Reward of reactivity, vigilance and surveillance

• 2023 is undoubtedly, then – and, like 2018 and 2020 before it – a vintage that will have rewarded reactivity, vigilance and surveillance capacity in the vineyard. Those with resources were much better able to preserve the potential abundance the vintage had offered from the moment of budburst. A further factor here is proximity to abandoned vineyards, above all in the commercially-challenged Entre-deux-Mers. It is very difficult to protect one’s own vineyard from the threat of mildew if it borders that of an untreated and abandoned vineyard in which mildew is already rife.
• The best way to see all of this is in the numbers. If we compare (as in Table 6, below) average yields for the (relatively resource-rich) leading appellations of the Médoc with those of the (relatively resource-poor) AOC Bordeaux appellations, the effect is starkly revealed. Whilst yields in the former rose significantly between the (hardly generous) 2022 vintage and 2023, those in the latter fell no less significantly. The overall effect, as the data show clearly, is that whilst the overall regional yield (the data in the top row) fell, those in the most prestigious appellations (further down the table) rose. On the right-bank, these effects largely cancelled themselves out (with Pomerol and the St Emilion Grand Cru high yielding, the rest of Saint-Émilion and some its satellites much less so).

Table 6: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes

• Flowering occurred under excellent (above all, drier and windier) conditions, helping to ensure an easy pollination and confirming the relatively homogeneous and generous size of the potential harvest, at least for those who had managed well the threat of mildew (those for whom it had remained a threat rather than becoming established in the vineyard).
• 2023 is a vintage of extremes, no more so in terms of yields – with abundance in general, but with catastrophically low yields and abandoned parcels wherever the mildew took hold. Whilst it is not a major factor in the finished wines, it has nonetheless taken a colossal toll in the region more generally.
• The summer was labour intensive, with considerable vineyard management required to restore order in parcels that had suffered mildew loss and which typically were characterised by a potentially dangerous overproduction and by excess foliage. The uneven quality of this work (again, linked as much to the access to resources) has no doubt contributed further to the unevenness of the vintage (both in qualitative and quantitative terms).
• Throughout June, the grapes swelled due to the general abundance of water and the absence of hydric stress. Indeed, in such conditions, vegetative growth continued beyond the start of véraison (the first colouring of the grapes). The fourth of Axel Marchal’s five condition for a great vintage was, then, clearly not met.
• Véraison itself began early, around the 10 July, reached its mid-point around the 23rd and lasted a whole month. In warm yet not particularly sunny conditions and with periodic storms the grapes continued to swell, raising fears that they would prove difficult to mature. There was a first peak in temperature at the end of June and the beginning of July but this was not as extreme as in 2022 (at 28 rather than 31 degrees). That said, in June itself there were 23 days in which maximum temperatures exceeded 25 degrees and 8 days of significant (often tempestuous) rainfall.
• July remained warm, but not excessively so and was both dry yet largely overcast (with significantly lower total recorded hours of sunshine than in recent vintages). From mid-July, temperatures moderated, with daily maximums of around 27 degrees in contrast to the 30 degrees of 2020 and 2022.
• August, in keeping with the theme of the summer, was a touch cooler than usual (with an average temperature of 21 degrees rather than the staggering 26.5 degrees of 2022). Rain swelled the fruit again, exacerbating the risk of dilution and a lack of concentration and giving the impression that the grapes were slow to ripen. Indeed, with véraison persisting into the second half of August in some cases and under far from summery conditions, fears grew for a difficult end to the growing season and late maturation of the fruit.
• But, just in time, dry and hot conditions were established in the second half of the month (around August 16^th). In the context of an intense heatwave (almost unprecedented in the region so late in the year) growth stopped abruptly. This gave the whites, above all, the impetus they needed to attain full ripeness and decent concentration before picking began around the 23 August. They are aromatically fresh with moderate alcohol of around 12.5 - 13% and with a nicely elevated natural acidity.
• Between the 4 - 7 September temperatures peaked again, bringing forward the start of the harvest for the youngest parcels of Merlot. Rain between the 10 - 12 September brought a pause to proceedings, with the harvest only resuming in the second half of September and running into early October for the older vine Cabernet.
• Due to the hot and dry Indian Summer conditions which had, by this time, become established, fruit concentration was finally being achieved. Yet however much this was necessary, it also proved something of a mixed blessing. For the sustained intensity of the heat, as well as making picking extremely unpleasant, was challenging – above all, to Merlot parcels on well-draining soils. It typically fared better on limestone and clay-limestone terroirs, whilst the less hydric stress-sensitive Cabernet Sauvignon suffered least. The heavily clay-based soils of the northern Médoc also offered partial protection.
• Significant wilting, shrivelling and even burning of the grape skins nonetheless occurred in many vineyards (notably in Margaux and Pessac-Léognan). This, in turn, necessitated careful selection and sorting of the grapes and reduced yields – in some vineyards, considerably – with losses of up to 20 hl/ha. Even at Carmes Haut-Brion, a potential yield of a staggering 55 hl/ha was reduced to a (still rather impressive) 50 hl/ha in this way, there having been essentially no loss to mildew.
• But in general the final maturation process passed off well and the vintage was picked slowly, in waves (or tries), to maximise ripeness and to reflect the diversity of factors that had influenced the pace of ripening (notably the capacity to endure the heatwave conditions in the second half of August).
• Those able to harvest precisely, responsively and over a long period of time (parcel bloc by parcel bloc, row by row, even plant by plant) were able to bring in fruit of exceptional quality – much higher than those required, often again for commercial reasons, to pick the entire vineyard in a single day.
• Overall, pH is low and total acidity levels are high; tannin levels are moderate to high (rather higher, in fact, than you might imagine); and alcohol levels are at a pleasingly refreshing 13-13.5% depending on varietal and terroir

General factors influencing quality

The above analysis allows me to offer a few provisional and, at this stage, still tentative suggestions as to the principal factors likely to influence quality in the vintage.

• Dilution, above all, in the early harvested (typically young) Merlot parcels picked before the mid-September rain (10-12 September).
• Mildew pressure – the greatest single factor explaining inter and intra-vineyard heterogeneity. Losses were in some cases catastrophic, but in other places negligible or non-existent.
• The rain in mid-September which delayed the vintage and extended hang times, allowing the Indian Summer to play its magical hand, elevating the quality of the fruit that had yet to be picked and contributing to a vintage picked slowly over an extended period of time (25 August – 8 October).
• The sustained heat of the Indian Summer which helped to elevate the quality of the Cabernet Franc on the right-bank and, perhaps even more so, the Cabernet Sauvignon on the left-bank – yet which posed significant problems for Merlot on well-draining soils. As ever, the combination of terroir type, varietal and the age of the vines is crucial in determining quality – but no more so than in this vintage.
• The wilting, shrivelling and desiccation of the fruit under heatwave conditions in the last two weeks of August and, again, either side of the rainfall in September. This required careful selection and the vigilant use of sorting tables to exclude grapes that might otherwise have brought dried fruit notes to the final wine. The yield losses associated with this are, in many cases, significant.
• Some of the later picked old-vine Merlot (above all on clay and clay-limestone terroirs) is excellent; some of the later picked old vine Cabernet (above all on cooler soils) is exceptional.
• The northern Médoc, above all St Estèphe, appears to have been spared some of the excesses of the growing season, with less rain (and less associated mildew pressure) in the first half of summer (see Table 3) and with more capacity to cope with the heatwave conditions at the end of the summer (due to its cooler, denser, clay-based soils). It is not by accident that it is the highest yielding appellation in 2023. Many of the vintage’s most notable successes (and some of its surprises) may well be here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, 2023 is an extremely heterogeneous vintage. It is so quite simply because the conditions that have produced it were experienced very differently – depending on terroir type, varietal and the age of the vines. Overall yields are high, but the averages mask significant variation and, in some cases, hide very significant losses.

Those losses, however, do not come from a single factor. Some vineyards (Rauzan-Ségla is an example to which I have already referred) suffered massively at the hands of mildew; others, even in the same appellation, suffered essentially no losses through the ravages of mildew only to see their yields slashed by the desiccation of the fruit on the vines in the weeks immediately prior to harvest (Giscours is an example here); still others suffered both effects, to varying degrees. And, of course, some suffered essentially no losses at all.

In the end, however, yields are unlikely to correlate highly with quality. It is perfectly possible (as we saw in 2018, for instance) to produce excellence from small yields through strict selection (much of it, alas, conducted by nature itself). The grands vins of leading châteaux will not contain fruit from mildew-affected parcels. Nor will they contain desiccated grapes. That, in the end, is what sorting tables and optical sorting devices were made for!

But it is possible that, in and through a combination of both natural and manual selection, some grands vins will be rather different in composition than usual (more Cabernet Franc on the right-bank, more Cabernet Sauvignon on the left-bank). It is no less likely that the absence of certain habitual parcels from the final blend will have reduced the overall quality of the final wine. This is not, then, unlikely to be a vintage that can be bought on reputation alone.

Finally, it is important to note that malolactic fermentation was easily and quickly achieved under warm conditions. The result is that the wines have been in élévage since November. In theory, this should make the vintage easier to appreciate en primeur (aided further by the week of en primeur itself occurring at the end, rather than at the start, of April).

This is, arguably, just as well. For, as I have sought to explain and due to a range of factors, 2023 is likely to prove extremely heterogenous (more so, perhaps even than 2018 and 2022). It will require careful appellation-by-appellation and vineyard-by-vineyard analysis.

As we race north up the Gironde, and with the vineyards of Margaux long having disappeared from the rear view mirror, we come eventually to St Julien, the smallest of the leading appellations of the Médoc (with just 910 hectares under vine). It is also, on average, the closest to the river. Not entirely unrelatedly, it boasts the highest proportion of classified growths amongst its vineyards (with over 90% of the vineyard plantings of the appellation currently classified).

This singularity goes some way to explaining at least some of the numbers in the following tables and, more significantly, the appellation’s success in a vintage like 2023.

The first thing we note about the meteorological data summarised in Table 1 is that they are remarkably – even suspiciously – similar to those for Pauillac. Intrigue perhaps? Not really. The explanation is simple, the suggestion of subterfuge rapidly dispelled. St-Julien turns out to be so small that it shares a weather station with Pauillac.

That probably means that we should take these data with as small dose of salt. But they come close enough, I suspect, to capturing the distribution of rainfall over the growing season to see that, at least in aggregate terms, St-Julien had a somewhat unexceptional year. Total rainfall was marginally above the 10-year average. In fact, over the growing season itself, only two months saw above average rainfall – June and September.

Yet whilst the September rainfall was helpful, disrupting as it did, the heatwave conditions of the second half of August and helping resuscitate the vines before the final phase of a long harvest, that in June was responsible for intense mildew pressure.

Table 1: Rainfall during the vintage (relative to 10-year average)

Source: calculated from Saturnalia’s Bordeaux 2023 Harvest report

This St-Julien negotiated perhaps more successfully than any other leading appellation. And it is that which explains the high yields we see in Table 2.

Table 2: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes

For although St-Julien was pipped at the post by St-Estèphe for the highest absolute vineyards yields, it did secure the highest appellation yields in the entire region relative to the 10-year average (at least for red wines). One has to go back two decades to find the last vintage with yields in St-Julien of over 50 hl/ha.

For this to have been achieved in a vintage characterised by significant mildew pressure is all the more remarkable. A number of factors are at work here. They include, proximity to the river (with rainfall and the average daytime temperatures that accentuated the threat of mildew typically a little higher in the interior), the relatively small number of properties (certainly in comparison to, say, Margaux) practicing organic viticulture, the rather greater general access to resources to treat mildew in an appellation over 90% of whose surface area is classified, and the somewhat windier character of vineyards which typically either border the river or are situated on the plateau running down to the river.

In St-Julien, then, although mildew was a significant pressure it was so well managed that it was simply not a factor when it comes to assessing the quality of the wines made.

Unremarkably, then, if strange though it might seem in the context of vintage whose watch word is heterogeneity, the wines of St-Julien turn out to be both truly excellent and remarkably homogeneous.

Rivalling the first growths in quality are a staggering duo of wines from Gruaud Larose and Léoville Las Cases. They are rather different in style, but equally beguiling and totally captivating, expressing their exceptional terroirs so precisely and so graciously.

Ducru-Beaucaillou, too, is in sublime form in this vintage, fashioning a wine of opulence, gravitas and grandeur in a vintage in which each is rare indeed.

The two other wines that I would perhaps single out for special mention are Léoville-Poyferré, for its sinuous, sleek, slender and silky mid-palate and gorgeous aromatics and the seemingly ever-improving Branaire-Ducru whose ascent towards the summit continues despite the challenges of the vintage.

In fact all of the classed growths of the appellation have excelled as my detailed tasting notes below attest. Beychevelleand Léoville Barton, above all, merit a place in any well-stocked cellar and Clos du Marquis and, above all, Sarget de Gruaud Larose are likely to represent truly fabulous value.

Pauillac 2023: tasting notes

D’Armailhac (Pauillac; 70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 15% Merlot; 13% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot; pH 3.75; 13.7% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at Clerc-Milon with Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy). Smokier and more ferrous and saline in its minerality than Clerc-Milon, it is also more red-fruited and a little less sumptuous in texture. Redcurrant and blackcurrant. Tense, with the tension almost of a white wine if you shut you eyes and project. This is fresh and vibrantly energetic, but the acidity is much more noticeable and it’s not, for me, quite at the level of the rest of the Mouton flight, texturally ethereal though the tannins are. The fruit feels just a little stretched over the frame. 91-93.

 

Batailley (Pauillac; 79% Cabernet Sauvignon; 19% Merlot; 2% Petit Verdot; a final yield of around 49 hl/ha and late picked; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at Batailley). I think I’d pick this blind (easily said, I know) and I like that. Again, it’s floral for Pauillac (and that makes it a little more difficult to pick), but it has a specific salinity to its minerality and a slight smoky note that feels reassuringly familiar. Damsons and blueberries, a little bramble and black berry too. Glossy. Comfortingly soft, a little less oak than there used to be and with considerable intensity to the red and darker berry fruits that define the core of this wine on the palate (here, as that suggests, the fruit profile is a little lighter in hue). A lovely clean cassis signature and good sapidity. Nicely balanced. 93-95.

 

Carruades de Lafite (Pauillac; 60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 40% Merlot; pH 3.70; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 13.2% alcohol; tasted at Duhart-Milon). Very dark berry fruited with a little damson. Herbal and almost a little herbaceous. Quite strict and austere, though with ultra-refined and super fine-grained tannins. A nice juicy sapidity. There’s a touch of crushed rock and rock salt minerality that lifts this on the chewy finish. Clean, lean and fresh on the finale which is nicely focussed and well-sustained. 92-94.

 

Clerc-Milon (Pauillac; 72% Cabernet Sauvignon; 19% Merlot; 6.5% Cabernet Franc; 1.5% Carménère; 1% Petit Verdot; pH 3.83; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and at the property with Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy). Rose petals, crushed and concentrated, damsons, brambles, blackberries all freshly picked and de-husked or de-stoned. Floral, petal-y and with a hint of saffron too. There’s a lovely cassis and cedar element to this that actually makes me think of Le Petit Mouton. There’s also mirror pool clarity in the mid-palate. Excellent. So juicy and refreshing. This used to be difficult to taste en primeur. Not today. 93-95.

 

Croizet-Bages (Pauillac; 70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Merlot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin). For so long a slumbering giant. Here I find it ambitious and quite punchy for the vintage. But the tannins are a little less refined than those of the neighbours and this is rather chunky. It finishes just a little harsher than many and the extraction feels a little pushed. It’s rather old school, in its way, but will be fine with patience. 90-92.

 

Duhart-Milon (Pauillac; 80% Cabernet Sauvignon; 20% Merlot; a final yield of 45hl/ha yield; around 65% of the production made the selection for the grand vin; 15% press wine; 13.1% alcohol). Rather closed aromatically when tasted under light grey skies with rain in the air at the property. Cedar, fruits of the forest, cassis. A big, plump and quite spherical mouthful of sapid, juicy, fresh berry fruits. This feels cool, autumnal, almost slightly austere in a way, with a hint of wild herbs and heather – wild, almost sauvage. Not terribly dense or, indeed, compact, but crystalline, clear, translucent and quite pixilated by the tannins, whose glossiness and finesse brings polish. The acidity picks up on the finish, which helps give it lift. If I have a quibble it is that, like Moulin de Duhart, this feels just a little herbaceous on the finish. The frame is almost too ample to sustain the fruit intensity. 93-95.

 

Echo de Lynch Bages (Pauillac; 55% Merlot; 43% Cabernet Sauvignon; 2% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.62; IPT 78; 13.6% alcohol; tasted at Lynch Bages). Gracious, eloquent, pure and refined. Brambles, freshly plucked, de-husked and concentrated. Cedar and black cherry. This is plump and nicely composed, with the sense of density reinforced by the relatively narrow frame. A sumptuous evolution. Juicy on the finish. 92-94.

 

Forts de Latour (Pauillac; 55.8% Cabernet Sauvignon; 40.2% Merlot; 4% Petit Verdot; 13.7% alcohol; IPT 75; nearly 40 per cent of the total production; tasted at Latour). More creamy in texture than Le Pauillac de Latour. Lithe. A little more spice from the oak, but it’s well integrated. Dark berry and cherry fruit. Wild sage. Heather. A little hazelnut. Sandalwood. A pleasing density that seems to reveal itself slowly as this evolves over the palate. Quite a punchy acidity and a relatively substantial volume of tannin that is still to be resolved. Crumbly, nicely so, bringing a gentle massaging of the fruit on the finish. 92-94.

 

Grand-Puy Ducasse (Pauillac; 52% Cabernet Sauvignon; 44% Merlot; 4% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 50 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin). We’re already off to a good start when the second wine, Prélude, is rather better than most recent vintages of the grand vin. And the good news continues with the grand vin itself in 2023. Lush, plump, plush, opulent and yet elegant and classically refined on the nose, with dark berry and stone fruit, the damson and mulberry perhaps just stealing the show. Quite sweet fruited, enticingly so. The palate is soft and nicely filled, here with cherries, damsons, brambles and mulberries. Succulent through the mid-palate but chewy and substantial on the finish which is lifted, elegant and long. The best I’ve ever tasted from here and a new benchmark I am sure for the property. 92-94.

