Winemaker Notes
Silky, delicate, and rounded feeling brings to the palate a floral touch full of refined aromas and subtly grainy.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A gorgeous wine in the vintage, the 2021 Château Quinault L'Enclos has loads of black raspberry and ripe currant fruits to go with complex notes of flowers, spice, and spring flowers. It's medium-bodied, has a pure, incredibly elegant mouthfeel, ultra-fine tannins, and a great finish. The quality here continues to blow me away, and readers need to get this château on their radar.
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James Suckling
This is very good for the vintage, with purple fruits, iodine, hazelnut husks and chocolate, showing precision and length with ultrafine tannins. Medium-bodied, it’s polished and focused, linear and tight. 59% merlot, 23% cabernet franc and 18% cabernet sauvignon. Better in two or three years.
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Decanter
Beautifully fresh, floral black cherries on the nose with red strawberries and raspberries. Really delicate but expressive. Smooth and succulent, excellent acidity gives lift and life straight away before the licorice and cooling mint come in. This has depth and power, clear concentration on the mid-palate but with a refinement, precision and sense of restraint to it. Balanced and harmonious in the mouth, super-easy to drink. Tannins are delicate and pair wonderfully with the acidity - they build the palate and push the flavor through. Excellent effort this year.
Barrel Sample: 92
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.