Winemaker Notes
This vintage is already complex, and features an impressive range of aromas and flavors from the very first. The color is a deep crimson with mauve highlights. The nose exhibits great aromatic purity and astonishing complexity: red fruit (raspberry, cherry), black fruit (blackcurrant jam, blueberry), and delicate floral nuances (rose and violet). Freshness (mint and eucalyptus) and minerality (graphite, chalk) round out the vivacious aromatic profile. The bouquet is quite unique: tremendously pure, and the oak is not even noticeable – the sign of a great vintage. 2012 Cheval Blanc starts out straightforward and powerful on the palate. The middle palate is concentrated, with firm tannin that is nevertheless incomparably rich. The elegant texture is accompanied by fresh, complex flavors. The wine’s incredible length is both rich and delicate. In fact, the wine seems to rise in intensity and then recede imperceptibly and seamlessly. 2012 Cheval Blanc is polished, complex, and delicious with totally impressive length for a Saint Emilion this young.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A step up over the 2011, the 2012 Cheval Blanc offers a similar medium to full-bodied, elegant style yet has slightly more freshness and purity. Smoked black fruits, cassis, tobacco leaf, and sappy flower notes all emerge from this thrillingly textured, balanced, focused 2012. It opens up with time in the glass, has ripe, sweet tannins, and it’s another one of those wines that offers pleasure today yet will cruise for decades. The final blend is the usual 54% Merlot and 46% Cabernet Franc. Readers should be happy to have bottles in their cellars.
Rating: 96+ -
Wine Enthusiast
With a wonderful 45% blending of fragrant Cabernet Franc, this is a sumptuous, perfumed wine. It's rich with a velvet texture that hides the dark tannins while bringing out the rich plum flavors. The dense texture is balanced by some fresh acidity and a fruity aftertaste.
Cellar Selection
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Wine Spectator
This wine is gorgeous in all facets, offering a simultaneously loamy and creamy mouthfeel, seamless layers of red and black currant, cherry, raspberry and blackberry fruit, and a long, tobacco-fueled finish that features alluring hints of black tea and incense. The fruit and terroir shine in this broad, deep and defined style. Best from 2018 through 2030.
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James Suckling
A Cheval Blanc with an impressive center palate of blueberries, chocolate, almonds and spices. Full body, a solid core of fruit and a long, long finish. Goes on for minutes. Beautiful wine. Seamless tannins. Needs a few years of bottle age.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted blind at the 2012 Southwold tasting, the 2012 Cheval Blanc has a perfumed, outgoing, almost "glossy" bouquet that wants to be noticed, lavished with damson, wild strawberry, fig jam and crème de cassis scents that are totally seductive. The palate is medium-bodied with ripe, succulent, sensual red cherries and wild strawberry fruit, though perhaps the finish showed some superfluous hubris that just erased some of the potential delineation and focus. On this occasion it was pipped to the post by Ausone, but let us see how it matures, because the white horse always repays those that are patient.
Rating: 93+
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.
Marked by its historic fortified village—perhaps the prettiest in all of Bordeaux, the St-Émilion appellation, along with its neighboring village of Pomerol, are leaders in quality on the Right Bank of Bordeaux. These Merlot-dominant red wines (complemented by various amounts of Cabernet Franc and/or Cabernet Sauvignon) remain some of the most admired and collected wines of the world.
St-Émilion has the longest history in wine production in Bordeaux—longer than the Left Bank—dating back to an 8th century monk named Saint Émilion who became a hermit in one of the many limestone caves scattered throughout the area.
Today St-Émilion is made up of hundreds of independent farmers dedicated to the same thing: growing Merlot and Cabernet Franc (and tiny amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon). While always roughly the same blend, the wines of St-Émilion vary considerably depending on the soil upon which they are grown—and the soils do vary considerably throughout the region.
The chateaux with the highest classification (Premier Grand Cru Classés) are on gravel-rich soils or steep, clay-limestone hillsides. There are only four given the highest rank, called Premier Grand Cru Classés A (Chateau Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Angélus, Pavie) and 14 are Premier Grand Cru Classés B. Much of the rest of the vineyards in the appellation are on flatter land where the soils are a mix of gravel, sand and alluvial matter.
Great wines from St-Émilion will be deep in color, and might have characteristics of blackberry liqueur, black raspberry, licorice, chocolate, grilled meat, earth or truffles. They will be bold, layered and lush.