 

Grand-Puy Lacoste (Pauillac; 77% Cabernet Sauvignon; 23% Merlot; a final yield of 48 hl/ha; 13.2% alcohol; tasted at the property with Emeline Borie). Lovely brambly notes with a wild, herbal and heathery streak that I somehow associate with Grand-Puy Lacoste. Spicy and peppery, more so that the 2022 and perhaps more dynamic too. Blackberries and a little redcurrant, bringing lift and freshness. A tight and densely charged mid-palate but a relatively narrow frame, accentuating the impression of concentration and, with it, a succulent and refreshing juiciness. Lots of refinement and classicism. The Merlot give a wonderful round plush frame for the somewhat more strict and linear Cabernet, creating lots of tension. Nice grippy, chewy tannins on the finish. Long with a gentle taper towards a distant horizon. Very pure and nicely composed. A very articulate expression of the vintage and appellation. Minty fresh on the finale. 93-95.

 

Les Griffons de Pichon Baron (Pauillac; 57% Cabernet Sauvignon; 41% Merlot; 2% Petit Verdot; pH 3.8; 7% press wine; a final yield of 37 hl/ha; 13.2% alcohol; tasted at Pichon Baron with Christian Seely). Brighter and more vertical both aromatically and in the mouth than Les Tourelles. Redcurrant, blackcurrant, a little damson. This has a more traditional and quite chiselled structure, much more so than Les Tourelles (which is horizonal where this is more vertical). Pauillac depth and with more of a sense of gravitas and profundity. Intensely sapid. The tannins are nicely interwoven with the acidity producing an integral sense of freshness that is sapid, juicy and salivating. 91-93+.

 

Haut-Bages Libéral (Pauillac; 86% Cabernet Sauvignon; 14% Merlot; an impressive final yield 53 hl/ha; pH 3.48; 13.5 alcohol; practicing agroforestry and certified both organic and biodynamic; tasted with Claire Lurton). At Haut-Bages Libéral it’s as if the terroir speaks! Limestone-accented, chalky, vertical and with a very dynamic sense of lift. There’s great aromatic purity and pixilation here too (even if one typically thinks of pixilation in visual terms)! And it is so very different to Durfort Vivens (tasted immediately before) in terms of its essential characteristics and fruit profile. Red berries – raspberry, loganberry, just a little hint of bramble and wild strawberry too (a note I tend to associate with Haut-Bages Libéral). Graphite but none of the cedar of Durfort. There’s a little touch of flint too. This seems to glisten with energy. Vivid and vibrant, the acidity so well incorporated. Full, cylindrical in the mouth, rich and fully charged – quite a mouthful in fact. Super-svelte tannins, nice grip and with great freshness on the long finish. Fabulous. 94-96.

 

Haut Batailley (Pauillac; 71% Cabernet Sauvignon; 25% Merlot; 4% Petit Verdot; 13.2% alcohol; aging in oak barrels, 65% of them new; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and, a second time, at Lynch Bages; 20,000 cases made, with roughly 60 per cent of the production selected for the grand vin). Lovely and quite distinctive now in its personality. Lighter, more delicate but also more refined than many of its ostensible Pauillac peers, this is quite a subtle, almost intellectual wine. A very pure and pleasingly cedar-inflected dark berry fruit. A saline note too – almost a hint of salted peanuts (though better than that makes it sound)! Lots of cassis, which really comes through in the mid-palate and on the finish (but which is more suppressed aromatically for the moment). Articulate and engaging, with lovely detail and delineation. I’m very impressed. Quiet progress each years brings us something of excellence and ethereal beauty in 2023. 93-95.

 

Lacoste Borie (Pauillac; 56% Cabernet Sauvignon; 33% Merlot; 11% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 48 hl/ha; 13.2% alcohol; tasted with Emeline Borie at Grand-Puy Lacoste). Bright, crisp and fresh, this provides a pleasingly representative and authentic introduction to the grand vin. Lots of cassis and blackberry fruits, a little wild herbal note too. Some redcurrant too, with additional acidity than implies. Cool, hyper-fresh but with enough substance that this always stays sapid and juicy and never either becomes or threatens to become astringent. Very well-balanced. 90-92.

 

Lafite Rothschild (Pauillac; 93% Cabernet Sauvignon; 6% Merlot; 1% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; pH 3.76; aging in oak barrels, 90% of which are new; 12.9% alcohol). This is so beautifully redolent of Lafite and could be no other wine. Carruades might have been starved in a way to make this, but you would, wouldn’t you! Gorgeous refined blackcurrant and black cherry, oodles of cedar and a little graphite, HB pencil-shavings fresh from the sepia-tinged classroom of the 1960s and a hint of dark chocolate-coated violet. Restrained, elegant, relaxed and plush, with a very soft-focused but dense and compact spherical core – a black hole of black fruit. Gracious and almost hinting at opulence but for the freshness of the vintage which brings instead a striking energy and vivacity. But this is relaxed and measured where Mouton is more vivid and dynamic, cashmere replacing the fine silk layering of its near neighbour. I love the Cabernet fruit that pulses through all of its veins. There’s lots of fruity capillarity here! 96-98+.

 

Latour (Pauillac; 92.3% Cabernet Sauvignon; 7.7% Merlot; 13.2% alcohol; IPT 73; nearly 40 per cent of the total production; tasted at the property). A particularly big step up from Les Forts in this vintage. Complex aromatically, with a cassis leafiness and a lovely bouquet of freshly picked spring blooms. The fruit profile is delicate and it is almost as if this part of the aromatic profile remains intimate and shy. Red and darker cherry, bramble and black berries, a little redcurrant reinforcing the sense of freshness. Sandalwood. Lithe and aerial aromatically giving the impression of a less substantial wine than it turns out to be on the palate. Quite pixilated with a subtle granularity to the tannins – not the glacial mirror pool texture at all of Mouton. But very fine too. Almost a little foursquare for the vintage and maybe more traditional in a way than either Mouton or Lafite. 96-98.

 

Lynch-Bages (Pauillac; 71% Cabernet Sauvignon; 24% Merlot; 3% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 47 hl/ha; pH 3.75; IPT 95; 13.7% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and again at the property). A most fitting if silent tribute to the indomitable Jean-Michel Cazes. Floral, almost as never before, and both restrained and relaxed. A little cassis. A little violet. Blueberry. Bramble. Tasted a second time, it is more closed still and it is walnut and walnut shell that reveal themselves first. Soft, elegant, refined and glossy with beautifully-refined tannins and a shimmering quality to the mouthfeel (all the more impressive when you consider the IPT level – 20 points above that of Latour yet you would never guess). Not as ample as it used to be and so much more impressive for that. Glacially pure and crystalline in the mid-palate. Generous, long and multi-layered. So precise and so focussed, intensely juicy and with a lovely touch of menthol and fleur de sel on the finish. 94-96+.

 

Lynch-Moussas (Pauillac; 78% Cabernet Sauvignon; 22% Merlot; a final yield of 49 hl/ha, with half of the production making the selection for the grand vin; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and at Batailley). A little less engaging when tasted after Lynch-Bages, which I guess is the cross it must bear, but soft, gentle, easy and lithe. Raspberry. A little sloe and damson. Lithe and quite plush if not exactly plump. The tannins are a little less refined on the finish, but the progress here needs to be underscored. A much stronger wine than it used to be and an impressive showing from a wine that used to be rustic and even a little coarse. 91-93.

 

Moulin de Duhart (Pauillac; 55% Merlot; 45% Cabernet Sauvignon). Plump. Succulent, though there’s a little dip in the mid-palate –  even if it starts to fill in with a little aeration. Blueberries and black currant. Fresh, juicy and sapid. A nice fluidity. Energetic. Easy and very accessible. A lovely harmony. A little herbaceous on the finish. 88-90.

 

Mouton Rothschild (Pauillac; 93% Cabernet Sauvignon; 7% Merlot; 13.3% alcohol; pH 3.79; the old-vine yields here were above the 10 year average for Mouton; tasted with Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy at Clerc-Milon). Very floral. Crushed rose petals, fresh rose petals, rose water and iris. Black cherries and brambles, damson too. Black pepper. Candlewax and candle smoke from the cathedral hinting perhaps at the gothic cathedral architecture of the palate to come. Walnut and olive oil. Chiselled. Incredible texturally. Broader than Le Petit Mouton but with something of the same kaleidoscope of velvety layers imparting a great sensation of depth. But this is deceptive as it’s so glacial, glassy and mirror pool. I love, too, the hint of blackcurrant that appears like a phantom from the lake just before the finish. A wine with a staggeringly dynamic freshness, almost a whirlpool of upwelling Cabernet cassis disrupting the cool tranquillity of the surface that we encounter first. So soft and gracious. Beautifully composed. And yet thrilling and utterly captivating at the same time. 97-99.

 

Pauillac de Latour (Pauillac; 62.5% Cabernet Sauvignon; 34.1% Merlot; 4.7% Petit Verdot; ; IPT 74; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at Latour). Pretty aromatically, with a little rose petal alongside the bright and quite dark shaded berry fruits. A little leafy and lifted with a nice note of cassis and a touch of cedar joining the frame towards the finish. Light and aerial. The tannins are perhaps just a little prickly on the finish, but that will be resolved before this is released. 90-92.

 

Le Petit Mouton (Pauillac; 79% Cabernet Sauvignon; 12% Merlot; 7% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot; pH 3.74; 13.3% alcohol; tasted at Clerc-Milon with Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy). So cool and gracious. Plunge pool. Bramble and loganberry, mulberry. The fruit darkens with aeration, the berries joined by black cherries and assorted dark plums. Graphite. Quite broad initially, but then the tannins pinch and bring this back to the spine. Cascading layers of silky and velvety fruit make this very deep and reinforce the impression of concentration, density and compactness, but not at the expense of the sheer mobility and fluidity of the wine, with eddies of freshness disturbing the mirror pool. A fabulously composed and refined, cool and spiritual Petit Mouton. Very pure. Once again, I find this to star turn of the Pauillac 1^st growth second wines. 93-95+.

 

Pibran (Pauillac; 54% Cabernet Sauvignon; 46% Merlot; pH 3.7; 13.1% alcohol; tasted at Pichon Baron with Christian Seely). A little closed under overcast skies at Pichon Baron. Peppery – pestle-pounded white and black peppercorns. Brambles. Sage. Bright, crisp with croquant berry fruits. The quality of the tannins again really impresses me. Quite broad-framed though never quite pushing at the cheeks. Silky, layered texturally and impressively pure and precise. Very clean on the finish. Not the length of the great wines of the appellation, but very impressive nonetheless. 90-92.

 

Pichon Baron (Pauillac; 80% Cabernet Sauvignon; 20% Merlot; pH 3.7; 13.2% alcohol; a final yield of 37 hl/ha; 12 % press wine; tasted at Pichon Baron with Christian Seely and Pierre Montegut). Very beautiful and refined aromatically. I love the purity of the fruit profile. So croquant and bright. Blackcurrant. Graphite, a touch of cedar, but with a lot more still to come. So fine texturally. Singularly pure, with a glorious Cabernet fruit completely at the centre of the stage. Broad but hyper-layered. Finely delineated, with a sense of inter-layer pixilation and a crystalline character and finesse that I’ve never felt here before but that is very consistent with the direction of travel of this wine over recent vintages. The closest in signature to the 2019 for me, but with the additional density of 2010, 2016 or 2020. Gracious and composed. 95-97.

Table 1: Rainfall during the vintage (relative to 10-year average)

Source: calculated from Saturnalia’s Bordeaux 2023 Harvest report.

The result, as Table 2 shows clearly, is that average vineyard yields in the appellation rose by a full 20 hl/ha from a paltry 31.5 hl/ha in the hail-ravaged 2022 vintage to an almost record-shattering and certainly chart-topping 51.6 hl/ha in 20223.

Yet crucial to this was not just the lower early summer rainfall totals which meant that St-Estèphe endured rather less of the mildew pressure experienced further south. No less significant was the capacity of St-Estèphe’s cooler, more clay-dominated, soils to absorb and buttress the intense heatwave episodes of the second half of August and early September.

Whilst the grapes were desiccating and burning on the vines in the Indian Summer conditions further south they were slowly and surely reaching perfect maturity further north. The ugly sister was blossoming in the late summer sunshine.

 

Table 2: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes.

This was, above all, crucial for the late-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon. It is perhaps unsurprising then that 2023 sees a subtle but significant change in the final blends of the appellation’s grands vins.

Indeed, as Table 3 shows, although Cabernet Sauvignon did not quite attain the dominance in the blend it achieved in 2021 (when a lot of Merlot struggled to attain full ripeness), it typically represents two-thirds of the blend in the leading wines of the appellation, with Merlot relegated to a relatively paltry 22 per cent.

 

Table 3: Percentage of Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon in the grand vin, 2020-23

 

Given all of this is perhaps not surprising that I find St-Estèphe, like the northern part of Pauillac and as in the 2014 vintage (if for rather different reasons), something of a figurative hot spot in 2023. Time and again, its wine have triumphed.

Montrose remains, not for the first time, a class apart – a genuine qualitative peer of the the first growths. It is for me the wine of the appellation once again. Though I was blown away by the quality of the 2019, 2020 and 2022 I have, quite simply, never tasted better from this address.

That seems, in a way, just a little harsh on Cos d’Estournel. Because it, too, has produced a truly exquisite and exceptional wine that in any other great vintage (and plenty of other appellations) would surely merit ‘wine of the appellation’ consideration. That these two greats are on such fantastic form in this vintage is, of course, brilliant for the appellation and for its reputation; but it does seem a little tough on a wine that had me purring in the tasting room once again.

Calon-Ségur, Phélan-Ségur, Meyney and Tronquoy have each produced fabulous wines too. Each deserves a place in a well-stocked cellar and each will give at least two decades of pleasure for those with the patience to wait that long.

But it with de Pez and, perhaps above all, Cos Labory that I must conclude. These perhaps share the prize for the most improved properties in the entire Médoc, though de Pez of course has had a couple of years’ head-start on Cos Labory. Quite simply each has made in 2023 the best wine I have ever tasted from the property – by some distance in the case of the latter. What they both show so well is the difference that top-tier vineyard management and vinification can bring to a wine in a relatively small span of time. The Pichon Comtesse signature at de Pez is clear and has been for a handful of vintages now; the Cos d’Estournel touch at Cos Labory is already transformative. I cannot wait to taste the 2024 and 2025 vintages from these addresses.

St-Emilion: A vintage of glass ceilings

Despite finding more great wines than in any other appellation, we find a glass ceiling - with smaller, less affluent producers unable to withstand the endemic mildew presented by the vintage.

There is an almost inevitable moment in any en primeur week when the alarm rings especially early, one brushes the sleep from one’s eyes, crawls out of bed in search of coffee and races to the Rocade and the Pont d’Aquitaine to cross from the left-bank to the right-bank (or from the right to the left) – invariably for the earliest early morning appointment of the entire week.

After our quick tour northwards up the Gironde from Margaux, via St-Julien and Pauillac to St-Estèphe we’ve reached that point in our journey (though we’ll cross back again before we are finished). And, as you’ve probably already noticed, having chosen at the time rather innocently to travel northwards up the Médoc, our passage to the right-bank is, of course, rather longer than it needed to be.

So what is in store for us on the other side of the river once we get there – above all in Saint-Émilion, our first right-bank calling point?

The watch-word here is heterogeneity. And that is perhaps not surprising, even if this time last year I was writing about the surprising homogeneity of Saint-Émilion’s 2022s.

As I noted then, we tend to think of Saint-Émilion as having an almost natural tendency to heterogeneity for three reasons above all: first, its sheer size; second, the qualitative range and diversity of its terroirs and, crucially, their respective capacities to respond to the climatic conditions they face; and, third, its stylistic diversity.

In 2023 the first two of these factors, I would argue, were rather more important than the third. But they are joined by a fourth – the massively uneven access to the resources to cope with, and thereby to compensate for, the meteorological challenges posed by the growing season.

Saint-Émilion is, of course, a large appellation with over 4000 hectares of grand cru vineyards alone in 2023 (in comparison, say, to Margaux’s 1500 and Pomerol’s 780). It is also arrayed over a diversity of terroirs of rather variable quality. In a growing season in which even contiguous vineyards experienced significant differences in their exposure, above all, to mildew, this was always likely to produce considerable heterogeneity.

Crucial here were the relative size of the downpours that punctuated June and the extent to which they were book-ended by the spikes in temperature that helped propagate the mildew. In some vineyards, in short, the natural pressure of mildew was simply greater than in others, with limestone terroirs and Cabernet plots much more resistant than their sand and Merlot counterparts respectively.

The aggregate numbers (which are displayed in Table 1) capture little of this detail, even if they do show the significant accumulation of rainfall between budburst and the harvest (notably in June).

Table 1: Rainfall during the vintage (relative to 10-year average)

Source: calculated from Saturnalia’s Bordeaux 2023 Harvest report

But, in a way tragically, more important than any of this was the relative capacity of different properties to cope with whatever mildew pressure they faced. The flatter southern and western parts of the appellation, closer to the river, on more sandy soils suffered in some cases horrific losses. They did so not because the weather conditions were significantly worse, nor even really because their terroirs were more susceptible to mildew (though to some extent that was the case), but simply because, with a much lower average retail price per bottle, they did not have access to the financial and hence human resources required to treat effectively. Here mildew became endemic.

Compounding the tragedy, those parcels, plots and vineyards already weakened by mildew damage proved much more susceptible to the desiccation and burning of the fruit on the vines in the heatwave conditions established in the Indian Summer immediately preceding the harvest.

I tasted many wines from these parts of the appellation. But you will not find many of my tasting notes below. For, much though it pains me to say so and through no fault of their producers, many did not meet the qualitative threshold for inclusion in my appellation profile.

