Chateau Figeac (6 Bottles in OWC) 2018
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James - Decanter
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Blend: 37% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is pretty gorgeous, with velvety texture that lets nearly exotic cassis, plum and blackberry fruit reduction flavors roll through. Has a beautiful bass line of warm earth and smoldering tobacco notes all while keeping its sensational mouthfeel. The encore on the finish makes you realize this is the serious gourmet stuff. One of the highlights of the vintage.
Barrel Sample: 97-100 -
Wine Enthusiast
This is a rich, velvet-textured wine. The Cabernet duo in the blend gives this wine immense structure and brilliant acidity. The perfumed, black currant fruits are layered with the acidity and crisp freshness. The wine finishes with some formidable tannins for the future.
Barrel Sample: 97-99 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Figeac is composed of 37% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Cabernet Franc, harvested September 17 to October 12 with a 3.7 pH and 14% alcohol. Deep purple-black in color, it charges out of the gate with vivacious black and red cherries, cassis, warm plums and wild blueberries scents plus fragrant hints of violets, star anise, tilled soil and forest floor with wafts of Ceylon tea and chocolate box. Full-bodied and jam-packed with energetic, crunchy black and blue fruits, it has a rock-solid, firm, grainy frame and loads of bright, refreshing sparks lifting the dense layers on the very long, savory finish. Wow—the Cabernet really makes itself known this vintage, and it is good. The signature of this wine is so clear, so defined, that this is a Bordeaux wine without peers. In my view, this is the finest Figeac ever produced.
Barrel Sample: 97-99 -
Jeb Dunnuck
Tasting like a hypothetical blend of the 2015 and 2016, the 2018 Château Figeac offers that rare mix of elegance and sexiness that makes it the most Médoc-like wine from the Right Bank. Checking in as a blend of 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and 26% Cabernet Franc that will spend 19 months in new oak, made from 75% of the total production, it offers a saturated purple color as well as incredible notes of liquid violets, exotic flowers, crème de cassis, and spice box. Full-bodied, multi-dimensional, flawlessly balanced, and with awesome purity of fruit, it’s going to flirt with perfection in 4-5 years and keep for 3-4 decades or more. Hats off to director Frédéric Faye for another viscerally thrilling wine that’s up with the crème de la crème of the vintage. Barrel Sample: 97-99.
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James Suckling
A powerful, structured Figeac, offering loads of blackberry, blueberry, chocolate, walnut and mushroom with some tobacco. It’s full-bodied with layered, chewy tannins that are polished and beautiful. So impressive and solid. Better than the great 2010? Time will tell. Goes on for a long time. Try after 2026
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Decanter
Back to a more traditional blend after last year's frost impact, Figeac has done a wonderful job of harnessing the opulence of the vintage while maintaining freshness. This is extremely focussed and precise, with a silky texture and inky depths, developing complexity as the flavours unfurl. These are big tannins but they steal up on you, doing that subtle creep that's such a marker of the vintage. Powerful, utterly gorgeous and clearly a wine that will age well, this is equal to the estate's excellent 2016.
Barrel Sample: 98
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Figeac is a very ancient property. In the 2nd century, the Figeacus family gave its name to the estate. Traces of this Gallo-Roman villa still exist today. In the 15th century, FIGEAC was one of five noble houses in Saint-Emilion and passed from the Lescours family, who at that time also owned Ausone, into the hands of the Cazes family, who transmitted it through marriage to the Carles in the 17th century. After the Manoncourt family acquired the property in 1892, FIGEAC was mainly managed by agricultural engineers. However, in 1943, the year in which Thierry Manoncourt made his first vintage, a period of resurgencebegan for Figeac. Thierry Manoncourt realised in that year the huge potential of FIGEAC’s terroir and urged his mother, a Parisian, to hold on to the estate. In 1955 CHATEAU-FIGEAC became a First Great Classified Growth. Today, Madame Manoncourt and her daughters are ably supported by highly skilled wine-growing teams and are as eager as ever to guarantee the long-term continuity of FIGEAC.
Figeac is the largest estate of Saint-Emilion, covering 54 hectares (133 acres). Besides its 40 hectares (99 acres) of vines, a variety of landscapes combine to form a balance in nature, today known as biodiversity. Figeac has large areas of space which add to the majesty of the place and allow the flora and fauna to flourish. Figeac has an outstanding terroir consisting of three gravelly rises. In keeping with the nature of this soil, Figeac is the Right Bank estate with the highest percentage of Cabernet. This atypical combination accounts for wines that are elegant, long-lived and extremely well-reputed.
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.