Winemaker Notes
Blend: 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Fine tannins give this wine its structure and its essence. It is a wine constructed with firmness, bringing out a dry core, allied to a more velvet character. The black fruits are developing well and the ensemble of the wine will be in perfect harmony. Drink from 2024.
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Decanter
This is gorgeous. Rich, silky, bright and perky, and full of grace. A real purity to the blueberry and blackberry fruits, and soft elongated tannins. Highly recommend for its classicism. Has the austerity of 2017 but gives it real polish, and it raises its game through the palate. 19 months aging.
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Jeb Dunnuck
As you’d expect, the grand vin ratchets up the intensity. The 2017 Chateau Calon Segur is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, and 2% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot aged 20 months all in new barrels. This deep, inky hued 2017 boasts medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of creme de cassis, leafy herbs, and mineral nuances. It stays tight and compact on the palate, has wonderful Saint-Estephe Cabernet character, ripe tannins, and is just a classic, balanced effort that will benefit from 4-6 years of bottle age and evolve for 25+ years.
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James Suckling
Graphite, wild herbs, bracken, violets and such spicy black and blue berries. The palate has impressive concentration, yet very supple, charming texture. Such impressively articulated tannin detail with very fine, long tannins and deeply integrated oak. This wine is so full of flavor and interest from start to finish. A blend of 76% cabernet sauvignon, 13% merlot, 9% cabernet franc and 2% petit verdot. Needs three to four year to come around. Try in 2023 and onwards.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2017 Calon-Ségur features warm plums, cassis, baked cherries and mulberries, earth, meats and cedar on the nose with notes of lavender and olives. The palate is medium-bodied, elegant and intense with firm, fine-grained tannins and great length, finishing minerally. This wine was aged in 100% new French oak barrels for 20 months. The blend is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and focused, featuring a solid core of plum and black cherry fruit, supported by a well-embedded cast iron note. Sweet tobacco, bay leaf and lavender details fill in the background while the fruit takes an encore on the finish. A very solid effort. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2021 through 2034.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.