This is, in effect, the first glass ceiling in the 2023 vintage in Saint-Émilion. But it is not the only one.

Crucial then to the heterogeneity of Saint-Émilion in this vintage was the differential capacity to cope with the challenges that nature presented. It alone goes a long way to explaining why average vineyard yields in Saint-Émilion (as Table 2 shows) were so much lower (above all with respect to the 10-year average) than they were in Pomerol, despite an essentially similar meteorological experience.

 

Table 2: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes

The wines themselves

Heterogeneity is the watch work for the 2023 vintage in Saint-Émilion. But it is not – and nor should not it be taken as – a synonym for the absence of quality. There are truly great wines to be found in Saint-Émilion in 2023. Indeed, and however paradoxical though it might at first seem, given the sheer size of the appellation and the relatively small size of the vineyards, it is in the end hardly surprising that there are more truly great wines here than there are in any other leading appellation.

There are at least 30 wines that I would love to have teleported to my cellar in 5 to 10 years’ time (admittedly, from over 150 tasted). That cannot be said for any other leading appellation.

But that is perhaps to soften the pill. For there are, in the end, a series of glass ceilings here beneath which the wines of the appellation seem to bunch and cluster. The first we have already dealt with – the quality threshold set by the presence of systemic mildew and its consequences in many vineyards.

But that is just the first of three. The second is the tendency of at least some of these wines, typically on lesser terroirs, to be lean and slender, slightly hollow in the mid-palate and abrasive on the finish due to the combination of coarse tannins and elevated acidity. The third arises simply from the qualitative diversity of Saint-Émilion’s terroirs, with the crystalline, limpid and luminous quality of the vintage combined with a return to a more classical style of wine-making revealing in some cases well-made wines lacking complexity and interest. Though my highest ratings are the same as those in 2022, my average rating for the grands crus classés is lower and the slope of their exponential decline is steeper.

At each and every one of these glass ceilings, and especially at the last, 2023 reveals itself to be a vintage of terroir quality and intense hard work. Where we have both, and the resources to make possible the latter, we have genuine excellence. But it is thinner on the ground and more unevenly distributed than it was in 2022.

There are for me two wines, above all, that transcend the challenges of the vintages and that shatter each and every glass ceiling with which we might associate those challenges. Both are magical expressions of their very different, unique and exceptional terroirs – Cheval Blanc and Beauséjour. I love them both and would hate to have to choose between them.

They pip at the post – but only by a hair’s breadth – two other transcendent wines that are certainly for me on a par with anything I have ever tasted from either property. They are Figeac and Rocheyron, once again the former from a predominantly clay and gravel terroir, the latter from a predominantly limestone and clay terroir.

It is perhaps hardly surprising that Ausone, Bélair-Monange, Angélus, Canon and Pavie have also produced wines of stunning brilliance once again, so let me perhaps single out for special mention five wines that have for me produced the best I have ever tasted from them in the context of the vintage. They are, in strictly alphabetical order: Beau-Séjour Bécot, Bellefont Belcier, Clos de Sarpe, Couvent des Jacobins and Lassègue.

And, in terms of the sheer value for money they offer, it is difficult to look beyond (again, in alphabetical order): Berliquet, Couvent des Jacobins (once again), Laroque, Lassègue (ditto) and Mangot.

Let me finish with a potentially interesting observation inspired by a reflection of a similar kind last year. In my appellation profile of the 2022 vintage, I identified 24, of which only 12 featured in the new classification of the wines of Saint-Émilion. This year I have identified 29 stars of the (2023) vintage, 21 of which feature in the same classification.

No. 3 d’Angelus (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Fran; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; from 9 hectares including the younger vines from Carillon d’Angelus; tasted at Angélus with Benjamin Laforêt, Hubert de Boüard and Stephanie de Boüard-Rivoal). Bright crunchy fruits and a little hint of walnut. This is made using a form of cold fermentation, more typically used for whites, to preserve the more gentle aromatic notes, above all the florality and the purity of the fruit. Fresh and crushed raspberries, very fresh and very pure. White flowers and a little raspberry blossom. Orange blossom. Blood orange. This is delicate but with a nice ample frame and a very crystalline mid-palate. Fresh and very pure with very gracious tannins. Silky and layered – like a scarf billowing in the breeze. Hyper fresh and pure. Very refined and elegant with a lovely lifted finish. 91-93+.

 

Angélus (Saint Émilion; 60% Merlot; 40% Cabernet Franc – mainly from old vines; tasted at Angélus with Benjamin Laforêt, Hubert de Boüard and Stephanie de Boüard-Rivoal). Introvert, yet floral. Peony. A little lily of the valley. Wisteria. Rose petal. Walnut oil.First press olive oil with its spicy pepperiness too. Red and black cherries, damsons, sloes, blackberries. Briary fruits. A slight hint of the cedar to come, but at first just the suggestion. Very refined, elegant and composed. Plunge pool soft and crystalline. The most subtle of the Angélus wines, at this nascent stage. The Cabernet Franc is the star here with its wild blueberry fruit and florality given the stage to perform and express themselves. Quite ample in the mouth, with lovely silky layers, glistening and pure, the Cabernet notes rising up through the surface from below. Aeration in the mouth releases the most beautiful cedar and damson fruit juice, bringing additional tension. Sapid, juicy, radiant and quite classical in a way. The fruit has a lovely crunch to it. A wine of great harmony and poise. Very long – with the length  sustained by the quality of the Cabernet fruit, the signature of Angélus. 96-98.

 

Annonce de Bélair-Monange (Saint Émilion; 98% Merlot; 2% Cabernet Franc; tasted at the property). Deeply impressive. Cassis. Pure, precise, fine-textured and with and intensity, concentration and density. A second wine to seek out in a vintage where that is rare. Close in style to the grand vin, with lovely poise, finesse and pixilated precision. 91-93.

 

L’Archange (St Emilion; 100% Merlot; from a tiny vineyard of just 1 hectare on sand with a clay subsoil; a final yield of 35 hl/ha; the consultant wine-maker here is Pascal Chatonnet; tasted at Haut-Chaigneau with Pascal Chatonnet). Nicely composed, not too broad but more dense and compact because of that. Glossy, limpid, generous and made to go the distance. Needs time for the oak to incorporate. Impressively substantial. 91-93.

 

Arômes de Pavie (Saint Émilion; 50% Merlot; 50% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 34 hl/ha; pH 3.65; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at Pavie with Olivier Gailly). Very pretty. The Cabernet Franc is given the space to express itself and it has quite a bit to say for itself! Iris. Struck match. Incense. Black cherry and bramble. Candlewax. An impressively intense mouthful of plump and plush crunchy berry fruits. Well-structured and considerable. Very Côte de Pavie: dark and compact at the core, spherical in the mouth and with lots of energy – more than there used to be. Grainy tannins indicate a long life ahead. A lovely return to the terroir here with quite a lot of old vines making their way into this. Puissant, yes, but sleek and stylish too – and highly expressive of the values of the grand vin. 93-95.

 

Ausone (Saint Émilion; 60% Cabernet Franc; 40% Merlot; tasted at Ausone with Alain Vauthier; certified organic). Quietly spoken and introvert at first, but what it does reveal is utterly beautiful and all the more beguiling for being rather sotto voce. Graphite, cedar, and with lots of Cabernet Franc in evidence – that cedar and blueberry co-presence, a little thyme, more and more graphite and walnut with aeration and the black cherry notes coming through underneath all of that, bringing an aromatic sense of layering. Pot pourri and dried rose petals reveal themselves with more coaxing of the glass. The oak is still a little present, especially in the empty glass, but it only needs time. In the mouth, this is wonderfully gracious and svelte. Cool at first, as if the hyper-soft tannins refresh the palate and relax it to let in the dark fresh berry and stone fruit. Cherries and damsons, a little blueberry and bramble. There’s great density and compactness despite the breath and amplitude. This pushes out the cheeks, just a little, the tannins colleting at the front of the mouth. And there’s a brilliant grip and pinch just before the fantail finish, which is incredibly precise and lifted. Calm tranquillity. A timeless wine that it is a privilege to taste. 96-98+.

 

Badette (St Emilion; 67% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; 3% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 15% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A new addition to the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés and a few subtle changes to the label in this vintage too. Earthy, with dark berry fruits, crushed black peppercorns and a little gentle sweet spicing. Graphite, just a hint of acacia. Liquorice. The oak is not yet fully integrated, but I find this rather attractively seasoned. Plump, with quite a tight structure, quite densely charged with fruit for the vintage. Though this lacks the complexity and delineation of the finest, it is certainly well-made and well managed, the tannins soft-grained if a little chewy on the finish. One of the few to reach 15 degrees of alcohol, and you sense it a little on the finish. 89-91.

 

Balestard La Tonnelle (Saint Émilion; 57% Merlot; 35% Cabernet Sauvignon; 8% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 36 hl/ha; tasted at both La Dominique and at Dassault; certified organic). An attractive red and darker berry fruit profile, a little bit of toast and sweet spicing from the oak. Quite open-textured and certainly not pushed in terms of the extractions, allowing a delicate bright florality to emerge with aeration. On the palate this is nicely formed with a well-defined central core quite richly charged with fruit. Not especially long nor terribly complex, but well-managed and nicely balanced. 89-91.

 

Beauséjour (Saint Émilion; 70% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; 60% new oak; a final yield of 46 hl/ha; 14% alcohol; tasted twice, the first time at Belgrave and then at Beauséjour with Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse, with practically identical notes; Axel Marchal and Julien Viaud co-consult and an entirely new wine-making facility, offering yet more precision, will be in place for the 2024 vintage). Cool and shimmering, with a fabulous energy and vivacity. Graphite, a hint of cedar, blueberry and black pen ink, a little pencil-shaving note, some incense and parfumier’s extracts of rose, peony and violet. Walnut oil. Dense and compact, with a lovely broad frame and the most gracious but also pixilating of calcaire tannins entering between and, in so doing, delineating the milles feuilles of silk and cashmere that seem interlayered and interwoven. So gracious. And with such finesse. More delicate and refined than the 2022 and at least as impressive. I love the shape of this in the mouth: the tannins somehow outlining the lozenge-shaped parameters of a black hole with the density increasing exponentially towards the centre – a kind of vanishing point, just like that to which the wine tapers on the seemingly never ending finish. It’s beautifully composed with a tight, densely charged core. The top terroir is presented with such eloquence, respect and articulation. Succulent, salivating, sapid and fabulously refreshing. 98-100.

 

Beau-Séjour Bécot (Saint Émilion; 77% Merlot; 23% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 39 hl/ha with the old vines; aging in oak barrels, 55% of which are new; tasted at Beau-Séjour Bécot with Jean de Cournuaud; the first vintage to be vinified in the new chai, serendipitously received just a few days before the harvest began). Beautifully dark berried and highly pixilated in its detail. Raspberry, blueberry, mulberry. Graphite. Pencil-shaving. Violet. On the palate we find violet-encased black cherry and blueberry – with a vivid sense of the texture of the whole berries and the skin of the cherry. Polished, silky but with great compactness and density in the mid-palate. Very spherical and with a gracious long tapering descent towards the distant horizon. Asymptotic! A deeply impressive wine. So fresh and clean and focussed, with a lovely structural pinch before the fantail, sculpted by the crumbly limestone tannins. I love the florality here and the sense of it being fully interwoven with the fruit across the palate. Indeed, it has me craving a re-tasting in 10 years’ time of this alongside Clos Fourtet – both extremely gracious but very differently formed, each highly floral and each brilliantly expressive of its limestone terroir. 96-98.

 

Bélair-Monange (Saint Émilion; 98% Merlot; 2% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 45 hl/ha, with 55% of the production making the selection for the grand vin; aging in oak barrels, 50% of them new; tasted at the property). Brilliant. After tasting Annonce, with a very similar fruit signature, one is especially struck by the florality of the grand vin – and grand it is. Radiant peonies, crushed pink rose petals, a little violet – just lovely. So fine, so pure, so measured, so elegant and poised. Silk interwoven with cashmere and with such fine pixilation. Dark cherries and plump loganberries and mulberries. Graphite and an early trace of the cedar that will coarse through this as it ages in bottle. Crushed petals and assorted parfumiers’ essences are picked up, again, on the palate. Such a subtle and elegant wine, full of refinement – rare in the vintage. A wonderful natural balance and harmony. The best of the Moueix wines and very much now at the pinnacle of the appellation. A sublime combination of salinity and sapidity on the finish. What grace in depth. 96-98+.

 

Bellefont-Belcier (St Emilion; 72% Merlot; 18% Cabernet Franc; 10% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 14.5% alcohol; from 14 hectares on clay-limestone and Molasses de Fronsadais; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault and then at the property with Emmanuelle Fulchi and Jean-Christophe Meyrou; as at all of the Vignobles K estates, there were essentially no losses here to mildew). Wow! Lovely and highly expressive aromatically. I find this incredibly exuberant in its florality – lifted notes of hyacinth, peony and gladiola, saffron too. A touch of first press olive oil with all its pepperiness. This is spicy, with a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Gamey too, with almost a lièvre à la royale rich meatiness to it. Super-svelte, mirror pool cool at the centre and crystalline, but with excellent Côte de Pavie density and compactness. This is truly excellent for the vintage and one really feels the sharpened attention to detail. Fantastic and the best I’ve ever tasted from here. A veritable coup de coeur. 94-96+.

 

Berliquet (St Emilion; 59% Merlot; 41% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; pH 3.53; 14% alcohol; tasted first at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at Canon – last wine tasted on a long day and it shone). The first vintage vinified in the new vat room, with 15 smaller vats replacing the 9 larger vats of the past. That helps explain the gain in precision here. We are now very close to Canon in qualitative terms. The character of the two terroirs are, however, very different (with the combination of plateau and côteaux here giving this an additional sense of vertical depth). Floral, aromatically just a little closed and intimate but one is immediately enticed. A gorgeous cedar builds with very little aeration. More gravitas, in fact, than Canon but with much the same fruit intensity. More earthy rather than chalky. The Cabernet Franc signature is so gentle and gracious. Beguiling. Violets. Irises. Lavender and rosemary. Supple and plump on the palate but quite delicate which allows the Cabernet Franc to really express itself. Glorious calcaire tannins gently sculpt this and release too that signature limestone salinity. Excellent in a very delicate and elegant way. Lovely cool harmony, with lots of menthol. Exciting. The best ever from here. Another coup de Coeur (this part of the alphabet in Saint Émilion seems incredibly strong this year!). 95-97.

 

Boutisse (St Emilion; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A new addition to the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés – and a very welcome one at that. A lovely wine once again from Boutisse. This has a succulent, plump and juicy berry and stone fruit – sloes, damson, mulberry and bramble. There’s a fair amount of tannin here, but those tannins are very refined and polished, the mid-palate packed with fruit. In short, this is a wine that has what it takes to go the distance, but it’s already delightfully accessible, due to the elegance and definition of the fruit and the vivid sense of dynamism and energy it imparts to the mid-palate. Silky, elegant and with plenty of guile. 92-94.

 

Cadet Bon (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Another new addition to the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés if not a wine I know very well. Floral, with a little hyacinth note, saffron too, crunchy red and darker berry fruits – raspberry and redcurrant, a little cassis and bramble. Also a little bell pepper. The acidity is, however, quite pronounced, though it reveals itself more on the very fresh attack than on the finish. The tannins are crumbly but shade a little towards the dry side. 88-90.

 

Calicem (Saint Émilion; 100% Merlot; the 8^th production of this wine from a single parcel adjoining Angélus and Beauséjour, this has a very consistent personality now; Thomas Duclos consults here; a final yield of c. 30 hl/ha from vines of around 60 years of age; vinified in 500 litres new oak barrel from 4 tonnellerie and with pigeage à la main; pH 3.65; 14% alcohol; tasted at Couvent des Jacobins with Xavier Jean). Shimmering and pure aromatically, with a very pure blend of red and darker berry fruits, the pleasing ripeness imparting a gentle natural sweetness that is not surprising when you consider where the parcel is located. Peony. Walnut oil. Cassis and raspberry, a little stone fruit with more aeration. This has a lovely compact frame, beautifully-filled with plump and plush berry fruits, nice pixilation and a gentle structure, the calcaire tannins gathering on the finish to give this a delightfully powdery chalky finale. Glossy. Long and quite lifted. Pure, precise and very well-made. Succulent. One of the strongest monocépage wines of the appellation. 94-96.

 

De Candale (Saint Émilion). Fuller and richer than Roc de Candale, the fruit a shade darker and more predominantly berry rather than stone in character – though there’s a little damson to go with the mulberries and brambles. Pleasingly impactful on the attack and fresh without ever hinting at astringency, I like this, even if it’s one of those wines whose linearity and precision perhaps also exposes a certain lack of complexity. But it’s very well made. 89-91.

 

Canon (Saint Émilion; 71% Merlot; 29% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; pH 3.42; 14% alcohol; tasted at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at Canon itself). Sublimely Canon! Dark, rich, cool, composed, calming, intimate, almost a little like entering a dark chapel from the summer sunshine and then focusing in on the details of the stained glass. Pixilated – in colour. Strikingly sharp-focused, with the sensation of that coming from the extra detail and definition afforded by the powdery limestone/chalky tannins. Graphite and black berry and, above all, stone fruits, with a lovely gracious Cabernet leafiness. Sumptuous and sinuous, with just the right amount of fruit concentration to allow this to weave its magical path over the palate. Less substantial than recent vintages but a lovely expression of the vintage. Finely seasoned, above all with limestone fleur de sel! 96-98.

 

Canon La Gaffelière (Saint Émilion; 35% Merlot; 45% Cabernet Franc; 20% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 35 hl/ha; aging in oak barrels, just 40 % of which are new; 13% alcohol; tasted with Stephane and Ludovic von Neipperg at the property on the Saturday following en primeur week just before a substantial hail storm was broken up by Saint Émilion’s new canon defence system, rather impressively unleashed from Ludovic’s mobile phone!). The most beautiful nose. Cedar. Graphite. Violet and Parma violets. Crushed rose petals over dark black cherry and damson. Green tea and macha. Quite enticing and yet actually quite opulent for the vintage. A radiant cedar note too, that builds in the glass. Quite open-textured and with a little less depth and density than the nose leads you to anticipate. Fluid and sinuous. I love this style – a delicate balancing act between the breadth of frame to give to the Cabernet the space to express itself and the extraction to give this substance and ageability. A wine that really open and builds in the glass. Very fresh, vivid, energetic and stylish. 93-95+.

