Winemaker Notes
This wine has the very floral aromas characteristic of cooler vintages and is delicately tannic and silky on the palate.
Blend: 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This wine has a tightness and linear energy, with red currants, herbs, plums and hints of dark chocolate. Medium-bodied with beautiful integration and length. Racy and focused. Just the right amount of wood and fruit with tannins. Second wine of Chateau Margaux.
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Wine Enthusiast
The aromas of rich black-currant fruits dominate this second-label wine. With its blackberry fruits and rich, supple tannins, this shows strongly in its structure, complex black fruits and acidity.
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Decanter
Rich and intense on the nose, fragranced red and pink flowers with red cherries and plums. Really vibrant pink rim to the glass too. Touches of dark chocolate, cedar and green pepper, herbal, and eucalyptus. Round and vibrant, a playfulness - super high acidity, almost sharp and tart and tangy, with grippy tannins that give the texture and structure. Half crushed velvet and half lean and austere so you get both weight and direction. Feels quite youthful and buzzy right now but this has a nice juiciness, great fresh acidities, bite on the tongue, a clean - wet stone slate feeling and texture. A touch of green peppercorn and toast gives the spicy angles and the minerality on the finish. Well constructed, not the most easy to drink at the moment, this is more serious, but there's good potential and a lot of flavour. It has a certain intensity, a touch of green leeness sets it apart from being totally charming right now, but this certainly carries interest and nuance.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Mostly likely the second wine of the vintage, the 2021 Château Margaux Pavillon Rouge boasts a deep ruby/purple hue as well as beautiful aromatics of red and blue fruits, smoke tobacco, violets, and graphite. It's medium-bodied, has remarkable purity, integrated acidity, and one heck of a beautiful finish. You can taste more than a little Grand Vin in this, yet it clearly has more up-front charm and appeal. A blend of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, it benefits from air and should be at its best from 2029-2041.
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Vinous
The 2021 Pavillon Rouge is bright and beautifully focused. A slender, vibrant Pavillon Rouge, the 2021 impresses with energy more than volume. Bright acids lift a core of red plum fruit, blood orange, cinnamon and rose petal. Saline notes extend the finish. Today, the 2021 is a bit clenched, but that should not be an issue in a few years' time. –Antonio Galloni
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pavillon Rouge offers up aromas of raspberries, sweet cherries and white flowers, followed by a medium to full-bodied, lively palate that's quite taut and youthfully structured out of the gates, with good depth at the core and powdery tannins. It will reward a bit of bottle age.
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.