Winemaker Notes
Blend: 52% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Looking at the Grand Vin, the 2022 Château Pavie is 52% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon raised in 75% new barrels for 20 months. It brings a more focused, precise style in its darker berries, graphite, crushed stone, and floral aromatics and flavors. These carry to a full-bodied Pavie with flawless overall balance, ultra-fine tannins, and a great finish. This pure, powerful, yet aristocratic
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James Suckling
The intensity of raspberries, stones, chalk and sea salt is impressive. White pepper. Medium-bodied with really crunchy fruit yet the firm and creamy tannins are really well curated with a polished texture and superb finish. Long and powerful. Such energy.
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Wine Spectator
This takes the showy fruit of the vintage and amplifies it, adding warm cocoa, melted licorice and roasted apple wood accents that fuel the core of boysenberry, plum and blackberry reduction flavors. Broad-shouldered in feel, with a deep well of fruit in reserve, this rumbles through the amply toasty finish. For the hedonist crowd. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.
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Decanter
Lovely detail and precision with plump, ripe fruit, good concentration and intensity, mouthfilling tannins that have a lovely texture and overall length. Feels really well made, structured and vibrant, not taken too far with a really appealing flavour and texture. Just lovely, fresh, lifted, still concentrated with underlying power but delivered seamlessly. A brilliant, compelling, utterly moreish wine. 2% Cabernet Franc completes the blend. A yield of 40hl/ha. Harvest 15 September - 5 October. Ageing 18 months; 33% new barrels, 65% one and two wine. In organic conversion.
Barrel Sample: 95
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.
Marked by its historic fortified village—perhaps the prettiest in all of Bordeaux, the St-Émilion appellation, along with its neighboring village of Pomerol, are leaders in quality on the Right Bank of Bordeaux. These Merlot-dominant red wines (complemented by various amounts of Cabernet Franc and/or Cabernet Sauvignon) remain some of the most admired and collected wines of the world.
St-Émilion has the longest history in wine production in Bordeaux—longer than the Left Bank—dating back to an 8th century monk named Saint Émilion who became a hermit in one of the many limestone caves scattered throughout the area.
Today St-Émilion is made up of hundreds of independent farmers dedicated to the same thing: growing Merlot and Cabernet Franc (and tiny amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon). While always roughly the same blend, the wines of St-Émilion vary considerably depending on the soil upon which they are grown—and the soils do vary considerably throughout the region.
The chateaux with the highest classification (Premier Grand Cru Classés) are on gravel-rich soils or steep, clay-limestone hillsides. There are only four given the highest rank, called Premier Grand Cru Classés A (Chateau Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Angélus, Pavie) and 14 are Premier Grand Cru Classés B. Much of the rest of the vineyards in the appellation are on flatter land where the soils are a mix of gravel, sand and alluvial matter.
Great wines from St-Émilion will be deep in color, and might have characteristics of blackberry liqueur, black raspberry, licorice, chocolate, grilled meat, earth or truffles. They will be bold, layered and lush.