 

Carillon D’Angélus (Saint Émilion; 90% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; ; tasted at Angélus with Benjamin Laforêt, Hubert de Boüard and Stephanie de Boüard-Rivoal). White and rose peppercorns, gently crushed, a little nutmeg and cinnamon, wild herbs, red, white and black currant with some of their leafiness, red cherries and a little Griotte cherry too. The limestone tannins frame and sculpt the wine giving this a lovely structure that imparts great depth and concentration. Vivid and intense. The Cabernet really dances in the space given to it by the frame set by the interaction between the Merlot and the tannins. Menthol on the finish. Impressively pure and with no sensation of oak. So succulent and juicy, sapid and fresh. A red wine made like a white and with all of the natural energy and tension that one finds in the best whites of the vintage. 93-95.

 

Cap de Mourlin (Saint Émilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Aromatically explosive and in a very vertical way. Fireworks, cordite, oak smoke, crushed red and black cherries, brambles too. Big, rich, quite sweet-spiced and the oak as yet not fully integrated – it actually serves to underscore and draw out quite nicely a gentle florality. On the palate this is soft on the entry, quite dense and compact, but maybe lacks a little delineation. The tannins are a shade dry on the finish. Quite ‘old school modern’ if you know what I mean, but charming in its way. 91-93.

 

Chapelle d’Ausone (Saint Émilion; 60% Cabernet Franc; 35% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; tasted at Ausone with Alain Vauthier; certified organic). Lots of graphite, a little cedar, but quite closed when tasted in the chai at Ausone under partially grey skies half-way through en primeur week. White pepper. Walnut. Black cherries and blueberries. Mulberries. A fair bit of acidity but this is nicely incorporated and well-distributed along the well-defined and limestone-chiselled spine. Tender. Substantial. The most gracious tannins, especially considering their volume. Lots of pepper and a crushed rock salt salinity, bringing liquorice notes to the finish. Like some of the other wines in the Vauthier line-up, this is not as effusive, expressive or accessible as the 2022, but it’s just as good. It needs time and will reward patience. 94-96.

 

Chauvin (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A lovely quite distinct aromatic profile, very bright and energetic and exuberant, quite lifted and elegant but light on its feet, as it were. Dark berry fruits, a little loganberry – with its additional acidity and freshness – and Griotte cherry. White peppercorns. Almost a hint of mimosa. On the palate this has quite a narrow frame. A delicate and subtle wine with less flesh and substance than many, but that is more than compensated for by copious energy and a very crunchy fruit profile. Finishes on cassis and grape skin. 90-92+.

 

Le Châtelet (St Emilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Quite nutty, subtle, lithe and limpid, very fresh and pure, fluid and engaging. Not massive at all, but nicely layered. This is elegant – indeed, almost ethereal. Light, but light on its feet too with a nice trace of liquorice on the finish. 90-92.

 

Cheval Blanc (Saint Émilion; 52% Merlot; 46% Cabernet Franc; 2% Cabernet Sauvignon; 13.6% alcohol; tasted at Cheval Blanc with Pierre-Olivier Cloüet; whilst there was significant mildew pressure here, the generosity and evenness of the flowering permitted a final yield of 40 hl/ha, the source of the natural balance in the wine according to Pierre-Olivier). Gosh, this is fabulous. More cedar still than Petit Cheval. Very Cabernet Franc in its aromatics. Vertical, explosive aromatically, but gorgeous with it. When the cedar calms, it’s the graphite that sours and it seems to bring with it the fruit. Bramble, blueberry, blackberry, black cherry, damson, mulberry. A little blood orange. On the palate, this is so fantastic texturally. Silk layers unlike the more velvety Petit Chevel, but with even more depth, so we have a sort of incalculable milles feuilles sensation. Just gorgeous texturally. A cascade of layers like the descent of a spiral staircase into the cool dark depths of the cave below. So Gracious and complete. Staggering in its mouth feel. Chocolate. Violet and lavender. Aniseed. Black peppercorns and that cool finish of Szechuan peppercorns and a touch of menthol. Incredibly ethereal and fantastically lifted on the (two minute plus) finish. Utterly brilliant and a complete triumph. 98-100.

 

Clos Cantenac (Saint Émilion; 100% Merlot; 14% alcohol). This has a very ‘crunchy’ berry fruit – damsons and assorted dark berry fruit, just on the right side of maturity, but with quite a pronounced acidity nonetheless. It is very well made when placed in the context of the vintage’s challenges. Linear, precise and well-chiselled. But the elevated acidity reinforces its slightly strict character. 89-91.

 

Clos Dubreuil (St Emilion; 60% Merlot; 35% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault; certified organic). Newly classified and richly deserving of it. Oaky in the context of the St Emilion Grand Cru Classé line-up, but that’s not exactly a surprise as this is very true to the style it has crafted over a number of vintages. Vanilla pod, black cherry, rose petals, marzipan and frangipane, white almonds too. Cool, deep, dark and quite sensuous on the palate, the oak actually much less evident here. Crystalline and pure and with a very fine-grained if still recognisably crumbly limestone tannin (just as it should have). This expresses its fine terroir (just above de Millery and below Croix de Labrie) very well and will do so even more once the oak is fully integrated (but there’s enough substance to ensure that’s just a matter of time). 91-93+.

 

Clos Fourtet (Saint Émilion; 87% Merlot; 7% Cabernet Franc; 6% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 46 hl/ha; pH 3.54; 14.5% alcohol; tasted with Matthieu Cuvelier at the property; made from whole berries with pigeage à la main). Gorgeous, even more so when tasted at the property. So elegant and floral, so pure and lifted aromatically. Restrained and tranquil. Enticing yet intimate. Introspective. A cornucopia of pounded fresh petals – above all, assorted rose petals. So gracious aromatically. Dark berry fruits all perfectly ripe and beautifully formed – a still life painting, highly pixilated with each hair of the raspberry so detailed. A little graphite, with a hint of the cedar to come. Incredibly soft and delicate tannins. Quite a broad frame. Saline and glistening, limpid and aerial. Some might want more fruit concentration (it’s there if you look for it, but it’s not in your face), but I find this a beautiful expression of the vintage that is deceptive in its beguiling aerial quality and its restrained power. Very tense. Really structured by the limestone tannins. The maturity arrived quite early here (third earliest harvest in recent decades). Profoundly expressive of its terroir and in its singular style (which here reminds me of the 2001 and 2004 in its harmony and completeness). A brilliant vintage for Clos Fourtet and such an eloquent homage to its terroir. 95-97+.

 

Clos La Gaffelière (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; plot by plot management and vinification in its own separate cellar; 130,000 bottles produced; tasted at La Gaffelière with Thomas Soubes). Limpid, fresh, glistening and viscous, with a lovely sense of balance and harmony. Cassis and bramble fruits. A pleasingly fresh mouthful, decent density and superb sapidity. Unpretentious but sophisticated. 90-92+.

 

Clos des Jacobins (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 18% Cabernet Franc; 2% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 40 hl/ha; 15% alcohol; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A succulent and sumptuous nose of dark cherries, kirsch, dark chocolate ganache with maybe a hint of violet, peony too; there’s a fair bit of oak here, but it’s already well integrated. Plump and plush on the attack, with a lovely billowy feel to the soft and almost cuddly mid-palate. Opulent for the vintage, with a nice hint of the cedar that will come through with élévage and subsequent bottling aging. A success in the context of the vintage and a fine wine from Clos des Jacobins. 92-94.

 

Clos de L’Oratoire (Saint Émilion; situated next to Dassault; 75% Merlot; 25% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 44 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted with Stephane and Ludovic von Neipperg at Canon La Gaffelière). Delicate, floral, with a little lily and lilac and a very dark but subtle and refined berry fruit – black berry and mulberry. Cedar. A little leafy thyme and oregano too. A wine of grace and charm, with a sense of profundity coming from the Cabernet Franc. Lovely balance and harmony. Likely to represent excellent value. 92-94.

 

Clos de Sarpe (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault; certified organic). This is very beautiful aromatically, with a gloriously and perhaps unusually floral profile – saffron and peony, lily of the valley and then the dark berry fruit, nicely crunchy and well-defined. The terroir, previously rather hidden in a veneer of oak, shines here these days, thanks to the respect for its shown by Maylis Mercenat. It does so very much in this vintage. Fresh and bright on the palate too, this evolves seamlessly and feels both crystalline and dynamic in the mouth. I like this very much. 93-95.

 

Clos St Martin (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 44 hl/ha; 14.5% alcohol; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). One of the most floral of wines aromatically at the Association des Grands Crus Classés tasting at Dassault. Distinct in its personality and distinctly engaging and gracious aromatically. Lily of the valley. Rose petals too. A dark stone fruit profile. Enticing. Full, quite plump, with a lovely open, sinuous and crystalline texture despite the density. Chewy towards the finish with crumbly calcaire tannins. Impressive. Quite considerable but with nice restraint and less evident oak than used to be the case. Purity rather than complexity perhaps, but lovely in its limpidity and sapidity. 92-94+.

 

Clos St Julien (Saint Émilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault; the smallest of the Grands Crus Classés of Saint Émilion now that it is classified, it being just a row or two of vines smaller than Sophie Fourçade’s Clos St Martin). Rose petals, petunias and wisteria, dark black cherry flesh and black raspberry. Quite granular in its tannic structure and dense and charged with fruit, this is soft at the core but a little angular around the extremities. But promising. A vin de garde but with a lovely limestone terroir signature. 91-93.

 

La Closerie de Fourtet (St Emilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 46 hl/ha; 14% alcohol; tasted with Matthieu Cuvelier at the property). The second wine of Clos Fourtet. Slightly closed at first but pretty and floral, with that prominent, very Clos Fourtet, note of cedar. Blueberries. Peonies. Black cherry. There is more clay with the limestone here, so this is vinified apart. Very dominated in its character by the young Cabernet Franc (a massal selection from the grand vin Cabernet Franc) on limestone that will ultimately end up in the grand vin. Plump and precise, delicate, elegant and refined. A model in miniature of the grand vin – very much more so than it used to be (when it was a monocépage Merlot). Very linear and incredibly pure and clean on the finish. Rapier-like. 91-93+.

 

La Clotte (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; tasted at Ausone with Alain Vauthier). Intense. Blackcurrant, with just a little cedar. Lovely cassis notes with aeration, wild blueberry and black berry. Quite briary, with a distinct herbal note too. Cherries enter the frame with aeration … And what a frame! Vertically structured with layers of silk and velvet – a little more of the latter, perhaps – nicely interspersed with the calcaire tannins entering between the layers and penetrating just a touch from the exterior. The tannic volume is considerable and in 2023 this is very much a vin de garde. Impressive, but less accessible today than it will be with a decade’s bottle age. 93-95.

 

La Commanderie (Saint Émilion; 75% Merlot; 25% Cabernet Franc; 15% alcohol; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Attractive aromatically, with perfectly ripe wild strawberries, raspberry and loganberry notes the most prominent. With air, more red and darker cherry fruits join the party. A touch of nutmeg and a hint of vanilla pod too, the oak not yet fully integrated. The tannins are fine-grained and they grip and sculpt the wine nicely, but they do turn just a shade dry on the finish. But there’s a pleasing juiciness to this too. 90-92.

 

La Confession (Saint Émilion; tasted at Belgrave). Newly promoted to the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés, but not present at the Association’s tasting at Dassault, it was worth tracking this down! Juicy with plum and blackcurrant fruits, imparting a pleasing purity. Crystalline and juicy with a sleek and sinuous mid-palate. Quite saline in its minerality and with fine-grained grippy limestone tannins. The acidity is a little elevated, which turns this a little stern on the finish. But it’s refreshing in its juiciness. 90-92+.

 

Côte de Baleau (St Emilion Grand Cru Classé; 17 hectare with limestone, clay and sand – a third of each; 95% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 40 hl/ha; pH 3.83; 14% alcohol; a final yield of 50 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault and then at Clos Fourtet with Matthieu Cuvelier). Floral, too, and nicely defined aromatically by the Cabernet elements, even more so when tasted a second time. Very pure and focused. Out of respect for the fruit, there’s very little oak. But that fruit is almost a little herbaceous at times. I don’t have too much trouble with that, but it’s not everyone’s proverbial cup of tea. Light and finely-textured, lacking a little mid-palate oomph and maybe hinting towards dryness on the finish. Better when tasted a second time at Clos Fourtet. 89-91.

 

La Couspaude (Saint Émilion; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Very saline aromatically – one knows one’s in the presence of limestone even before putting the glass to one’s lips. Generous, quite ample with a pleasing fruit intensity – dark stone fruits, brambles and black berries. A subtle trace of violet too, and cedar with aeration. Soft on the attack with fine-grained and yet grippy tannins. The acidity, though, is a little elevated and that seems to turn the fruit towards redder hues that jar a little with the more opulent aromatics. Redcurrant. A little tart on the finish, though a little less so the Association tasting (where I add the ‘+’). 89-91+.

 

Couvent des Jacobins (Saint Émilion; 84% Merlot; 11% Cabernet Franc; 5% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 40 hl/ha; tasted first at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault, then with Xavier Jean in the historic cloister of the Couvent itself). An amazing ascent to the summit is underway here and this is still a work in progress, but it’s perhaps the finest I’ve yet tasted from Couvent, with Thomas Duclos playing an important role as consultant. Incense, rose petals, wisteria and peonies, a little violet and a gracious plump stone and dark berry fruit – damsons and blueberries, a little bramble too; a nice combination of cracked peppercorns too. The Petit Verdot brings a little strictness of the mid-palate and maybe needs a little more time to fully bed in, but this is complex, layered, superb in its tannin management and incredibly refined. Bravo. The best yet from here and a veritable coup de coeur. 93-95.

 

Croix Beauséjour (Saint Émilion; 95% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Franc; 14% alcohol; 40% new oak; tasted at Beauséjour with Joséphine Duffau Lagarrosse at the end of the en primeur tastings). Very pure and lively, with a vivid black raspberry and mulberry fruit. Lots of graphite and that chalky stony minerality right from the first aromatics. The Cabernet Franc, even at 5%, is very expressive. Blueberry and cassis rising from the glacial cool glassy expansive ocean set by the Merlot. Graphite and walnut. Eloquent and articulate, a vrai vin de terroir and such an excellent introduction to the grand vin itself. Linear, chiselled but never austere. Silkily textured and lifted. 92-94.

 

Croix Canon (Saint Émilion; 54% Merlot; 46% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; pH 3.42; 14% alcohol). Herb-lifted wild berry fruits, fruits of the forest, a nice touch of violet and a suggestion of lavender. A note of heather too. Intense and extremely vertical, very sculpted by the limestone tannins. Pure, precise and juicy, but a little strict, an impression accentuated by the linear character imparted by the architectural tannins. Fresh, clean and lifted on the finish. A good introduction to the style at least of the grand vin. 90-92.

 

Croix Cardinale (Saint Émilion; 52% Cabernet Franc, 41% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon; pH 3.50; a final yield of just 15 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; the Cabernets are planted here on limestone on south-facing slopes; tasted with Caroline Decoster at Fleur Cardinale). I’m not quite sure what to make of this. It’s made for a very distinct style and consciously intended to be ‘atypical’. It is certainly that. Dense. Chunky. Spicy. I find this a little saturated in the mid-palate, even if it starts with a nice sense of pixilation. But the grain of the tannins and their influence on the wine seems to build in and through the mid-palate, rendering this a little harsh and astringent by the time we get to the finish. I’ll need to re-taste this as I have little sense of how this will resolve itself. Crumbly and distinctly chunky on the finish, but that’s the ambition here. A vin de garde, most certainly; the question, though, is still how successfully this will age. Let me give this the slight benefit of the doubt. 90-92.

 

La Croix de Labrie (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 27 hl/ha, seemingly low primarily because of the average age of the vines at 60 years or so; pH 3.41; 14.2% alcohol; tasted twice, the second time at the property). This sings in harmony with the wonderful cool limestone of this part of the plateau. A little closed at first when tasted the first time, but much more open the second. Even when closed we learn much from the evolution of the wine as it slowly unfurls like a fern frond. Glorious aromatically, with lovely and very distinctive subtle but intense violet, pink rose and iris notes, a little graphite and black cherry. We are in the parfumier’s laboratory. Wild blueberries, damson skin and a little blackcurrant. Griotte cherry, blood orange (from the old vine Cabernet Sauvignon) with aeration (and this is a wine that needs time to open). This is beautifully ripe, beautifully balanced and with the most gracious of tannins. Incredibly layered. Tasted alongside quite a representative sample of mid to upper tier Saint Émilion grands crus and grands crus classés this really shines for the quality of the tannins, the crystalline purity of the mid-palate and the aromatic charm and singularity of the fruit and floral signature. Truly excellent and essentially juicy. So sapid and that reinforces the sense of linearity on the finish. 95-97+.

 

La Croizille (St Emilion; 70% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 40 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A new addition to the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés and I rather like this. Quite a delicately structured wine, with very fine-grained tannins, a certain fluidity and a sinuous quality in the mid-palate and a long and gently tapering finish. Crushed black raspberries, loganberries and wild blueberries – all in finely pixilated detail. Impressive texturally. 91-93.

 

La Dame de Trottevieille (Saint Émilion; 57% Merlot; 43% Cabernet Franc; tasted at Trottevieille with Frédéric Castéja). Plum, damson, blueberry. Graphite. Cedar. Impressively lithe and sinuous, with a nice balance struck between subtle, supple side and the deeper, richer side. The acidity is quite elevated and that makes this a little stern, but the levity and eloquence of the Cabernet Franc compensates and brings lift. Very sapid and clean on the finish. 90-92.

