| Single Bottles (75cl) @ £19.98 |
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Tasting Notes: Chateau du Cedre's Pascal Verhaeghe's influence is quite apparent here, Cathy and Daniel Founier's wines are better made now than a decade ago. As is usual for H-M wines, it is deep garnet in colour but the fruit profile is somewhere between red and black with a good pinch of spice. A small amount of oak is evident although this will fade away in time and, frankly, it is already well masked by the incredibly ripe fruit. Full in the mouth with very good length and lots of potential. Rather powerful. Certainly the best vintage of this cuvee to date. | Drinking Dates: 2015 to 2030 | Cépagement: 100% Malbec (30-35 year-old vines @ 28hl/ha) from south-facing vineyards. Maximum yield is 30hl/ha.
| Soil: Argilo-silicieuses caillouteux | Upbringing: Fermentation takes place in open 500-litre new oak barrels which are then closed for the 24 month elevage. | ABV: 15% | Critic Reviews: "Made from a selection of the best parcels of vineyard, all more than 30 years old and harvested with a very low yield. The wine is aged for 22 months in all-new French oak barrels. It is interesting approaching this wine knowing that I was looking for the Brett component, and I did find it - though nowhere near as pronounced as in my French tasting. There's just a touch of that elastoplast (band-aid) character in the background, a character that moves between cedary and savoury to lightly animal, but difficult to pin down. One thing is certain, the robust black fruit and sense of graphite is allowed to show more clearly. In the mouth this has the same delicious, juicy and sweet blackberry and plum fruit that I found first time round, with a stripe of liquorice and chicory firmness to the spicy, grippy tannins. It is just a touch short, the 15% alcohol also adding a bit of heat, but it has lots of substance and style." 89/100 (Tom Cannavan, wine-pages.com) |
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