Winemaker Notes
The domaine's only wine, made from 74% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon. With a perfect balance of fruit, oak and tannins, this is a food wine, to be enjoyed (ideally after a few years in bottle) with red meat dishes and spicy food.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Deep purple-hued, the 2017 Chateau La Vieille Cure (75% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Franc, and the balance Cabernet Sauvignon) is a stunning success in the vintage. Notes of cassis, leafy herbs, tobacco, and spice all emerge from the glass, and this beauty is medium to full-bodied, ripe, textured, balanced, and nicely textured. With good acidity and a great finish, it's a smoking effort to drink over the coming 10-12 years.
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James Suckling
An utterly delicious red with crushed berries, cappuccino and hints of black olives. Medium-bodied, compact and very soft. Really creamy texture. A blend of 75% merlot, 22% cabernet franc and 3% cabernet sauvignon. Hard not to drink now. So do it!
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Wine Spectator
This is packed with plum and blackberry compote flavors, supported by graphite and smoldering tobacco notes. Everything melds through the solidly structured and toasty finish. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2022 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2017 La Vieille Cure comes bounding out of the glass with bold baked plums, Black forest cake and licorice scents followed by hints of garrigue, roses and menthol. Medium to full-bodied, the palate packs in the black fruit layers with a firm, grainy frame and spicy kick to the finish.
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Decanter
This estate has done a good job with this wine, creating an attractive glamorous edge of smoked rosemary around the muscular tannins. It’s clearly well extracted because the fruit is savoury rather than exuberant. Château La Vieille Cure is often a bellwether to the success of a vintage, as it’s normally so reliable. However the frost of 2017 definitely added a rogue element, even if certain spots close to the river were spared. Classically controlled and reined in, this is a medium term drinker, with a lovely juicy frame around soft summery fruits.
Barrel Sample -
Wine Enthusiast
A rich wine with powerful black fruits, this is opulent and dense. The wine’s power is palpable, giving concentration and richness. Drink this massive wine from 2022
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.
Home of the very first remarkable Right Bank wines, dating back to the 1730s, Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac actually retained more fame than Pomerol well into the 19th century. Today these wines represent some of Bordeaux’s best hidden gems.
Fronsac is a very small region at an unusually high elevation compared to other Bordeaux appellations. Its vineyards unroll along the oak-dotted hills bordering the river’s edge, making it perhaps Bordeaux’s prettiest and most majestic countryside.
Merlot covers 60% of the vineyard acreage; the rest of the vines are Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac appellations are limited to the higher land where soils are predominantly limestone and sandstone. Lower vineyards along the Dordogne River mainly qualify for Bordeaux AOC status
The best Fronsac are deeply concentrated in ripe red and black berry; they have a solid mineral backbone and are rich and plush on the finish.