 

Dassault (Saint Émilion; 72% Merlot; 24% Cabernet Franc; 4% Cabernet Sauvignon; pH 3.6; 14% alcohol; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Very ‘Dassault’ with its dark, plump black cherry fruit which, as ever, is generously enrobed even at this nascent stage with cedar and graphite, a little violet too. Seductive, quite opulent (the mid-palate enriched by the addition of the parcels from Faurie de Souchard), but also restrained and even delicate, with a sinuous quality that I find in many of the leading St Emilions of the vintage. Good choices. Well balanced. 92-94.

 

Destieux (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Quite oaky when tasted alongside its peers, though that in a way reinforces the pot pourri florality (in a way that reminds me of the Margaux classed growth Lascombes, until Axel Heinz’s arrival)! Plump and quite dense, the tannins shading a little towards the dry side on the finish, with the extraction pushed further than some other neighbouring properties. But it’s plush and full in the mouth and many will be drawn to that. Trade-offs, in the end, can be managed differently; but this works. 89-91.

 

Le Dôme (Saint Émilion; 80% Cabernet Franc; 20% Merlot; aging in oak barrels, 80% of which are new; pH 3.81; Thomas Duclos is now the consultant here; from Jonathan Maltus; this now includes the fruit from Les Astèries which Vieux Château Mazerat picks up that from Le Carré). Often rather closed en primeur, Le Dôme in its youth is invariably a somewhat intimate and shy wine, only slowly revealing what it chooses to reveal. Not in 2023. OK, it’s not revealing all of the glory to come, but it immediately shouts Cabernet Franc, with a gloriously plump and plush wild blueberry, black cherry, cassis and violet-encrusted dark chocolate nose. On the palate, too, this is open and expressive, less densely textured than Vieux Château Mazerat, for instance, and with more clarity, finesse, sapidity and delineation. I love the plunge pool coolness of the mid-palate. Quite an ethereal wine, unusually so at this early stage. 94-96.

 

La Dominique (Saint Émilion; 81% Merlot; 16% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon 5%; a final yield of 49 hl/ha; tasted three times, the third at La Dominique itself; Julien Viaud is the consultant here). Subtle, quite introverted and very classy. This exudes restraint and composure. Glacial, almost gothic, cool dark berry fruits, damsons too, a little wild blueberry. Wild thyme and a little peony. Crushed white peppercorns. Supple ultra-fine grained tannins define a tight and compact cylindrical core charged with fruit. A lovely hint of graphite in the second part of the evolution and a  long fresh almost minty finish (rare in the vintage). Extremely impressive, even though it’s not revealing all of its secrets today. 93-95.

 

Le Dragon de Quintus (Saint Émilion; 71.6% Merlot; 28.4% Cabernet Franc; 14.1% alcohol; tasted at Haut Brion). Creamy, rich and engaging aromatically. Stone fruits – damson and wilted damsons, assorted wild plums, a little black cherry – with a little oregano and marjoram. A touch of blueberry. This is rather impressive, with a pleasing fluidity and momentum over the palate. Well managed with very refined and supple tannins. 91-93.

 

L'Etampe (Saint Émilion; 57% Merlot; 43% Cabernet Franc; from the excellent Vignobles Jade; élévage in a combination of oak barrels and foudres; certified organic). The consultants here are Jean-Claude and Jean-Francois Berrouet and this really shows their signature skilled attention to detail. Darker, richer and spicier than the two other Saint Émilions from Vignobles Jade, this is from a very different terroir type which this expresses with such eloquence and panache. Dustier and earthier at first but then with the most beautiful cedar-encrusted Cabernet Franc notes soaring from the glass – blueberries, cassis leaf, Szechuan peppercorns and a little black cherry stone. Full and rich on the attack, but with a wonderful grip and release of freshly crushed blueberry juice to refresh the palate and help to build the fantail finish. So clear and crisp on the finish. Wonderful. 93-95.

 

Faugères (Saint Émilion; 70% Merlot; 25% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 31.5 hl/ha; tasted at the Grand Cercle tasting at La Dauphine). Nicely focussed, with less oak than it used to have and less extraction too, so this glides rather more gracefully over the palate. Layered but not deep. Quite crystalline and silkily-textured, though that perhaps serves to reveal the slightly elevated acidity. Fine and very well-made, but not especially complex. 90-92.

 

De Ferrand (St Emilion; 65% Merlot; 35% Cabernet Franc; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault; Axel Marchal is the consultant here and has overseen a steep progression). This seems to get better each year. Plump and plush, presenting a very pixilated and detailed image of each of the berry fruits it puts of display, like a fine still life painting from a Dutch master! A bouquet of violets too, painted with the same detail. There’s a lovely ‘Cabernet Franc on calcaire’ leafiness to this and one knows very much where one is from the identity of the tannins. I like that very much. Chewy and, of course, sapid and fresh on the finish. One almost senses the altitude of the terroir in the freshness and personality of the wine. 92-94.

 

Figeac (Saint Émilion; 41% Merlot; 32% Cabernet Franc; 27% Cabernet Sauvignon – small and very concentrated and so a little reduced; a final yield of 45 hl/ha, even after two green harvests; pH 3.68; 5% press wine; 13.5% alcohol; 100% new oak – though it’s difficult to believe; tasted with Blandine Brier Manoncourt and Frédéric Faye and quite a few of the family and team at Figeac itself; lots of careful choices made in the vineyard to match the number of bunches to the plant’s capacity to mature them in a generous vintage like this; the 130^th vintage of the Manoncourt family at Figeac). Very, very Figeac just as La Conseillante is so very Conseillante and Cheval Blanc is so very Cheval Blanc. Walnuts and walnut shells. Black berries and black cherry. A little cedar, rather more graphite. Pink rose petals from the garden, even a little rose water. Supple, gracious and elegant yet plump and plush. That graciously beautiful and cool, composed Cabernet fruit. Great depth and profundity but rather different from the Merlot-dominated wines of the appellation and very much more left-bank in style in this vintage. Quite a tight frame but that just accentuates the near infinite sense of vertical layering. Juicy, with slowly circulating currents of cassis and black cherry fruit juice. I find this incredibly eloquent with great pixilated detail, accentuated by the more significant volume of tannin from the perfectly ripe Cabernet fruit picked over a long period of time (they needed to persuade the team to hold off). This has a gravelly, growly depth and gravitas (almost closer to Lafite then Cheval Blanc!). A wonderful and brilliant complementarity of the varietals – it needs the Merlot for the frame, and it needs the Cabernet for aromatic complexity, the lift and the eloquent florality and it needs the Sauvignon for the depth, profundity and the structure which will make this perhaps the longest lasting right-bank wine of the vintage. There are more immediately accessible wines, but this perhaps the most profound from the right-bank. 97-99.

 

Fleur Cardinale (Saint Émilion; 56% Merlot; 37% Cabernet Franc; 7% Cabernet Sauvignon; from a lovely vintage on a rather special terroir of 27.6 ha; a final yield of just 15 hl/ha; tasted at La Dominique and then at the property with Caroline Decoster; Ludivine Chagnon is the new technical director, having joined the team from Laroque in September 2023). Note the very low yields – mildew I presume. A touch of cordite, struck match, myrrh and exotic spices, black cherries and plump crunchy bright and fresh blackcurrants and blueberries. Cassis, too, with a little aeration and we find this again on the palate. Deep but not especially concentrated, despite the relatively narrow frame. The calcaire tannins hold this tight to the spine. Nicely structured but this lacks a little density. Luminous and very precise, however. 91-93.

 

Fleur de Lisse (Saint Émilion; 67% Merlot; 33% Cabernet Franc; from the excellent Vignobles Jade; élévage in a combination of concrete tanks, amphorae and foudres; certified organic; the consultants here are the dream team of Jean-Claude and Jean-Francois Berrouet). I already like Fontfleurie very much; I like this even more. It would be easy to think that this were 50 per cent Cabernet Franc or more as it’s that which really marks the aromatics – a most beautiful wild blueberry and cassis-inflected fruit profile reinforced by that lovely limestone terroir lift. It’s profoundly floral too – wisteria and peonies, a little lilac and violet. And so fresh, engaging and vivid in the mouth, where those cassis and whitecurrant notes are very evident. There’s a little more depth and substance than in recent vintages and one senses the quality of the work in the vineyard as well as the progression. Another coup de coeur from Vignobles Jade. 93-95.

 

La Fleur Morange (St Emilion; 70% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 20 hlha, 17 hl/ha after selection; 14% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Floral, as you might hope it to be, with rose petals and violet interwoven with the plump black cherries. Interesting in the mouth, at first very soft, but the fine-grained tannins engage quickly, taking the fruit in charge and sculpting it over the spine. Never terribly gentle, but dynamic and structured. Impressive, though if without the finesse of some of its peers. 90-92+.

 

Fombrauge (St Emilion; 90% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 49 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). One of the more oaky wines in the line-up, but as with some others that has a certain style and it reinforces both the floral element and the black cherry notes. A black forest gateau of a kind, but with very fresh, almost a little under-ripe cherries bringing an unusual acidity. That kind of works. Vanilla root and dark berry and stone fruit. Quite substantial but with a pretty abrupt finish. 89-91.

 

Fonplégade (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; Derenoncourt consulted; organic since 2013, biodynamic since 2019; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Tense and intense. Aromatically, this is very vivid and also highly distinctive. Crushed berry and stone fruits seem to be projected vertically from the surface of the wine in the glass without the need for any aeration, with mandarin and Seville orange zesty notes too and a touch of graphite, a little walnut shell. Lovely texturally, with a very silky opening leading to a finely-delineated and impressively lithe and layered mid-palate. Long, fluid, dynamic across the palate and much more sinuous than the, at times, strict linearity that tends to characterise the vintage, this is a great wine from Fonplégade. As I have noted before here, one senses the health of the vineyard in the glass. A wine that one might well pick blind as biodynamic and, quite possibly, as Fonplégade. 93-95.

 

Fonroque (St Emilion; 87% Merlot; 13% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 50 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A little closed and introspective, but dominated aromatically by dark berry fruits, notably black currant with a little blueberry. There’s a lovely trace of violet here too – very subtle. Very pretty, very vivid and very fresh. Dense, compact and layered – impressively so for a wine so finely-grained in its tannic structure and so pure and limpid in its mouthfeel. Excellent. 92-94+.

 

De Fonbel (St Emilion; 64% Merlot; 28% Cabernet Sauvignon; 8% Carménère; tasted at Ausone with Alain Vauthier). Aromatically, very distinctive, with those Carménère notes. Leafy. Black berry, sloes and cherries. Quite tight in its frame, with lots of layered depth and nice pixilation from the tannins. Luminous and bright with lots of lift too. Easy, accessible and for relatively young drinking. A lovely mouthful. Succulent and plush and over quite a tight cylindrical frame. 91-93.

 

Fontfleurie (Saint Émilion; 89% Merlot; 11% Cabernet Franc; from the excellent Vignobles Jade; élévage in a combination of oak barrels, foudres and amphorae; certified organic). Something of a coup de coeur. Damsons, black cherries, blueberries and cassis. This offers great purity but also a certain creaminess rare in the vintage. It’s the blueberries and cassis that come through in the mouth where I am impressed by the energy and liveliness of this, but also its depth, layering and concentration. Certainly as strong as the 2022 – not many are. The upward ascent here continues with strong support from Jean-Claude and Jean-Francois Berrouet. 92-94.

 

Franc Mayne (Saint Émilion; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Gorgeously expressive aromatically. Violets. Incense. Cedar, black cherry, blueberry, a little sprinkling of wild fresh herbs. Cool and calm, glistening and shimmering. Delicate and intimate, but intense. Very pretty and actually impressively dense when one thinks about it. Very refined. Quite saline on the finish. The Cabernet fruit really sings here this year, leaving its signature on the long, lingering linear finish as a parting shot. 92-94.

 

La Gaffelière (Saint Émilion; 58% Merlot; 42% Cabernet Franc, a little more than in 2022; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; pH 3.5; 14.3% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin and again with Thomas Soubes at La Gaffelière). Crushed raspberries and black raspberries, blackcurrant and black berry, a little blueberry too from the Cabernet Franc. Very fine, very intense and impressively (if not hardly unexpectedly) pure, precise, focused and linear. Succulent. What is rendered vertically on the nose is conveyed horizontally on the palate with laser- or rapier-like focus. So clear, so pure, so balanced and so elegant. The proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove – soft power. Not the fruit density of 2020 or 2022, though this is deceptive, but lots of terroir character and an excellent sense of harmony. Very spherical on the finish. Polished and subtle. Fluid and harmonious. 93-95+.

 

Grace Dieu des Prieurs (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 49 hl/ha; from 6.8 hectares on sand and clay half way between the town of St Emilion and the border with Pomerol; 100% new Radoux Super Fine Blend barrels, very much the Mitjavile signature; 13.5% alcohol). Limpid and intensely purple-hued in the glass, this is radiant aromatically and it is the fruit more than the distinct oak profile that one notices first. This is very pure and very intense. Raspberry and loganberry, bramble and, above, mulberry. There’s an oh-so-subtle hint of patchouli and dried rose petals, a little Szechuan peppercorn note too. On the palate the tannins are incredibly fine-grained giving this a cool glossiness rare in the vintage. The fruit is darker here – blueberries and black cherries, black raspberry and mulberry, once again. There’s very little if any trace of the oak and this is very well sustained on the finish. Juicy, sapid and wonderfully refreshing. A little spearmint on the finish. One can just about detect the trace of Radoux Blend oak in the empty glass, but it’s the most subtle of signatures. 93-95.

 

Grand Corbin (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Parfumiers’ essences of violet and lavender, rosemary, blueberries and black cherry. This is plush and pulpy in the mouth, limpid and quite fluid and it has a soft natural sweetness that is rare in the vintage. Nicely managed and very much a success. 90-92.

 

Grand Corbin Despagne (St Emilion; 75% Merlot; 24% Cabernet Franc; 1% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 35-40 hl/ha; pH 3.68; 13.6% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Quite saline in its minerality, with even a suggestion of iodine, all nicely enrobing and seasoning the rich, deep cherry and crushed purple berry fruits. There’s a little wisteria and violet too. Supple, quite opulent for the vintage and with very gracious and elegant tannins. Another great success from François Despagne, this signs off with a lovely hint of salty liquorice on the long and gently tapering finish. 92-94+.

 

Grand Mayne (Saint Émilion; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Almost a little like Dassault in its cool, rich black cherry fruit, liberally enrobed with cedar – though perhaps here the fruit is a shade lighter in hue (with more berries and fewer cherries) and the cedar joined by graphite and pencil shavings. A lovely cassis signature on the palate too. Long and linear, slowly tapering to an asymptotic finish. Excellent. 92-94.

 

Haut Brisson (St Emilion; 95% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Franc; 18 hectares on clay-limestone, fine gravel and fine brown sand; a generous yield, as at all of the VIgnobles K estates with essentially no mildew; tasted at Bellefont Belcier). No frost or mildew losses here so finally a good yield. Lots of terroir character. Spicy and chewy, with a dark peppery note, black cherry, blueberry and bramble. Intense. A bold and broad-shouldered frame, brilliantly sapid and juicy to the core with fine but crumbly tannins and impressive density. Of evident classed growth quality in this vintage, with chewy tannins to resolve but no hint of any dryness and just a wonderful sapidity on the finish. A wine to cause reputational damage in blind tastings of the future. Best ever from here. 91-93.

 

Haut Gros Caillou (Saint Émilion; 90% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Cabernet Franc; a property of just 4 hectares in the southwest of the appellation; Thomas Duclos is the consultant here; the vines have an average of 45 years of age; 13.5% alcohol). Acquired in 2019 by Louis Ballande with neighbouring Palais Cardinal. Just 6000 bottles produced in. Excellent. Wonderfully sapid and juicy with a beautifully delineated and defined mid-palate stuffed full of plump red and darker berry fruit and a little red cherry. Wonderfully crisp and croquant, sapid and crystalline, with polished yet beady tannins. Long and refreshing on the finish. Definitely a property to watch. Technically very accomplished; texturally, we could be tasting something from 2020 here. 92-94.

 

L'If (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.37; 14.1% alcohol; tasted with Jacques Thienpont and Diana Berrouet Garcia at Le Pin). Very beautiful. A lot of vineyard restructuration has taken place here and one now feels that a new kind of harmony has been achieved. A lovely wild herbal element, quite a tight frame, very mineral and fresh, chiselled by the pure calcaire tannins. Lovely texturally, this is shimmering and limpid, glistening and plush, with ripples of freshness and broad sheets of fine-textured silk. A brilliantly detailed bright dark berry fruit – brambles and blackberry above all. Wondrous texture with lovely fine-grained powdery chalky tannins. L’If is no longer a work in progress. Vivid and bright but never austere or strict, this is delicate and refined where other limestone Saint Émilions are typically a little austere. Joyous. 95-97.

 

Jean Faure (Saint Émilion; 65% Cabernet Franc; 30% Merlot; 5% Malbec; certified organic and biodynamic; 14% alcohol; this is wonderfully placed between Cheval Blanc, Figeac and Evangile on an iron oxide rich clay terroir of 18 hectares). This has often been around 60% Cabernet Franc, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it at 65% of the final blend. Brilliantly expressive of that aerial plump Cabernet blueberry fruit with lavender and violet, a little rosemary and wild thyme; a little mulberry and bramble too. Quite an ample frame on the attack, but the fine-grained yet considerable tannins grip the fruit quite quickly, pulling it back to the spine and in the process ratcheting up the intensity, concentration, depth and density of the wine. Tense, vivid and vibrant, this is very pure, precise and focussed on the fresh spearmint finish. 93-95.

 

Laforge (Saint Émilion; 90% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.75; from Jonathan Maltus). Fuller, richer, spicier, but above all with more fruit intensity and lift than Teyssier – exactly as it should be. This is excellent in the context of the vintage, the oak more moderated than it used to be (though it’s not gone away), the fruit purer and more chiselled in and through the mid palate. The ferrous minerality often so dominant here is more restrained and I like the cedary notes already coming through aromatically. Very pure fruited on the palate and with a pleasing natural sweetness that really works to create tension with the natural acidity of the vintage. 90-92.

