Winemaker Notes
Blend: 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 49% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of blueberries and spices with hints of licorice too. Full body with firm tannins and a chewy finish. Extremely well-integrated. Beautiful. One of the best ever from here. Try in 2016.
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Wine Spectator
Fleshy and inviting, with bittersweet cocoa, roasted tobacco, black currant preserve and warm fig sauce notes all defined and well-supported by dusty tannins.
Barrel Sample: 90-93 Points -
Jeb Dunnuck
Sweet cassis, darker berries, spicy wood, truffle, and licorice notes all emerge from the 2010 Château Phélan Ségur, a medium to full-bodied, concentrated, beautifully textured wine. It doesn't have the elegance and purity of today's Phélan Ségur releases, but it's beautifully balanced, has a pure, polished, layered texture, and a great finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
The best wine from Phelan Segur for several years, this shows less of the often-intrusive new wood and more of the fruit that had been missing in past vintages. It shows a subtle level of toast and a black currant flavor, plus great acidity and freshness on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet in color, the 2010 Phélan Ségur boldly springs from the glass with open-for-business notes of baked blackcurrants, blueberry tart and chocolate covered cherries followed by hints of cardamom, camphor and charcoal. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has a firm line of grippy tannins and just enough freshness to support the maturing black fruits, finishing with a fair bit of chew.
Located in the village of Saint-Estèphe, Château Phélan Ségur has proudly overlooked the Gironde estuary since the early 19th century. Founded by Irishman, Bernard Phelan, the estate was developed by his son, Frank, and renamed Phélan Ségur in the early 20th century. The cellar and the vat room are integrated into the Château in a highly unsual architectural ensemble.
The property is spread over 114 hectares, including 44 hectares of parks, forests, meadows, streams and ponds, forming a remarkable biodiversity reserve. Its 70 hectares of vineyards benefit from the temperature regulation provided by the proximity of the River; they are divided into four very distinct islands and express the diversity of the clay-gravel soils of the appellation. This produces powerful wines often characterised by their tannic structure. The Phélan Ségur style stands out for its elegance, its pure and complex aromas, its finesse and precision, the quality of its tannins and its balance.
Philippe Van de Vyvere is the owner since January 2018. Initiated by his grandfather at an early age, this great connoisseur of Bordeaux was really taken with the Château Phélan Ségur. He intends to apply his entrepreneurial values in pursuit of aesthetic and technical while respecting environmental balances.
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.