Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Lilian Ladouys has a very pretty bouquet with lifted ripe blackberry fruit laced with finely tuned vanillary oak. The palate is also feminine, pretty and pure with supple black fruits and a very composed, focused finish. This is a very well made, delicious Saint Estèphe from a rejuvenated estate.
Barrel Sample:91-93 Points -
Wine Spectator
Ripe, modern style, with spicy, succulent blueberry, cassis and plum sauce flavors. But there's good typicity too, with a lightly bracing chalky edge defining the finish.
Barrel Sample: 89-92 Points -
Wine Enthusiast
A wine with deep tannins and a very dry character, this is big and solid, but maybe lacking fruit.
Barrel Sample: 88-90 Points
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.