 

Larcis Ducasse (Saint Émilion; 86% Merlot; 14% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 43 hl/ha; pH 3.55; aging in oak barrels, 50 % of which are new; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). This exceeds my expectations and seems to have a new lease of life in this vintage. Plump berries, perfectly ripe and popping with fruit juice. Opulent and more gracious than it used to be, with a very pure and crystalline fruit, less mid-palate density and more layering, giving the stage to the fruit and to the terroir. For it is the terroir really shines here. I find this more Laroque-like in its approach to structure and that, for me, really shows off this exceptional and unique top-tier Côte de Pavie terroir so well. Extremely fresh and sapid. A little mint on the finish. A brilliant wine that I long to revisit already. A new benchmark for this fantastically situated property. 95-97+.

 

Larmande (Saint Émilion; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Elegant and refined; intense in its violet and peony florality. Really very stylish and sleek aromatically and plunge-pool cool in the mid-palate when we get to it too. Long and glistening, with a gracious mouthfeel and a sumptuous texture. Quite sinuous if perhaps suffering from just a dip in fruit concentration towards the finish. 91-93+.

 

Laroque (St Emilion; 99% Merlot; 1% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.42; a final yield of 46 hl/ha; 14.15% alcohol; aging in oak barrels, 50% of which are new; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault and then with David Suire at the property with essentially the same notes; the old Merlot turned out to be much less susceptible to mildew which hit newer clones more drastically). A vintage for the clay terroirs says David Suire. Limpid and glossy. White pepper. A little salinity and almost an iodine oyster shell element. Walnut oil, wisteria, raspberry, loganberry (above all), black cherry (but actually very little), blueberry and bramble. Blood orange (a marker of the parcel ‘les moulins’, just behind the chateau itself, apparently). Loganberry is the fruit marker that I hone in most of all. Rose petals and rose water. Very fine, very delicate and poised and very expressive of the cool slopes and plateau that together comprise its terroir. Mirror pool. The 2001 comparison again. Staggeringly pure and limpid, glossy and silky. On the palate the fruit is a shade lighter – pixilated raspberries and loganberries above all. Crystalline and fluid, lively and energetic. Very pure, focused and precise and more delicate than it sometimes is, if still very linear and long on the tapering finish. A natural acidity that accompanies the fruit throughout its journey from the attack all the way to the end. So glacially pure. 94-96+.

 

Laroze (Saint Émilion; 60% Merlot; 40% Cabernet Franc; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). This is good, but it’s not on a par with the 2022 above all, though better the second time. Dark berry fruits, a little baked, plums and baked plums, sweet spices and a very pronounced and distinct ferrous mineral note. Liquorice and cassis. On the palate I find this strangely sweet. But the core is well charged with crushed berries and pulpy plum flesh and there’s a pleasing sapidity too. A substantial wine for the vintage. The tannins turn just a little dry towards the finish, but I like the still subtle suggestion of graphite that I suspect will come through with aging. 89-91.

 

Lassègue (St Emilion; 50% Cabernet Franc; 43% Merlot; 7% Cabernet Sauvignon; pH 3.7; 14% alcohol; aging in French oak barrels, 50% of which are new and which are sourced from 15 different forests; tasted at Lassègue with Pierre and Hélène Seillan). This is the first time that this is majority Cabernet with recent replanting, the aim being to adapt the vineyard to global climate change; it’s also the first vintage as a Grand Cru Classé. Violet, crushed rose petals and blood orange intermingle with the dark berry and stone fruits. Green peppercorns bring their own freshness. The florality is revealed slowly and progressively. In the mouth this is both fluid and crystalline, more delicate than it used to be. It is both mineral and spicy on the finish, with the salinity of black liquorice. Very clean and linear on the finish after the amplitude, opulence and richness of the attack and mid-palate. Nicely chiselled by the calcaire tannins. Very beautiful, showing nice restraint and glorious in its floral Cabernet fruit – one sees the future of the appellation here. And we have something resembling the tannic quality of Vérité itself. Lifted and elegant. 93-95.

 

Lynsolence (Saint Émilion; 100% Merlot; tasted at the Grand Cercle tasting at La Dauphine). Incense and bright fresh spring blooms, a little graphite and acacia wood, a twist of black pepper too. Soft and beguiling with a lovely fresh cassis element welling up from the depths brining both freshness and lift. Very good as it so often is. Elegant and beguiling. Subtle. 92-94.

 

Mangot (Saint Émilion; 65% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; Thomas Duclos is the consultant here). Vivant, vivid and wonderfully expressive both aromatically and on the palate, this exudes the spirit and health in the vineyard associated with biodynamic winemaking – you can feel it, you can scent it, you can taste it. Crystalline purity reinforced by those wondrous calcaire tannins and a great sense of dynamism and energy in the ultra-sapid and juicy mid-palate. My only qualm about this wine in the past was just a little too much oak; not here. This is truly great, above all on the context of the vintage. 93-95.

 

La Marzelle (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; 14% alcohol). A property on a steep upward trajectory, confirmed by the quality of this wine. Saline. Pure, crystalline in and through the mid-palate and with an elegance and sauvété (a French word that seems utterly appropriate here) that it never had before. Tight and with an impressive well-defined frame, nicely charged with fresh croquant dark berry fruit, above all wild blueberry and black currant. A little note of incense that I really like. Dynamic and energetic. Dark chocolate. The wood actually needs a little time to integrate, but that’s just a matter of time, so compact is the core of dark stone and berry fruit here. There’s a lovely hint the cedary notes to come and a little rose petal with aeration. Excellent. There’s a glass ceiling (or at least a barrier) in St Emilion in this vintage – this is above it. Very sapid and pure on the finish. A very fine and long, linear finish. 92-94+.

 

Monbousquet (Saint Émilion; 65% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; 15% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 28.8 hl/ha; pH 3.73; 14.2% alcohol; tasted at Pavie with Olivier Gailly). Rich and plump, but with less oak and more fruit intensity than in the past. Dark berries, cherries, brambles, nutmeg and cinnamon spice, a little pot pourri. We have, too, that distinct ferrous and crushed rock and graphite minerality that comes from the gravel and crasse de fer terroir. Fine and quite crystalline, but with significant extraction. That renders this a little un-delineated in the mid-palate but it is certainly finer than it used to be with very grainy, beady tannins. A vin de garde, the oak well-restrained and well-integrated. 90-92.

 

Mondot (Saint Émilion; 90% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, from a plot planted 7 years ago; a final yield of 53 hl/ha; aged in a combination of second use oak and steel vats; tasted with Aymeric de Gironde at Troplong Mondot). Quite a bold structure for an ostensible second label (even if it now comes, in effect, from a separate vineyard on a limestone slope). Red and darker berry fruits, a bit of redcurrant and bramble and black berry. Quite sweet-fruited, despite the marginally elevated acidity. Walnut shell. Black cracked pepper. Bold and layered, sapid and quite saline. Refreshing on the finish. 90-92.

 

La Mondotte (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 37 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at Canon La Gaffelière with Stephane and Ludovic von Neipperg). Gorgeous aromatically, this is delicate, subtle and intimate – inviting you in rather than coming outwards to greet you. Violets. Peonies. Black cherry. Blackberry. Graphite. On the palate, this is rich and broad and beautifully composed – very La Mondotte but with a new grace. This garden vineyard grows wonderful fruit and beautiful flowers. Beautifully succulent. Intensely sapid. Powerful but all in finesse. An exquisite composition. A total harmony. Truly memorable. 95-97.

 

Mondou (Saint Émilion). A lovely wine in the context of the vintage, showing the upward trajectory now established here. Succulent and expressive aromatically, with a pleasingly dark fruit profile – brambles, mulberries, damsons and cherries, kirsch too with aeration and a little violet. That kirsch note is immediately picked up in the mouth too and I am impressed by the quality of the tannins and the compactness of the mid-palate – a nice cylindrical core that gives this shape all the way to a long finish. 90-92+.

 

Monlot (Saint Émilion). Lighter in extract than many wines of the appellation but with a very pronounced radiant pink-purple rim. Aromatically very expressive if a little dominated by the oak – with muscovado sugar, vanilla, Chinese five spice, nutmeg interweaving with the dried floral elements and the red and darker berry and stone fruit. Given the evidently gentle extraction I’m surprised to find the grippy tannins rather dry and powdery on the finish, but there are some nice ingredients here. Lacks a little mid-palate density and it’s that ultimately that accentuates the oak influence at this stage. 89-91.

 

Montlabert (Saint Émilion; 75% Merlot; 25% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.5; 14% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Another new member of the Grands Crus Classés – massively merited. One almost knows already from the quality of the second wine, reinforced by one’s understanding of the work going on in the background here, that this is going to be good. It is – excellent, in fact. Subtle, elegant and refined with that lovely leafy blueberry Cabernet Franc note wafting from the glass even without coaxing. Wisteria. An intimate wine aromatically, with lovely but again subtle black cherry fruit. The sense of cool, calm intimacy continues on the palate where the beguilingly soft tannins trick you at first into overlooking quite how dense and compact it is. Long, sapid, juicy to the core and with a long and distinguished life ahead of it. Probably the measure of the 2022, if rather different in character. 92-94.

 

Montlisse (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). This starts slightly floral, with a little wild strawberry too. But the subtly of that is a little overwhelmed by the salinity, although it does calm to reveal further complexity with black cherry notes building with aeration. Quite bold and punchy over a broad-frame, perhaps at the expense of some delineation and definition. But this is a solid wine in the context of the vintage. 89-91.

 

Moulin du Cadet (St Emilion; 100% Merlot; pH 3.44; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). A wine I associate, aromatically, with black cherry and cedar and that’s exactly what we find here, impressively so. Soft and seductive, quite opulent and rich. A lovely rose petal florality too and I find this brighter and more mobile through the mid-palate than usual. Impressive. It’s not a surprise that it’s good; but it’s very good indeed. Very juicy. 92-94.

 

Moulin St-Georges (Saint Émilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; tasted at Ausone with Alain Vauthier). Fuller, richer, more plush and plump than de Fonbel. Old school in its aromatics but with a lovely luminous mid-palate. A broader frame, not overly stuffed other than with fruit and stretched wide to give this more crystallinity. Succulent. Juicy and sapid. Wild herbs and a note of heather on the finish. Lovely. 92-94.

 

Pavie (Saint Émilion; 51% Merlot; 32% Caberbet Franc; 17% Caberent Sauvignon; a final yield of 32.8 hl/ha; with just 30 per of the total production making the strict selection for the grand vin; pH 3.66; 14.25% alcohol; tasted at Pavie with Olivier Gailly). This has a lovely intense florality – very much the parfumier’s essence of assorted flowers, notably rose and violet. Chocolate-coated violet. Lavender too. Black cherry. A touch of mocha. Espresso coffee. This is big, boldly structured and broad-shouldered, opulent and monumental – in short, Pavie through and through. It also has a lovely texture and mouth feel – cashmere, but layers and layers of its – each forged from pure berry and stone fruit and seemingly interwoven with liquorice and aniseed, with the tannins chiselling the external parameters (setting the width) and indicating the layering too (more horizontally). A gothic cathedral carved from limestone tannins. This is a true vin de garde and deeply imposing and impressive it is too. Aeration brings more grace and harmony – as if the wine starts to relax. In 2023 Pavie offers the finesse of the vintage but with a degree of concentrated power that no other wine of the appellation has. 96-98.

 

Pavie Macquin (Saint Émilion; 82% Merlot; 17% Cabernet Franc; 1% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 48 hl/ha; pH 3.35; 14.2% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). This remains very true to its style, in a vintage in which Larcis-Ducasse seems somehow more aerial and expressive. Bolder, bigger, slightly spicier and slightly denser too, quite saline in its minerality. Quite ferrous in its minerality, with an oyster shell-iodine note too, and just a little more open-textured and crystalline in the mid-palate than is usual here at this nascent stage. Fireworks, struck match, red cherry and darker berry fruits. Long and racy, but without the fruit concentration of recent great vintages. 92-94.

 

Péby-Faugères (Saint Émilion; 100% Merlot; from a vineyard of 7.18 ha; a final yield of 34.6 hl/ha; tasted at La Dominique). Plush, plump, with more extraction but the same textural finesse as Faugères. Incense, cherry, candlewax, myrrh and black berry and stone fruits. More new oak too. Glossy. Gracious. A nice balance and the oak, though a little evident on the nose, is very well incorporate on the palate. Rippling and glistening. Very impressive and technically accomplished. Lighter in style in this vintage but it gains in delineation and precision for that. 92-94+.

 

Petit Cheval (Saint Émilion; 50% Merlot (from 3 plots); 50% Cabernet Franc (from 2 plots); this is a true second vine, with every one of the 56 plots ‘interviewed’ blind, in effect, for its potential part in the grand vin; Pierre-Olivier’s aim is to bring the vineyard into the bottle and make it representative of Cheval Blanc itself as a vineyard; of the 56 plots, 9 are currently being replanted with 41 plots of the 47 used for the grand vin, only one was unused in either; tasted at Cheval Blanc with Pierre-Olivier Clouet). So much cedar. I love it. Dark and intense and voluptuous unlike any other second wine of the vintage. Violets and a concentrated parfumier’s essence of violet. Sumptuous, succulent, juicy, radiant. This really could be Cheval Blanc, so expressive of the identity of the property is it. Juicy, intensely salivating and hyper-fresh with the acidity brilliantly distributed and integrated. Wow. Incredibly refreshing, with a little mint and aniseed on the finish. 94-96.

 

Petit Faurie de Soutard (St Emilion; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). The sample is just a little petillant, alas. Anyway, what do we have? A basket of blooms, very pretty aromatically. Fleur de sel. Lithe and sapid, indeed very juicy, facilitated by the open texture and the clarity of the mid-palate. Quite a broad frame, the fruit perhaps stretched a little thin. But I like this and I prefer the trade-off between precision and extraction to be managed this way. I’d still like to re-taste this though. 90-92+.

 

Peymouton (Saint Émilion; 70% Merlot; 23% Cabernet Franc; 7% Cabernet Sauvignon; produced by the team of Laroque, led by David Suire; back in the day it was part of that then massive estate). Crunchy, fresh bright red and darker berry fruits, cassis much in evidence. Loganberry. This has a pleasing limestone terroir signature too. Pure, precise, tight and focussed. But it’s quite strict and it takes a while to take shape in the mouth. The tannins, too, are a little sharp and needle like, even if they impart a pleasing sense of the limestone terroir from which they hail. This fades quite quickly. 88-90.

 

De Pressac (Saint Émilion; 70% Merlot; 16.5% Cabernet Franc; 9% Carménère; 2.5% Malbec; 0.5% Petit Verdot; tasted twice, the second time at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault, with broadly consistent notes). Rich, creamy and quite aerial with a distinct wild herbal element interwoven nicely with the pulpy damson and assorted berry fruit. A nice trace of cedar. On the palate, this has a lovely sense of pick up and energy on the attack, with fine-grained and quite glossy tannins. It gets a little more bogged down in the mid-palate as the granularity of the tannins seems to grow, disrupting the flow of the wine over the palate. But there’s much to like here too. Now on an impressive upward ascent. 90-92.

 

Le Prieuré (St Emilion; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 35 hl/ha; pH 3.5; 14.5% alcohol; from a vineyard of 12 hectares on the limestone plateau above La Clotte; vinified by the team from Calon-Ségur). A work in progress (with 2 of the 3 planned acts already completed), this is already showing dividends. In 2023 the wine has a fabulous limestone signature that it had a few vintages back but which it seemed to lose in 2021 and 2022. I find this beautiful aromatically and lifted with lovely violet and crushed rock notes alongside the pure blueberries, black cherries and with a little Cabernet Franc leafiness too. Supple. Gracious. Quite opulent in a way, but always fluid, exciting and intense in and through the mid-palate. Long and gently tapering on the finish. A return to form. 92-94.

 

Puyblanquet (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; just 11 of the 19 hectares here are in production with significant replanting underway; just in front of Pressac, next to Boutisse; 14.2% alcohol; tasted at La Gaffelière with Thomas Soubes). Beautiful in its intensely dark fruited aromatic profile. Plump but sleek and plush. Brambles and blackberries. A hint of cedar and graphite. Lovely texture and nicely chiselled. Very pure and lithe. Excellent. Luminous at the core and with lovely powdery chalky tannins on the finish. This gets better each year. 92-94.

 

Quinault L’Enclos (Saint Émilion; 67% Merlot; 17% Cabernet Sauvignon; 16% Cabernet Franc; aged only in foudres and now for 24 months; this is no longer to be released en primeur). Graphite. A nice dark fruit profile. Sloes and damsons. Cedar. Peony. Iris. Soft and caressing. Not an ample frame but that accentuates the sense of profundity and depth as well as the concentration. This feels wild and herbal, above all in its aromatics. On the palate it is succulent and svelte with a well-defined spherical core. Pure, precise, clean and with lift on the finish, the frame providing enough space for the juice to circulate. A nice hint of black pepper on the well-sustained finish. The best recent vintage. 92-94.

 

Quintus (Saint Émilion; 78.3% Merlot; 21.7% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 43 hl/ha; pH 3.6; 15% alcohol). This feels quite serious. And it’s a big step up from the already impressive Dragon. Meaty and substantial, with a little tobacco smoke. Rose petals and parfumier’s essence of rose petals; Parma violets. Beeswax. A hint of sweet spicing, the oak as yet not fully integrated. Black cherry, damsons, blueberry, bramble. Mandarin and satsuma, too. Graphite. Black and green tea. On the palate this is sumptuous and opulent, with a lovely well-sustained chewy grape skin note on the finish. I love too the hint of limestone tannins on the crumbly, powdery finish – from the incorporation of the Grand Pontet plateau parcels I imagine. 93-95.

 

Ripeau (St Emilion; 65% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 41.2 hl/ha; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). One of the most red-berry fruited at the Association tasting. Raspberry, loganberry, redcurrant and a little blackcurrant. Limpid, glossy and nicely delineated with lots of precision and detail. Fine. Long and tapering on the finish. 90-92+.

