Winemaker Notes
Blend: 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
If you want to drink a Margaux 2009 any time soon, you need to go for the Pavillon - the grand vin is still extremely young, holding back its power and impact for another five or 10 years time. It's still closed up enough to hint rather than reveal. The smooth, silky tannins are joined by blackberry and cassis fruit with a great sense of vibrancy and concentration, and some tingling minerality with a pulse of electricity. There's a latent generosity here, a slow confidence that builds through the palate as the flavours layer up, yet it's clear that there's still lots to be revealed, particularly the hints of violet and peony florality that just peek through on the finish. This is very, very good - up with the best ever from this estate. 31% of production went into this wine, and it has the same amount of Cabernet Sauvignon as in 2005. 2% Petit Verdot completes the blend.
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Vinous
Good full ruby-red. Pure, ripe aromas of cassis, graphite and cedar, lifted by floral and mineral high notes. Dense and amazingly concentrated yet light on its feet, with compelling, extremely pure flavors of spicy blackcurrant, tobacco leaf and minerals. The extremely long, slow-building and wonderfully fine-grained finish offers an exhilarating combination of power and sweetness. This comes across as quite backward today yet is anything but austere. A real essence of Margaux's great terroir, and one of my favorite wines of the vintage. As I walked to the parking lot with Pontallier after the tasting, he said to me, "If people don't think this is one of the greatest wines I have ever made, then it means I haven't really understood anything in the last 30 years spent making wine."
Barrel Sample: 97-100 -
James Suckling
This marathon runner is currently in the no-man's land between youthful vitality and mellow maturity. There's a very serious tannin structure here, but it needs a lot longer to fully resolve. Very tight and closed. A perfect wine usually. But not today. Try in 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Château Margaux is deep garnet in color and features wonderfully fragrant minted cassis, lilacs, black forest cake and oolong tea scents with touches of pencil shavings and dusty soil. Medium to full-bodied, it has a firm, grainy frame with lovely freshness lifting the perfumed fruit to a very long, mineral-laced finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
A massive wine for Margaux, packed with tannins and ripe fruit. It has more Cabernet Sauvignon than usual, giving intense black currant flavors with enticing acidity balanced by the sweetness of the fruit. Ripe swathes of opulent fruit are also elegant and structured.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
This offers gorgeously caressing fruit, with steeped plum, blackberry and red currant notes, finely embroidered with accents of rooibos and black tea, tobacco leaf, alder and sandalwood. Delivers loads of fruit, with the structure already melded into the core of fruit—but that's the vintage style. A stunner, though I still find the '10 a full step ahead. Best from 2018 through 2035.
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.
Silky, seductive and polished are the words that characterize the best wines from Margaux, the most inland appellation of the Médoc on the Left Bank of Bordeaux.
Margaux’s gravel soils are the thinnest of the Médoc, making them most penetrable by vine roots—some reaching down over 23 feet for water. The best sites are said to be on gentle outcrops, or croupes, where more gravel facilitates good drainage.
The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification but it is nonetheless important in regards to history of the area. In 1855 the finest chateaux were deemed on the basis of reputation and trading price—at that time. In 1855, Chateau Margaux achieved first growth status, yet it has been Chateau Palmer (officially third growth from the 1855 classification) that has consistently outperformed others throughout the 20th century.
Chateau Margaux in top vintages is capable of producing red Cabernet Sauvignon based wines described as pure, intense, spell-binding, refined and profound with flavors and aromas of black currant, violets, roses, orange peel, black tea and incense.
Other top producers worthy of noting include Chateau Rauzan-Ségla, Lascombes, Brane-Cantenac, and d’Issan, among others.
The best wines of Margaux combine a deep ruby color with a polished structure, concentration and an unrivaled elegance.