory product and convince them to try it. With regard to quality, the wine must be approved by a blind tasting panel to be entitled to the appellation.

The history of Château Haut Marbuzet is a great success story that started in 1952 when Hervé Duboscq bought 7 hectares of vines in Saint-Estèphe between Cos d’Estournel and Montrose. His son Henri, a mythical figure in the Médoc, took over from his father in the 1960s and the estate grew to its present-day 75 hectares under his leadership. His three sons now look after the vineyard and cellars.

Haut Marbuzet is different from other Médoc châteaux in a number of ways. Although the original vineyards belonged to the Irish Mac Carthy family in the 19^th century, the terroir had completely lost its identity. So, there was no brand recognition whatsoever and everything had to be done from scratch. The estate nevertheless went on to acquire a fine reputation in short order and was designated a cru bourgeois exceptionnel in the 2003 classification. The Live-ex exchange (the reference market for fine wine) considers the château on a par with a fourth growth.
Unlike most other Médocs, the wine is made with a majority of Merlot and aged 100% in new oak barrels. This confers a unique style that unquestionably stands out when tasted alongside other wines from Saint-Estèphe. I have always placed Haut-Marbuzet stylistically somewhere between the Médoc and the New Word.

Haut Marbuzet is also unusual in that the château has a thriving business selling directly to clients, including private customers, bypassing the traditional Bordeaux négociants. The wine is well-distributed in local restaurants.

I visited Haut Marbuzet for perhaps the fifth or sixth time in late October. But this occasion was different because I was able to sit down for an hour with Danish wine writer Izak Litwar and taste through seven vintages in the presence of the venerable Henri Dubosq, whom I had never met. Monsieur Duboscq, 82 years old, is a real character. As opposed to the smooth besuited types that proliferate in the Médoc, he is very salt-of-the-earth, with strong opinions and a great sense of humor.

Haut Marbuzet is one of those estates with an indelible personality in all vintages. This was confirmed at the tasting, where I was especially impressed with the 2018 and 2019 vintages, followed by the 2022 and 2020. There was a round, upfront sort of fruitiness and while the new oak unquestionably had a role to play, it didn’t actually overpower.
Haut Marbuzet has aspects of classic Médoc (blackcurrant, graphite) and a rich, fresh, somewhat assertive flavor. There’s a certain hardness and the aftertaste is often slightly dry, even with age.

Last Sunday I thought I would open a bottle of 2005 Haut Marbuzet at home.
Bordeaux lovers will long quarrel over the relative merits of the great vintages of the first decade of the 21st century: 2000, 2005, 2009, and 2010. Keeping my ear to the ground, I’m hearing most plaudits for 2005 and 2010, but the jury is still out. 2005 Haut Marbuzet had a deep dark color, a nose of sweet black fruit, and the telltale graphite and cassis notes mentioned above. It was rich and fresh on the palate, rather masculine in character. I’d say it is right in its drinking window, but will stay there for some time to come. I might add that Haut Marbuzet frequently shows well quite young.

I have been an active participant on the Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts forum for over 20 years. This is the only participative site on the internet focusing on Bordeaux wines. The wonderful thing about BWE is that it also enables Bordeaux lovers from around the world to meet in the flesh and pull a few corks. Thanks to BWE I have been to dinners in half a dozen countries with people I would never have met otherwise. I am so grateful to live in the digital era!

I mention this because one BWE gathering in New York a few years ago featured 1982 great growth Médocs. The wines had all been contributed by an anonymous donor to a blind tasting dinner with about 40 people. What a great gesture! This involved classified growths up to and including Mouton Rothschild. Although Mouton was voted number one, not far behind was a château none of us expected: Branaire Ducru. This was my first inkling that Branaire was a seriously underrated estate – not exactly a dark horse, but one all too rarely in the limelight.

I have been attending the Union des Grands Crus en primeur barrel tastings for a couple of decades. These are wonderful events, not just for a preview of the new vintage of world-famous wines, but also as a way of meeting people and keeping up to date with what’s happening in the wine country. Well, among all my experiences at these tastings, one that really stands out was discovering the 2009 vintage in Saint Julien and Pauillac.
These wines had everything for me.
Received wisdom in Bordeaux is that 2009 and 2010 are both excellent vintages with a very different profile: 2009 is purported to be rich, fruity, and seductive, whereas 2010 is considered more austere, but also more elegant and with better ageing potential (therefore, ultimately superior). I’m not convinced this is true but, even if I’m wrong, 2009 Médocs are by any standard truly exceptional. And seeing as I have several bottles of the 2009 Branaire Ducru, I figure it was about time I tried one at age 16.

Belonging to the Maroteaux family since 1988, the estate has 60 hectares of vines. Branaire  Ducru is one of four 4^th growths in Saint Julien. While perhaps not as well-known as Talbot or Beychevelle, this is at least partly due to the fact that those châteaux have a much larger production, with 1.8 and 1.5 times more vines respectively. The impressive château building is just across the road from Beychevelle on the famous Route des Châteaux. Like his father before him, François-Xavier Maroteaux is currently president of the Union des Grands Crus.

On to the wine: the first impression was excellent thanks to the regal, very deep colour with mahogany tinges. The soft, subtle and pure nose was captivating, with hints of ethereal sweet blackcurrant, pipe tobacco, fresh earth, cinnamon, roast coffee beans, and a floral component.