 

Roc de Candale (Saint Émilion). Baked clay path, wild herbs, dark plum and berry fruits. The attack shows the elevated acidity, and starts with the crushed berry notes, but we get a pleasing, and slightly sweeter secondary arrival of cherries (red more than black), lifting this. I like, too, the juicy character of the mid-palate. More vivid and dynamic in the mouth than aromatically at this stage, but certainly promising. 89-91.

 

Rocheyron (Saint Émilion; 75% Merlot; 25% massal-selection Bouchet; a final yield of 35 hl/ha; certified organic; tasted at the property with Peter Sisseck). In terroir terms it strikes me that Rocheyron is to Laroque, what Canon is to Berliquet. There were some mildew losses here but still a decent overall yield. This was very early harvested for this part of Saint Émilion, with picking still underway at the time in Pomerol. Very delicate with that subtle ‘Bouchet’ cassis and blackcurrant leafiness. A subtle hint of cedar and rather more graphite. A cool mirror pool mid-palate. Lovely green and green Szechuan peppercorns. A little pink peppercorn too. A loamy earthiness. Blueberry. One of those wines whose softness, suppleness and elegance in the mouth is clear already from the aromatics (don’t ask me how that works, but it does). Cool, so incredibly silky in texture – and silk rather than cashmere as it’s so micro-layered. This has more density than Laroque, with the finest grained and granular tannins acting like glass rollers differentiating the layers. But this come with no loss of density or concentration. Quite a tight frame, more so than its near neighbour, and that accentuates the sense of density and compactness here, gloriously so. There’s a lovely sensation in the mouth as the black cherry notes build and the wine evolves over the palate, So often in this vintage it’s the dark berry fruit that triumphs over the stone fruit; here it’s the opposite. In short, this becomes more and more seductive as it unfurls over the palate. A magical wine and so well handled, expressing this wondrous terroir in such an accomplished and articulate way. The length of my note is an indication of my enthusiasm. 97-99.

 

Rol Valentin (St Emilion; 78% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Franc; 7% Malbec; a final yield of 40 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Struck match, flint, incense, pot pourri and dried petals, red and darker stone fruit, damson and a little dark berry fruit too. Rich and a little oaky, if perhaps less so than it used to be. This almost feels a little sweet – from the oak toast perhaps – and in a vintage defined by elevated acidity that feels incongruous. Quite dry on the finish. 88-90.

 

Saintayme (Saint Émilion; 100% Merlot; aging in oak barrels, 30% of them new; 14.6% alcohol; tasted with Noemie Durantou at L’Eglise-Clinet). A lovely intense and rather herb and heather inflected dark berry and stone fruit. Briary fruits, fruits of the forest, plums, damsons, brambles. Quite vertical aromatically. Pure and intense on the palate too with an impressively glassy texture. Quite a tight and narrow frame. But with a good volume of tannin too. Nice walnutty notes on the finish. Excellent. 90-92+.

 

Sansonnet (St Emilion; 87% Merlot; 8% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 30 hl/ha; pH 3.37; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). This, too, I find quite oaky, with an oak-enhanced petally florality, a touch of saffron too. Full, plush, deep, rich, ambitious structurally and in terms of extraction. Limpid, lithe and elegant, perhaps more so than you might imagine, given the extraction. But also just a little dry on the finish. Grape skins and chewy tannins. 89-91+.

 

La Serre (Saint Émilion; 73% Merlot; 27% Cabernet Franc; tasted twice, first at Bélair Monange, and then at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Somewhat strange, very saline and quite spicy, with a lighter fruit hue than many. Raspberry, even a little strawberry perhaps. One notices the oak a little – sweet spicing and vanilla pod. Pure. A little lean. Slender but with a nicely chiselled central core. Fine, but a little severe on the finish which I find a touch dry too. 89-91.

 

Simard (Saint Émilion; 55M; 25CF; 15CS; 5PV; at Ausone). Spicy. Rich. Deep. Peppery. Lots of extract. Old school in a way. Chewy tannins, but more lithe and supple that you expect from the aromatics. Nice texture. Good length. Broad frame. Velvet rather than silk. Nice terroir character. 90-92.

 

Soutard (St Emilion; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). A little indistinct aromatically in the UGCB flight of St Emilions, though not really closed. There’s a delicate lavender and violet notes, cherries and blueberries – more and more with even gentle aeration. Subtle. Floral, too, in the mouth with a quite sinuous interweaving of the cherries and flowers that is very attractive. The cassis notes build towards the finish which is saline and sapid. 91-93+.

 

Soutard Cadet (Saint Émilion; tasted at the Grand Cercle tasting at La Dauphine). Incense, crushed and concentrated rose petals, red and darker cherry fruits, redcurrant and blackcurrant. This is well-packed with crushed fruits, but the acidity is a little elevated and that renders this just a little austere. I suspect, though, that this is soften and integrate during élévage and I look forward to re-tasting this, as it has quite a distinct and interesting fruit profile. 89-91.

 

St-Georges Côte Pavie (St Emilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 30 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Incense, wild blueberry, bramble, a little graphite, a hint of wild thyme. Lovely texture, this is a wine that has gained considerably in elegance in recent vintages. The tannins are svelte and fine-grained, they sculpt the flow of the wine over the palate and this has a deal of forward momentum despite the not inconsiderable density. Nicely done. Not the most complex or even age-worthy of the wines of the Côte de Pavie but the best recent vintage of this I think and a sign I suspect of things to come. 91-93.

 

Tertre Rôteboeuf (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the property with François Mitjaville). Generous yields here and the only problem was rabbits gorging themselves on the fresh buds in a single parcel! Always a singular wine and in 2023 it’s as singular as ever. If all wines are created equal, some are more equal than others! Less exuberant than Roc de Cambes, but utterly gorgeous in its fresh, lush, deep dark berry fruit profile. Incense. Myrrh. Quite saline, with a touch of cinnamon and pain d’épices. Gingerbread. Pot pourri. Leather – the old armchair. Saffron. Kirsch. Walnut oil. Cracked black pepper. Liquorice root. Very clean on the finish and with a rapier-like linearity. A wine that transcends the vintage in a way and has none of the elevated acidity of others. With essentially one vineyard worker per hectare all was managed with great care and reactivity, so no yield losses and an à la carte harvest at perfect maturity. That goes some way to explaining the quality here. A singularity in any vintage, above all this one. 94-96.

 

Teyssier (Saint Émilion). Really even before you consider the likely price, this is excellent. Bright, aromatically explosive with pure crunchy berry fruits, wild herbal notes and that slight ferrous mineral note I associated with both Teyssier and, above all, Laforge – as well as that Maltus touch of sweet spice and black pepper. A pleasing sense of volume on the palate, with decent density and length, though just a slight hint of dryness on the finish. 89-91.

 

Tour Baladoz (St Emilion; 80% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; 5% Cabernet Sauvignon; 5% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; tasted at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Rather oaky and extracted, much more so than La Croizille. Big, bold, rich and punchy. Incense and pot pourri, red and darker cherry notes, red berries too. Nicely fresh and quite vibrant and croquant in its fruit, but there’s a strange disjuncture between the freshness of the palate and the opulence of the aromatics. This needs time to come together. I look forward to re-tasting this in time. 89-91.

 

La Tour Figeac (Saint Émilion; 65% Merlot; 35% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 45.5 hl/ha; 14% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Distinct in the UGCB line-up with a brighter and lighter red berry note to the fruit, which is then joined by darker berries bringing with them a copious violet florality. In fact we have multiple shades of currant – white, red and black, too, with some of their leafiness too on the palate. Very pure in its fruit profile and very dynamic in the mouth. This is less dense than many, but its more complex and more vibrant and articulate. Lively and engaging, and I really like it. Something of a coup de coeur. As pleasing a vintage of this as I can recall. 92-94+.

 

Tour St-Christophe (Saint Émilion; 80% Merlot; 20% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 46 hl/ha; pH 3.35; 14.8% alcohol; from 23 hectares on clay-limestone; tasted first at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault and then at Bellefont Belcier with Emmanuelle Fulchi and Jean-Christophe Meyrou; a generous yield, as at all of the Vignobles K estates with essentially no mildew). A lovely limestone signature to the aromatics such that one can almost feel the calcaire tannins before putting this in one’s mouth. Gorgeous crushed blue-purple berry fruits, generously enrobed in graphite. Peonies and wisteria, parfumier’s essence of violet, a hint of lavender. And a little raspberry freshness with aeration. There’s a generous natural sweetness to this. Vibrant yet soft on the attack. A tight structure, beautifully framed by the structuring beady limestone tannins. Limestone salinity and liquorice notes too. Dense and compact, precise and focussed, this is another great success. Reliably excellent and here with even more clarity, precision and amplitude. Brilliantly sapid and with a wonderful pinch from the grippy crumbly limestone tannins. What’s not to like? 93-95+.

 

Trianon (Saint Émilion). A property long overlooked but now on a steep upward ascent. A difficult vintage, one imagines, here has been pretty well-managed, but this is not on quite a par with the heights of 2020 or 2022. Nice briary and dark berry fruit notes, a little wild thyme too, gentle sweet-spicing and a hint of florality define the aromatics. On the palate, there’s a nice leafy cassis note to the fruit, no hint of greenness and quite an impressive evolution over the palate. But the finish is a little ungainly, the acidity seeming to gather there and turning this a little rustic. Nonetheless, a bold effort that should be rewarded. 89-91.

 

Troplong Mondot (Saint Émilion; 84% Merlot; 13% Cabernet Sauvignon; 3% Cabernet Franc; sourced from the historic 27 hectares of the estate; tasted at the property with Aymeric de Gironde). Darker than Mondot with a lovely damson and sloe stony fruit, a little cassis and bramble, with copious wild herbs and graphite brining additional interest. This is big, bold, rich and plump with great amplitude and yet also very considerable depth and substance. Quite relaxed at first and very clean and bright on the finish. Spherical in form with quite a broad frame and excellent precision. That gives lots of space and scope for the succulent and sapid berry fruits to play with – their freshness bringing a whirlpool-like momentum and dynamism to the midst of the mid-palate. Nice high menthol, eucalyptus and Szechuan peppercorns notes on the finish. Excellent. 95-97.

 

Trottevieille (St-Emilon; 53% Cabernet Franc; 44% Merlot; 3% Cabernet Sauvignon; 13.5% alcohol; 28 cuves for 8 hectares giving them the liberty to pick over such a long period of time and at optimal ripeness). Big, plump and plush with a lovely texture. Very broad shouldered but with a form of vertical gravitas and profundity that comes from the presence of so much Cabernet. The wild blueberries fill the space allowed them by the structure, chiselled as it from the limestone below. Violet and rose. Rose pepper corns. Cool and lithe and rippling with juicy, sapid, dark berry fruits. Really succulent and refreshing, vivid, vibrant and quite energetic. There’s impressive density too. Full, but oh so fresh. The limestone tannins grip the fruit and pull it back to the spine, giving this an hourglass-shaped structure that has the same effect on my cheeks – so this almost finishes on a light, aerial whistle, leaving just the taste of grape skins. Picked like a Sauternes. A fabulous wine on sparkling form in 2023. 95-97.

 

Valandraud (Saint Émilion; 84% Merlot; 8% Cabernet Sauvignon; 8% Cabernet Franc; 15% alcohol and 100% new oak; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Wow! This is so intense. We are really in the parfumier’s boudoir! Violet, violet essence, violet-encrusted ganache forged from the darkest molten chocolate, mocha and black cherries, black forest gateau and a hint of blueberry and cassis. Candlewax too. Plump, soft, dense and packed with crushed black cherries, this is very pure and crystalline given the sheer density of the mid-palate. Very impressive technically and very hedonistic both aromatically in the mouth. 95-97.

 

Villemaurine (Saint Émilion; 70% Merlot; 30% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 33 hl/ha; pH 3.46; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin and then at the Association des Grands Crus Classés at Dassault). Saline. Peanut brittle. An interesting combination of red and darker berry fruits, though rather closer at first. With aeration, above all when tasted the second time, this is more integrated and harmonious with reassuring violet and cedar notes and a slightly darker berry fruit (as one expects here). Strange on the palate, but again less so when re-tasted. Texturally very impressive with hyper-fine grained tannins, but maybe a little monotone. That said, I do love the subtle hint of mint and cassis from the Cabernet that comes through as if from the depths towards the finish. I’ll be keen to re-taste this. 90-92

 

Vieux Chateau Mazerat (Saint Émilion; 90% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 34 hl/ha; aged in oak barrels, 80% of which are new; from Jonathan Maltus; Thomas Duclos is the new consultant here). A new label has this more closely resembling Le Dôme. Rich, creamy, but lifted and bright aromatically, with oodles of perfectly ripe black cherries and a little wild blueberry and cassis, dark chocolate, mocha and a hint of black liquorice. This is bold and punchy in the mouth, with considerable depth and concentration. But, despite that, it remains juicy and sapid to the finish – or almost all of the way to the finish. For if I have a minor issue here it is the very slight hint of dryness on the finish where the tannins turn just a little powdery. 92-94.

Pessac-Léognan: some exceptional wines among 'uneven' reds

Continuing to Pessac-Léognan, we find the appellation suffered greater mildew pressure than any other – especially for the Merlot. The losses resulted in some uneven reds and Cabernet-dominant blends, although some wines managed to transcend the challenging weather.  

On a good day it’s about 45 minutes from Pomerol to Léognan, though it can easily take twice as long when Bordeaux’s infamous  la Rocade is busy. But since en primeur week falls in the second week of the Bordeaux school holidays, we get there relatively quickly.

We arrive here in a rather different vinous universe, with larger properties, a typically more even balance between Cabernet and Merlot in the vineyard amongst the reds and a rather greater presence of white varietals (though the whites, to which we will return presently, still represent less than 15% of the total production of the appellation). We’re also further from large bodies of water (the Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde estuary), with a somewhat greater exposure to summer spikes in temperature and, indeed, frost in the spring.

Yet a quick look at the meteorological details of the 2023 growing season immediately suggests some similarities with Pomerol and Saint Émilion – certainly rather more so than with the leading left-bank appellations of the Médoc.

Table 1: Rainfall during the vintage (relative to 10-year average)

Source: calculated from Saturnalia’s Bordeaux 2023 Harvest report

 

As Table 1 suggests, it was particularly wet here between budburst and harvest, with rainfall accumulations up nearly 15% on the 10-year average and with that rain, as throughout the region, highly concentrated in the months of June and September.

Here again it was the June rainfall, book-ended as it was by spikes in already above average temperatures, that was the problem. Or, rather, it was the catalyst for the problem – mildew. Here Pessac suffered more that any of the other leading appellations, with the partial exception of Saint Émilion (partial because in Saint Émilion it was only really the somewhat lesser terroirs of the appellation in the south and west towards the river that were ravaged).

Pessac is the only leading appellation in which a classified growth produced not a single bottle of grand vin in 2023. That property, alas, is Bouscaut (and the excellence of its white, to which I will return in a later article, is likely to prove little consolation). But Bouscaut was hardly alone in its suffering, with many of the leading estates in that part of the appellation (above all those south of a line joining Couhins Lurton and Olivier) suffering significant losses. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features of the vintage in Pessac-Léognan is that mildew did not spare the leading properties, with Domaine de Chevalier (30 hl/ha), Larrivet Haut-Brion (35 hl/ha), Latour Martillac (33 hl/ha), Pape Clément (35 hl/ha) and Smith Haut Lafitte (26 hl/ha) all returning yields well below the (already below average) vineyard yield for the appellation. Amongst the leading appellations, only Margaux came close to suffering a similar fate.

Table 2: Average vineyard yield by appellation (hl/ha)

Source: calculated from Duanes data compiled by the CIVB Service Economie et Etudes

 

As this already suggests, the average appellation yields displayed in Table 2 tell only part of the story. But what they do show is that, along with Margaux, Pessac-Léognan was the only leading appellation of the left or right-bank to return below average aggregate vineyard yields – and for the fourth consecutive year in a row. That final statistic is a significant cause for concern, raising at it does questions about the general productivity of the appellation in a context of dérèglement climatique (or ‘climate weirding’, the point being that this is not just about global warming).

It is unsurprising, given all of this, that the (red) wines of the appellation are somewhat uneven in this vintage (we will return to the whites presently, but the story there is subtly different and rather more positive).

That is not at all to say that there are not great wines here. There are. But they are often unusual in their composition, as we shall see; and, perhaps more significantly, the qualitative gradient is steep as one descends from the small high plateau at the top.

As Table 3 shows, the meteorological challenges of the growing season have had quite a significant bearing on the final blends of the leading wines. Indeed, this is true even for properties, like Carmes Haut-Brion and Haut Bailly, where final vineyard yields were above the appellation average. In these cases the high proportion of Cabernet in the grand vin was largely a question of choice, reflecting the relative excellence of the respective varietals at harvest.

But for most of the others it is a more direct consequence of the significant losses suffered on Merlot plots from mildew exposure, in the first place, and the subsequent desiccation and burning of fruit on the vines which was more intense in plots that had already been exposed to mildew damage.

Table 3: Percentage of Merlot and Cabernet (Sauvignon + Franc), 2020-2023

 

To be fair, all of the wines listed in the above table are very strong, above all in the context of a challenging vintage. And some of them are truly exceptional. But in a vintage in which terroir typicity is generally high, low yields and more Cabernet-dominant blends have resulted in some wines that might seem just a little anomalous in vertical tastings a decade or so from now.

 Given all of this, it might seem strange that my top wines of the appellation are rated so highly. But, as I have argued before, this is something of a vintage of glass ceilings – above all on the right-bank and here again in Pessac-Léognan. And when it comes to glass ceilings there are always those who manage to transcend what holds back the rest.

That is most definitively the case for a truly magical and glass ceiling shattering Haut-Brion. But it is scarcely less true for Carmes Haut-Brion, even if one has the sense here that the transcendence has been achieved through a remarkable and now characteristic set of technical achievements that it would be difficult for anyone else to replicate. The proof is in the bottle. Both are profound wines. La Mission Haut-Brion is magical too, but very different from Haut-Brion itself – vibrant, vivid and energetic where its stablemate is calm, authoritative and supremely elegant.

