Winemaker Notes
Blend: 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc & Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Ashtray and fine dark spices with plenty of cassis and peppercorns. Spiced black cherries too. Rich on the palate with fine, dusty tannins that manage to vibrate and deliver structure to the fruit. Almost full-bodied, this has outstanding depth, concentration and length.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From the team at Calon-Ségur and deep ruby/plum-hued, the 2022 Château Capbern has a youthful, unevolved profile in its black and blue fruits as well as crushed stone, graphite, and violet-like perfume. This carries to a rich, medium to full-bodied, concentrated Capbern that has solid depth of fruit, juicy acidity, and ripe tannins. Rating: 93+
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Notes of dark berries and cherries mingled with licorice and loamy soil introduce the 2022 Capbern, a medium to full-bodied, rich and fleshy wine framed by ripe, powdery tannins and concluding with a long, somewhat heady finish.
Barrel Sample: 90-92 -
Decanter
Smells gorgeous, rich and vibrant with dark bramble berry tones. Blackcurrant and black cherry. Quite tannic straight away, they make the impression, slightly grainy and chalky giving a wide, expansive and mouth coating feeling. Bold, but clean and clear, it has a nice crispness as well as depth with some minty, herbal liquorice, flint and clove aspects on the finish. Slightly lifted in terms of alcohol impression at the end, sticking out a touch, but overall this is quite streamlined and sleek, not plush at all but cooly concentrated with a subtly juice core.
Barrel Sample: 91
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.