Winemaker Notes
The wine displays a deep, dense-colored hue, while on the nose there are powerful ripe fruit aromas mingling with floral notes. Feminine in style, the wines have a seductive, rich mouth-feel, underpinned by elegant, silky tannins. The finish is long and harmonious, promising very long ageing potential in bottle. These specific tasting characteristics, immediately recognizable to its growing number of followers, are the hallmark of Chateau Fleur Cardinale.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Super rich baking spices across ripe dark plums in a very suave and attractively styled nose. The palate has incredible depth and succulently seductive, fleshy plum flavors. Wow. Try from 2022.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Château Fleur Cardinale is beauty in the vintage and checks in as a blend of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon brought up all in new oak. Offering sensational notes of black cherries and currant fruits, toasty oak, graphite, and licorice, it's medium to full-bodied, concentrated, and gorgeously pure and elegant on the palate. It has fine tannin emerging on the finish and is made in a straight, structured, classic style. Give bottles a year to two and it should drink beautifully over the following 15+. I was able to taste this wine three separate times and, surprisingly, it showed best from a bottle purchased here in the US. It has the purity of fruit that's the hallmark of the vintage and is a gem readers should seek out. This wine is an exclusive of American Jeffrey Davies.
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Wine Spectator
Dark fig and boysenberry confiture flavors run from start to finish here, with a graphite spine embedded along the way. Not shy, but has the cut to pull it off. Best from 2022 through 2032.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Château Fleur Cardinale is a blend of 70% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon matured in 100% new oak. It offers sweet dates and figs tincturing the dark cherry and blueberry fruit on the nose. Heady perhaps, yet there is more delineation here than I have discerned in other vintages. The palate is full-bodied with lush ripe black cherry fruit, blueberry and cassis coming in behind, fanning out towards a plush finish that just needs a little more precision to come through. Barrel Sample: 90-92 Points
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Decanter
One of the latest to harvest in St-Emilion. Rich, plush and modern – oozes fruit. Tannins are ripe and firm with chocolate notes from the oak. Successful in that seductive, come-hither style. Barrel Sample.
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.