Almost equally impressive, though in rather different ways, are Haut-Bailly and Smith Haut-Lafitte. The former is another technical triumph with the most gracious of tannins and a quite staggering form of plunge pool purity in the mid-palate that really sets it apart. The latter is archetypally Pessac (more accurately, perhaps, Martillac) in a vintage in which that is actually rather rare. It is smoky, gamey and uncompromisingly exuberant. Both are, in the end, exactly what you would hope them to be.

There are plenty of other successes in this vintage, as my more detailed tasting notes attest. But in the end, relatively few of them attain the glory of the 2020 or 2022 vintages.

Yet where Pessac-Léognan does excel, as ever, is in terms of sheer value for money. In two, albeit slightly different price brackets, it is difficult to beat the trio of C de Carmes Haut-Brion, Couhins Lurton and Latour Martillac on the one hand and La Louvière and Picque Caillou on the other. Each has negotiated the challenges of the vintage very well and it is difficult to think of wines anywhere in the region capable of offering more for less.

C de Carmes Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 38% Merlot; 2% Petit Verdot; pH 3.60; 13% alcohol, with the 25% whole bunch fermentation reducing the degree of alcohol from 13.8%; tasted at Carmes Haut-Brion with Guillaume Pouthier). Wonderfully coloured, with a lovely, limpid, blue-purple rim. This has a beautiful bright, crisp, crunchy fruit. Raspberries, boysenberries, mulberries, brambles, fruits of the forest, apple skin too, and with a redder-hued feel to the fruit than Les Carmes itself. Lots of graphite too and absolutely no trace of the wood. Precise, pixilated and detailed and yet soft and with a shimmering texture. This is highly-layered in the mid-palate, like a pile of silk sheets placed one on top of another but seen first from the top, so you don’t know how far down they go. There’s a pleasing grip too from the tannins, which are ultra-finely grained and which seem to massage the fruit, shaping a lovely fantail on the saline mineral finish. 92-94+.

 

Carbonnieux (Pessac-Léognan; 60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot; 5% Cabernet Franc; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Quite deep and rich for Carbonnieux, with plums, sloes and black cherries. Quite rich, again, on the palate over a moderately broad frame accentuating the sense of density and concentration, but I find this a little ungainly in comparison with other recent vintages. Slightly tough, even if the tannins remain relatively fine-grained. Chewy. I liked the 2022 much more. 89-91.

 

Les Carmes Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 50% Cabernet Franc/Bouchet; 30% Cabernet Sauvignon; 20% Merlot; a final yield of around 50 hl/ha, down from a potential 55 hl/ha due to shrivelling of the grapes just before harvest; pH 3.62; 13.5% alcohol – 14.3% before the 60% whole bunch fermentation; tasted at the property with Guillaume Pouthier). The impressive concentration here was achieved by creating the conditions for hydric stress within the vineyard – cutting the leaves in the form of a Christmas tree to increase transpiration. Purple rimmed and intense; radiant, unusually so for the vintage with palpably visible density, viscosity and concentration. Lilac. Violet. A little dark chocolate. Texturally, we have the sensation of silk inter-layered with cashmere, due to the entirely passive immersion maceration practiced here. Pulpy, with copious black cherries, wild blueberries, graphite as if from the nuclear reactor core. There’s cedar too, but more subtly so, iris and peony. Gloriously supple on the attack, with a plunge-pool mid-palate reminiscent texturally of Pichon Comtesse. Glacial and incredibly harmonious, an impression accentuated by the amplitude. The calcaire character of the tannins is much in evidence here. A wine that transcends the challenges of the vintage – that’s what Guillaume Pouthier does! 96-98.

 

La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 48.3% Merlot; 39.4% Cabernet Sauvignon; 12.4% Cabernet Franc; 14.3% alcohol; tasted at Haut-Brion). Very engaging. A lovely loganberry and raspberry fruit – all perfectly ripe and highly pixilated. Already lush with lovely cedary notes. On the palate, red cherry and red berry fruits. Lots of purity. Sapid and saline in its minerality. In the style of the vintage, it’s just a little austere, but I rather like that. Chewy grape skins on the finish. 91-93+.

 

Le Clarence de Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 55.5% Merlot; 40.9% Cabernet Sauvignon; 3.6% Cabernet Franc; 14.2% alcohol; tasted at Haut-Brion). A little more opulent when tasted after La Chapelle, the fruit a shade darker and more stony in texture, with damsons and cherries rather than brambles and blackberries. Lush again. Gorgeous and, in fact, much more opulent and seductive than the slightly austere La Chapelle. A little rose petal. Exceptional for a ‘second wine’, with nice grippy and then chewy tannins. This is graciously poised. 93-95.

 

Couhins (Pessac-Léognan; 51% Merlot; 45% Cabernet Sauvignon; 4% Petit Verdot; an anomaly in a way, but a rather wonderful one, in that this is owned by INRAE, the French National Institute of Agricultural Research; tasted from a sample sent to me in Bordeaux). Earthy, loamy, with fruits of the forest, blackcurrant, mulberries, a little walnut shell, graphite and just crushed black peppercorns. Aeration reveals black stone fruit too. Very soft on the attack, with a nice sense of energy and forward momentum over the palate; decent concentration too. The tannins are fine-grained though they seem to grow in size of their granularity over the palate making this quite a chewy mouthful on the finish. It needs time, but it’s very pure, if perhaps lacking a little complexity. A little strict, but that’s the style of the vintage. 91-93.

 

Couhins Lurton (Pessac-Léognan; 85% Merlot; 15% Cabernet Sauvignon; 14.5% alcohol; tasted at La Louvière with Jacques Lurton and Claire Dawson). Not much mildew here or in any of the Vignobles André Lurton vineyards. Slightly closed aromatically and tight as it often is. But very attractive too. Almost all of the Cabernet Sauvignon from the vineyard is in this, bringing it up to a recent high. Cinnamon. Cinnamon toast. Speculoos (if you’ve ever had one you know what they are!). Gingerbread. Plums. Damsons. Blackberries. Brambles. Black cherries. More cassis and blackcurrant is released with aeration in the mouth. Gamey notes too. A lozenge shape in the mouth, with a dense yet limpid and crystalline core. There’s a nice freshness to this, especially as the cassis notes come through in the mid palate, picking up black cherries as they do so. A vibrant fresh fruit cocktail. Fluid and quite sinuous on the finish, this might well warrant an upgrade after élévage. 92-94+.

 

De Cruzeau (Pessac-Léognan; 50% Cabernet Sauvignon; 50% Merlot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at La Louvière with Jacques Lurton and Claire Dawson). Quite intense. Sweet spices. A lovely cassis fruit, quite leafy but not at all green or herbaceous; a little gamey, with nice Pessac character. Brambles too. Some cedar is released with gentle aeration. Lightly smoky. Fresh, juicy and sapid, quite saline too but this lacks a little delineation and mid-palate detail. Quite chewy on the finish. This will resolve itself into a fine wine, but it’s not at the level of the 2020 or 2022. 89-91.

 

Domaine de Chevalier (Pessac-Léognan; 65% Cabernet Sauvignon; 25% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot; 5% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 30 hl/ha due to some mildew losses; 13% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). We really jump in quality when we get to this in the Pessac flight at the UGCB tasting – very much above the glass ceiling, indeed shattering it! Creamy briary fruits, mulberry and bramble, blackberry and blackcurrant, a little raspberry too, all supremely crunchy and crisp and coated in dark chocolate, a little mocha and with a parfumier’s essence of petunia too. Hedonistic. A hint of wood-smoke and a touch of nutmeg. On the palate this is full and rich, plump and charged again with fruit. Incredibly intense and very substantial. Long and chewy with the grippy tannins framing a lovely fantail. 94-96+.

 

De Fieuzal (Pessac-Léognan; 50% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Petit Verdot; aging in oak barrels, 35% of them new; 13.5% alcohol; Thomas Duclos is the consultant here since the 2019 vintage). A little subdued and reticent at first, but with a little coaxing and aeration it starts to open and unfurl. Herb-encrusted and quite floral, with a delicate note of wild thyme, rosemary and lavender, that essentially Pessac charcuterie, game and smoke spice element, red cherry and dark plum fruits and a little sage and bay leaf. On the palate this has quite tight frame, the tannins and the acidity working together to bind the fruit to a very well-defined and very linear spinal column. Long and rapier-like in its precision, though just a little strict, with quite grippy, angular and granular tannins on the finish. 92-94.

 

La Garde (Pessac-Léognan; 57% Cabernet Sauvignon; 43% Merlot; tasted at Belgrave). Svelte and soft on the attack, lithe and quite succulent but with good Pessac terroir-typicity. Saline, liquorice, a dark meatiness, a hint of oak smoke and a generous but never dominating spiciness. Plenty of white pepper too. Lovely and on a sustained upward trajectory now. 90-92.

 

Haut Bailly (Pessac-Léognon; 58% Cabernet Sauvignon; 34% Merlot; 4% Cabernet Franc; 4% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 40.5 hl/ha; 14.3% alcohol; 50% new oak but you wouldn’t have any idea). The Petit Verdot is, for the first time, vinified partially on its own, with some still co-fermented with the Cabernet Franc. Creamy. That macademia nut salinity and creaminess that is present also in the second wine. Darker stone fruits – damsons and black cherry, blackberry and black currant (but just a touch). Cool. Plunge-pool. A nice lift from the Petit Verdot and the Cabernet Franc, bringing both peppery notes but also a certain currant leafiness (white currant, redcurrant, blackcurrant). Cedar. Graphite. Sumptuous, quite opulent for the vintage but with a lovely up-thrust in the mid-palate – a kind of structural freshness conveyed by the Cabernets and the Petit Verdot in a sea of Merlot. Tender, even delicate, but intensely layered and highly detailed. Precise, pure, refined and texturally superb. There are some similarities here with Carmes Haut-Brion in a way in terms of the composition if not the minerality nor the fruit profile. Very long and gently tapering on the finish. Powerful but exquisite at the same time. And, crucially, terribly, terribly Haut Bailly. 95-97.

 

Haut Bailly II (Pessac-Léognan; 64% Merlot; 34% Cabernet Sauvignon; 2% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 40,5 hl/ha; 33% new barrels; 14.5% alcohol; tasted with Veronique Sanders at Haut Bailly). This now incorporates the fruit from Le Pape. Plump. Nutty. Quite saline in its minerality, like salted macadamia nuts – and with something of their creaminess too. Dark berry and plummy fruits, a little baked plum. Brambles, black raspberry. A touch of sage, liquorice too – with its salinity. One can feel the quality of the fine-grained tannins, which impart a lovely glossy texture. This will be ready to drink on release. Svelte, with impressive delineation and fresh and sapid. Very harmonious for a second wine. 91-93.

 

Haut-Bergey (Pessac-Léognan; 53% Cabernet Sauvignon; 27% Cabernet Franc; 12% Merlot; 8% Petit Verdot; a low yield and rather more Cabernet in the final blend due to significant mildew losses here). Oddly oxidative at first on the nose, but once that clears we hone in on a very pure, very precise almost pixilated purple fruit with lovely floral notes that reappear on the soft and delicate yet quite dense, cool and fruit-charged palate. Here the sapid fresh black cherry fruit predominates. This lacks the complexity of some and is clearly not the wine they would have wished to make, but I rather like the fruit profile and the slightly more austere texture. 91-93.

 

Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 52.3% Merlot; 38.6% Cabernet Sauvignon; 9.1% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.7; 14.6% alcohol; tasted at Haut-Brion). Aromatically restrained and yet enticing and gorgeously tempting. A little introspective and intimate. It invites you in but only for a first visit as it’s not yet ready to share all of its multiple secrets. Texturally sublime. I love the intensely dark berry fruitedness – mulberry, bramble, fruits of the forest. There’s a peony florality too. And more wild briary fruit notes with aeration. Graphite more than La Mission’s cedar. Gorgeous texturally. Floaty and crystalline despite the concentration which is substantial. So soft and caressing. So sapid and juicy in the mid-palate. Quite exceptional and, for me, at a level above La Mission in this vintage. A wine of grace, charm and quiet authority. Beguiling and seductive. 97-99.

 

Larrivet Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 75% Cabernet Sauvignon; 20% Cabernet Franc; 5% Merlot, with quite a lot of mildew losses, reducing overall yields to 35 hl/ha; 13.3% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Spicy, salty and very pure fruited – cinnamon, nutmeg, oak smoke and crushed black stones and assorted black berry and stone fruits. A little hedgerow floral note too and a hint of cordite. On the palate, quite intense, with fine-grained tannins enrobing the predominantly stone fruits. Long and with a tight and well-defined dense central core. Needs time but with plenty of potential. 91-93+.

 

Latour Martillac (Pessac-Léognan; 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 14% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 33 hl/ha with mildew losses on the Merlot; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). A lovely intimate aromatic profile of dark berry fruits – wild blueberry and mulberry, cassis too. There’s also a very fine-grained quality to the tannins here giving this a rare clarity and luminosity, impressive given the layering and density of the fruit. Long and supple on the finish. Impressive. 92-94+.

 

La Louvière (Pessac-Léognan; 60% Merlot; 40% Cabernet Sauvignon; a final yield of 50 hl/ha; pH ; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting and then at La Louvière itself with Jacques Lurton and Claire Dawson). Peppery, spicy, quite dense and rich in a way. Impressive texturally, with very fine grained tannins. Limpid and crystalline, but really only around the extremities for now as the core is so dense as to remain a little impenetrable, impressively so. A lovely gracious fruit with the Cabernet Sauvignon singing. Cassis and leafy notes rise from the dark waters of Merlot like sirens beckoning the sailors towards the rocks. Impressive but this will need a little time. 91-93+.

 

Malartic-Lagravière (Pessac-Léognan; 53% Cabernet Sauvignon; 42% Merlot; 4% Petit Verdot; 1% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of just under 39 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Plump and plush, with a very pure cassis and black berry fruit, less oak that it used to have a lovely intense purity. There’s a little cedar, sandalwood and walnut oil too and a glorious florality – a little violet and lilac that carries over on to the palate. Soft and supple, really radiant and softly flowing over the palate. Delicate yet intense. Tense and thoroughly excellent. 93-95.

 

La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan; 52.7% Merlot; 29.6% Cabernet Sauvignon; 17.7% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.7; tasted across the road at Haut-Brion). Beautiful. A subtle florality. Violets and lilac. Black cherry, damson, raspberry, loganberry. Cedar and graphite. Plump, plush, dense and multi-layered, with great depth and density in the context of the vintage. This reaches a level well above the glass ceiling for more earthly terroirs. So much grace and also considerable age-ability. Its slightly more open-textured than Haut-Brion. So elegant, with plunge-pool crystallinity in the mid-palate and so delicately balanced. Poised, harmonious and yet vibrant and energetic. 96-98.

 

Olivier (Pessac-Léognan; 50 % Cabernet Franc; 45% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 14% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Quite a sweet aromatic profile, smoky and spicy too. Baked plums, wilted strawberries and assorted fresh redberries (including redcurrant brining its signature freshness). Quite a basket of fruits in fact. Distinctive. Lighter than some but more dynamic as a consequence. Aerial and vibrant. The acidity is a little elevated on the finish, but I like the direct fresh fruit-forward style. 91-93.

 

Pape Clément (Pessac-Léognan; 50% Merlot; 45% Cabernet Sauvignon; 3% Petit Verdot; 2% Cabernet Franc; a final yield of 35 hl/ha; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Heady and exotic with red cherries and kirsch alongside darker berry fruits. There’s a lovely hint of cedar already and a subtle rose petal note that if anything is stronger on the palate. Lithe and gracious, with plenty of depth and substance but a very open and crystalline mid-palate. I’ve struggled more with this in recent vintages, even if I appreciate the quality; this I really like and I detect a subtle change in directionn. Flinty in its minerality. A touch of Pessac smoke too. 94-96.

 

Picque Caillou (Pessac-Léognan; 60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 35% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 45 hl/ha; 13.5% alcohol; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Salty, briny even, with fresh and baked plum and damson alongside assorted crushed predominantly dark berries – a fruit cocktail in effect. A little hint of iris too. On the palate a very pure cassis fruit presented in a tight and compact frame and well delineated over the no less well-defined central spinal column. Fresh, sapid and with impressive precision and clarity this is another fine wine from Picque Caillou. Excellent value as ever. 91-93.

 

De Rochemorin (Pessac-Léognan; 54% Merlot; 34% Cabernet Sauvignon; 10% Petit Verdot; 2% Cabernet Franc; pH 3.52; 14% alcohol; tasted at La Louvière with Jacques Lurton and Claire Dawson). Quite spicy and peppery from the Petit Verdot, almost all of which was used in the final blend. Quite substantial and very authentically Pessac. Fresh and lifted and with charcuterie rather than gamey notes, with a red and darker berry fruit and a little plum skin. The acidity is well distributed like the tannins over the palate. Chiselled with quite a tight and narrow frame, densely charged. More limpid than de Cruzeau. There’s a nice sapid juiciness on the finish, with little ripples of freshness alternating with the grip of the tannins producing a pulsating effect. Very good for a Merlot-dominated Pessac in 2023. The sustained improvement of recent vintages continues. 91-93.

 

Smith Haut-Lafitte (Pessac-Léognan; 70% Cabernet Sauvignon; 23% Merlot; 6% Cabernet Franc; 1% Petit Verdot; a final yield of just 26 hl/ha; organic and biodynamic and with a special lable to commemorate the visit of King Charles III; tasted at the UGCB press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Once again, a unique wine in the context of the appellation and the vintage. Full, rich, plump and plush like no other, with a deep black cherry fruit, lashings of cedar and a very authentically smoky and gamey Pessac note. Slightly wild and uncompromising in its exuberance. I love too the way the hint of oak works to reinforce the florality. Glorious texturally, a wine that really transcends the limits of the vintage – glass ceiling shattering. Long and quite opulent in a vintage where that is rare. 95-97.