Winemaker Notes
Blend: 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 47% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Smells fresh and fragranced, bright and clear. Crystalline fruit purity on the palate, such energy and focus too with bite and a cool blue fruit and graphite charm to this. Quite compact and tannic right now, through beautifully textured and controlled, just a little pent up, lovely confidence and concentration, the fruit is ripe and fleshy and you really do get the gravel terroir in the glass. Gorgeous frame and succulence, lovely refinement, and supreme drinkability. Great. 2% Cabernet Franc completed the blend. Ageing 12 months in oak barrels, 37% new, 4 batches in amphora.
Barrel Sample 94 -
James Suckling
This is classic Bordeaux at a reasonable price, the lead pencil and blackcurrant character coming through clearly now. It’s medium-bodied with a finesse and focus that suggest a more famous estate. Such beautiful length and persistence. A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot and cabernet franc. One for the cellar.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A classic Saint-Estèphe, the 2022 Château Le Boscq reveals darker fruits, leafy herbs, tobacco, and damp earth. Medium to full-bodied, it has pure, fine tannins, terrific balance, and a rounded, supple mouthfeel.
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Wine Enthusiast
Owned by the Champagne Thiénot family, this estate has produced a richly structured wine with powerful tannins. The wine has a dark-chocolate aroma and concentrated black fruits.
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Vinous
The 2022 Le Boscq is a potent, earthy Saint-Estèphe. Black fruit, leather, incense, licorice, dried herbs and scorched earth give this burly wine tons of sheer palate presence. The 2022 impresses with its mid-palate depth and overall balance. This is beautifully done.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With an introverted, somber character, the 2022 Le Boscq offers aromas of licorice, gentian, cassis and mulberries. Medium to full-bodied, rich and dense, it's concentrated with an assertive tannic frame and a long, spicy finish. This wine needs time to chill out.
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.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.