Winemaker Notes
Blend: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a ripe wine with spice, juicy red fruits and a feeling of opulence. Full, fruity and rich, it's a wine for medium-term aging. Drink from 2017.
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James Suckling
This is fresh and clean with citrus and currant character. Medium body, fine tannins and a delicate finish. A little lean but I like it. Clarity of fruit here. Give it three or four years to soften. Try in 2017.
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Wine Spectator
A textbook Pauillac, with a core of ripe cassis, cherry compote and blackberry fruit, spiked with iron, singed cedar and tobacco details that should emerge as this melds and softens. Best from 2015 through 2025.
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.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.