The wine shone even more on the palate. The flavor profile was both penetrating and soft with remarkably velvety tannin. It filled out from the very first, but without any chunkiness. In short, it was a big, but classy wine. Reflecting its Saint Julien origin, the taste epitomized the term “brambly” in that there were lovely wildberry aromas along with a positive sort of greenness (the blackberry bush itself) typical of great Cabernet Sauvignon. The aftertaste was quite long, mineral, slightly dry, and showed a little heat, but no burn. 13.5 % alcohol is on the low side these days. On the whole, the rich fruitiness was beautifully balanced by lively acidity.
The wine’s most outstanding feature was its gorgeous tannic texture, not so much smooth and soft as cushiony.

At peak? Probably not, but this is the sort of wine that tastes delicious at all stages. And I’d put this at late adolescence.

I attended a huge Union des Grands Crus tasting in June and am just now getting around to writing up my tasting notes. This tasting was held at Hangar 14 in the city of Bordeaux on the banks of the Garonne River. As usual, it was superbly organized by the UGC, and wines were poured by the château owner or their representative, which gave an added dimension.

I find it hard to make detailed notes when confronted with a large number of wines and usually like to stop at 15, maximum 20. In this instance, there were just 13. I concentrated on Right Bank wines, all from the 2022 vintage.

2022 on the Right Bank was marked by extreme heat and severe drought, compounded by frost, hail threats, and forest fires. Yet, thanks to strategic vineyard practices like canopy management and green harvesting, many estates made fresh, balanced wines with depth.
The harvest featured small thick-skinned berries. Despite high alcohol and tannin levels, many wines retained acidity and freshness, thereby avoiding the overripe character of other hot vintages.

Apology: Posts come so much more alive with photos. I had a problem with my smart phone and lost photos of all the labels. I since have bought a new phone!

Château Dassault
N: Pure forward ripe berry fruit. Fresh.
P: Tight, velvety texture. Lively with good acidity and showing character on the middle palate. Good oak and fine balance. Not powerful, but elegant and will be great after medium-term ageing. I believe this is the best Dassault I’ve ever tasted.
16/20 (and I’m a tough grader)

Château Villemaurine
N: Deep, ethereal cherry. Sexy, but a bit cosmetic Attractive, with cherry-vanilla nuances, but not nuanced or profound.
P: Marked acidity accounts for a certain liveliness. Mediuù-long aftertaste that surprised me because I thought it would be more facile. Obvious oak, but as for its integration let’s give this wine the benefit of the doubt.
14/20

Château Grand Mayne
N: Muted and not very elegant. Closed and too anonymous.  Definitely too much oak.
P: Rich and round, but hollow. Overworked. There’s a lip-smacking finish, but this is disappointingly short.
13/20

Château Franc Mayne
N: Chocolatey and slightly medicinal with candied fruit overtones that are already expressive.
P: Big and chunky on the palate and you can feel the alcohol. Tangy finish typical of Saint Emilion’s limestone soil. Teeth-coating tannin with berry flavors. A little jammy and a touch dry on the finish, but I had a high opinion of this wine and bet on its becoming more balanced with age.
15/20

Château La Tour Figeac
N: Classic, floral (blossoms, iris). First class.
P: Full-bodied, but with great acidity and purity. A poster child of the finest wines of the limestone plateau, as illustrated by the long aftertaste that caresses the palate. A revelation.
17/20

Château La Dominique
N: Expressive, but with some reduction. Subdued, dark and brooding and slightly rustic, but with the unmistakable stamp of its terroir next door to Figeac. Well-made and tries very hard to go one notch up the quality scale, but doesn’t quite make it.
P: Big, chunky, and dips on the middle palate. Already a bit dry. Will be better with age, but ultimately lacks finesse.
14.5/20

Château Capdemourlin
N: Slight stink and not showing especially well at this juncture. Cranberry and herbaceous notes.
P: Undoctored, but shows some alcoholic burn. Big, but hollow. There’s a certain sappiness, but the wine is unfortunately unbalanced. Will undoubtedly improve with age, but will always be somewhat topheavy.
13/20

Château Larmande
N: Intriguing fresh black fruit and brambly aromas along with subtle floral and cedar nuances.
P: Layered candied fruit. Rich, but refreshing, and lively. Marked, but not excessive oak. An odd sensation of alcohol and acidity on the finish, but I’d bet on its developing well.
15.5/20

Château Canon
N: Classic, pure, and almost mystical nose with a delightful humus component. Pure and ethereal, nuanced and monumental.
P: The old library aromatics carry over onto the palate. Gorgeous velvety tannin coats the teeth. Fresh, very long, and flawless aftertaste. Great wine.
17.5/20

Château Figeac
N: Forthright, meaty, and leathery with vanilla and caramel nuances.  Not quite as nice as the Canon, but almost… Some dark chocolate overtones.
P: Perhaps more vigorous than the Canon, but without the same majestic development on the palate going into fantastic textured tannin. Serious.
For power, Figeac beats Canon, but it’s the other way around for elegance.
16/20

Château La Pointe
N: Bit simple with noticeable alholoic presence.  Fresh, but one-dimensional
P: Smooth to begin with, then rather acidic. Tangy, and the sort of Pomerol enjoyable young or old. The aftertaste is better than what precedes with ripe fruit and empyreumatic notes.  Good grip. Not the greatest balance, but a good Pomerol with perhaps just too much oak.
14/2

Château Gazin
N: Potent berry aromas along with blackstrap molasses, truffle and a subtle wildflower component.
P: Tremendous concentrated and juicy blackberry flavor. Rich and immediately appealing, then going on to show rich sensuality with a very nice follow-through, with a floral aspect on the aftertaste. A very fine Gazin.
16.5/20

Château Petit Village
N: Ethereal cherry.
P: Soft and seductive. Very sexy with a cool lnog afterteaste. A class act. Haute couture with cherry-vanilla flavors predominating.
15/20