Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
With its perfumed aromas, this is a wine that has richness and sweetness, with soft velvet power. It has an intense wood element that needs to blend into the rest of the wine, but the sweet black currant and freshness provide a good balance. This is a seductive wine, with a fine solid character.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Cos d'Estournel is blended of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc. It has a deep garnet-brick color and the nose reveals quite a lot of evolution—more than the previous six vintages tasted before it in this tasting—with notes of prunes, figs, chargrill and dried herbs plus hints of raisin cake, leather, balsamic and incense. Medium-bodied, refreshing and mature in the mouth, it delivers a good concentration of savory/spicy flavors and an herbal lift on the finish. It should remain at this evolutionary plateau for the next decade, before it begins to decline.
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Wine Spectator
Fresh mushroom on the nose, with dark fruits and berries. Full-bodied, with soft, velvety tannins and a rich, fruity finish. Balanced and pretty, with lovely length. Best after 2012. 22,000 cases made.
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.