Winemaker Notes
Blend: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 50% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A prototypical Médoc wine with very good depth and beautiful harmony. I love the long, moderately dry and savory finish that pulls your hand instinctively back to the glass. A blend of 50 per cent cabernet sauvignon and 50 per cent merlot. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Camensac is an equal blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, picked from 27 September until 18 October at 42 hectoliters per hectare. There is a pastille-like purity on the nose: blackberry, briary and a light floral note coming through with time. The quality of the vintage shows through on the palate, which is very harmonious and demonstrates both excellent backbone and intensity. It builds in the mouth, maintaining plenty of freshness and with a mineral-driven finish. This is an excellent Château de Camensac and fingers crossed it will represent great value in the market once released. Rating: 90-92
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Decanter
This is a vintage where the freshness levels run high, and here a rich array of dark tight fruits is joined by high acidity with menthol and eucalyptus notes. It's good quality, but needs to settle into its stride, and fatten up a little further in bottle. There has been pyrazine in the past at Camensac, and they are doing a lot of work with the vines to reduce that - this 2016 has clearly shifted from green pepper to eucalyptus, which gives good Médoc typicity while retaining fruit character. A successful wine. Drinking Window 2024 - 2040
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.
One of the most—if not the most—famous red wine regions of the world, the Medoc reaches from the city of Bordeaux northwest along the left bank of the Gironde River almost all the way to the Atlantic. Its vineyards climb along a band of flatlands, sandwiched between the coastal river marshes and the pine forests in the west. The entire region can only claim to be three to eight miles wide (at its widest), but it is about 50 miles long.
While the Medoc encompasses the Haut Medoc, and thus most of the classed-growth villages (Margaux, Moulis, Listrac, St-Julien, Pauillac and St. Estephe) it is really only those wines produced in the Bas-Medoc that use the Medoc appellation name. The ones farther down the river, and on marginally higher ground, are eligible to claim the Haut Medoc appellation, or their village or cru status.
While the region can’t boast a particularly dramatic landscape, impressive chateaux disperse themselves among the magically well-drained gravel soils that define the area. This optimal soil draining capacity is completely necessary and ideal in the Medoc's damp, maritime climate. These gravels also serve well to store heat in cooler years.