Fonseca Vintage Port 2017
Fonseca Vintage Ports are released only when a year produces outstanding wines with long term ageing potential. These classic Vintage Ports are a blend of wines from Cruzeiro, Santo António and Panascal. Although they can be enjoyed when young, Fonseca Vintage Ports will continue to improve in bottle for many decades. Fonseca Vintage Port 2017 has a narrow magenta ring around a core of inky purple black. The nose opens with a burst of dark, woodland fruit, dense and succulent, blended with fresher, more vibrant red berry aromas. A slatey minerality holds this exuberant fruitiness in check. At this stage, the nose is still reserved and discreetly aromatic, revealing leafy, balsamic scents and cedary notes of sawn wood. The first impression on the palate, as on the nose, is of tightly packed, dense dark berry fruit, which then explodes on the mid-palate and surges into the long finish. The texture is round and velvety but the taut, sinewy tannins and a strand of crisp acidity provide firmness and structure. The layered, complex fruit typical of Fonseca holds sway over this weighty, powerful wine. RP 98
About Fonseca
Fonseca has belonged to the first rank of Vintage Port producers since the mid-nineteenth century. Fonseca Vintage Ports are noted for their luscious fruitiness which develops great opulence and complexity with age. Wines born of inspired winemaking and a thorough understanding of viticulture and terroir, they appeal, perhaps more than any other house's Vintage Ports, to the enthusiast and connoisseur. Vintage Ports represent the finest produce of a single exceptional year. Unlike Ports which age in wood, Vintage Ports will continue to age and improve in bottle for decades, their character bearing the imprint of both vineyard and wine maker.Louis Jadot Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 2019
Charmes-Chambertin is one of the eight Grands Crus of the commune of Gevrey-Chambertin, the most northern of the great communes of the Côte de Nuits. The vineyard of Charmes-Chambertin lies on an east-facing slope on a site that was formerly a field of grain (Charmes comes from “chaume,” meaning thatch). The Pinot Noir grapes are fermented in vats for up to one month, and then the wine is matured in oak barrels for 18 to 20 months before bottling. This wine is deeply colored, with an intense bouquet of black currants and other black and red berries. The mature wine often has aromas of musk or licorice. Made for aging, the wine will improve for 20 to 25 years in the bottle. Serve with elaborate and strongly flavored foods such as mutton, boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, game or game pâté and strong cheeses.
Chateau Latour Premier Grand Cru Classe Pauillac 2005
Chateau Haut-Brion 2020
Chateau Haut-Brion Pessac-Leognan 2020
Robert Parker - 100 points:
About Chateau Haut Brion
Cheval des Andes 2018
The wine of Cheval des Andes combines the vibrant and intense expression of Argentinian Malbec with the rigour, elegance and savoir-faire of a great Bordeaux.
It is a unique blend of Malbec grapes and Bordeaux varietals – an ensemble with the exuberance of Malbec balanced by the temperance of Cabernet Sauvignon, completed with hints of Petit Verdot.
The vision of Cheval des Andes is to bring Château Cheval Blanc’s winemaking philosophy – which focusses on cellaring potential and elegance – to Argentina. Cheval des Andes makes wines that age gracefully and “travel through the decades,” according to Pierre Lurton, President of Château Cheval Blanc and Cheval des Andes.
These wines are elegant, meaning they are the most refined expression of the terroir of Mendoza. On the nose, they are complex rather than intense and on the palate, they are balanced rather than powerful.
Chateau Pape Clement Rouge 2019
Chateau Pape Clement 2019 has a Purple purplish color with fruity, elegant and offers power aromas. It reveals notes of boysenberry, fleshy strawberry and slight notes of blackcurrant associated with slight touches of violet, iris, purple plum, blackberry. On the palate the wine has notes of boysenberry, fleshy blackcurrant and slight hints of strawberry associated with small touches of flowers, chocolate, toast and very fine hints of hazelnut.
94 points - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
"The 2019 Pape Clément has turned out well in bottle, delivering a rich bouquet of cherries, blackcurrants, plum liqueur and blackberries mingled with notions of burning embers, licorice and a nicely integrated framing of new oak. Full-bodied, deep and concentrated, it's a layered, fleshy wine, with a deep core of ripe but lively fruit, plenty of powdery tannin and a long, expansive, discreetly heady finish. This is a powerful, dramatic Pessac with a transatlantic accent and will drink well with only a few years' bottle age." (WK)About Chateau Pape Clement
The first harvest took place in 1252. For more than 750 years, therefore, Château Pape Clément has been producing fine wines on the same terroir. At this time, it was called Domaine de la Mothe.Following a painful episode of hail in 1937, which damaged the vineyard, the land was bought in 1939 by the agricultural engineer Paul Montagne, who signalled the rebirth of the estate by replanting the vines and renovating the cellars. As early as 1953, successful vintages flourished again, but once again, from 1975 onwards, a lack of investment detracted from quality for a period of around ten years.
At the turn of the 1980s, Bernard Magrez, a passionate wine entrepreneur, took the reins at the Château and was to give this grand cru classé an unprecedented international aura. Thanks to hard work, constant questioning, the alliance of tradition and innovation and a remarkable terroir, Château Pape Clément, Grand Cru Classé de Graves continues each year to amaze wine lovers with a quality exceptional.