Chateau Angelus (Futures Pre-Sale) 2011
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Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine
Spectator
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A great success for proprietor Hubert de Bouard, the 2011 Angelus came in at 14.5% natural alcohol (keep in mind that this is supposedly a challenging vintage – and it was), and 75% of the production made it into the top label. The remainder was declassified into a second label or was sold off in bulk. Yields were a low 30 hectoliters per hectare, and the final blend was 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc. The color is a typical dense blue/purple, and the nose offers up wonderful notes of black raspberries, blueberries, flowers, vanillin and spice box. With authority, velvety tannin, good extract and glycerin, this rich, pure, beautifully textured St.-Emilion should drink well for 20+ years.
Barrel Sample: 92-95 Points -
James Suckling
Very elegant Angelus with blueberry and chocolate character. Full to medium body, with fine tannins. Lovely and delicious. Reminds me of the 2001 but better. 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc.
Barrel Sample: 93-94 Points -
Wine Enthusiast
Very dry, firm and hard, this is heavily dominated by new wood. It's only the underlying weight that suggests the black fruit potential.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 Points -
Jeb Dunnuck
From a vintage that is slowly coming around and drinking well, the 2011 Angelus offers a beautiful elegance and purity as well as the ripe, sexy style of the estate. Based on 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc brought up in new barrels, it's still ruby colored and offers ample blackcurrants, spice box, dried earth as well as medium to full body, beautiful balance, sweet tannins, and a great finish. A terrific wine from this estate, it will continue drinking nicely for another two decades or more.
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Wine Spectator
The dark plum, raspberry and red currant fruit has a very sleek feel, lending a forward profile to the wine. Shows well-coiled grip underneath, with dark tobacco and briar hints echoing through the finish and emerging more with aeration. Should expand with cellaring. Best from 2016 through 2028.
The vineyard of Chateau Angélus is situated in a natural amphitheatre overlooked by the three Saint-Emilion churches. In the middle of this special site, the sounds were amplified and the angelus bells could be heard ringing in the morning, at midday and in the evening. They cadenced the working day in the vineyards and villages, calling the men and women to stop their labours for a few minutes and pray.
Less than a kilometre from the famous Saint-Emilion bell tower, situated on the much-vaunted south-facing “foot of the hill”, Angélus has been the life work of eight generations of the Boüard de Laforest family.
In the first-ever classification of Saint-Emilion wines in 1954, Chateau Angélus was a Grand Cru Classé. Already at the time, it benefitted from a solid reputation, which helped it survive the Bordeaux wine crisis of 1973 and take part in the oenological renewal of the 1980’s. This was the context in which Hubert de Boüard de Laforest, a graduate oenologist from Bordeaux University, took advantage of this marvellous wine’s illustrious past, while being resolutely turned towards the future and launched and continued to implement an ambitious, innovative policy in favour of achieving excellence in wine growing and making.