Winemaker Notes
Blend: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot, 1% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Juicy and lively fragrance on the nose – so perfumed and alluring. Delicate and pure on the palate, crystalline yet with such intensity. A rush of creamy tangy strawberries, herbal-edged raspberries and plum fruit lined with salty minerality gives the nuance and detail. It’s lightly framed with well integrated tannins that are fine and firm, tense just giving some tightness on the mid-palate, a sense of compactness, but then it opens again towards the finish. Cool and ethereal, this exudes charm and confidence. Extremely well made and totally seductive. I love the juiciness and sense of joyfulness, but it’s also beguiling as it deepens and grows in layers of chalk, slate, bramble fruits, perfume and florality. Another excellent wine from Rauzan with delicacy, detail and drinkability. Stunning.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Château Rauzan-Ségla is pure Margaux brilliance, and this beautifully elegant wine embodies the best of the vintage. Revealing a deep ruby/purple hue as well as a great bouquet of blackcurrants, black cherries, lead pencil, sandalwood, smoked tobacco, and hints of incense, it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness, a layered, seamless mouthfeel, integrated acidity, and a great finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Rauzan-Ségla is showing brilliantly in bottle. Wafting from the glass with aromas of cassis and minty blackberries mingled with violets and licorice, it's medium to full-bodied, suave and seamless, with a deep core of vibrant fruit, beautifully refined tannins and a harmonious, integrated profile that exudes elegance. A wine of immense character and refinement, it's the best vintage from this estate in recent times.
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James Suckling
A very polished red with blackberry, black olive, walnut, and crushed stone aromas that follow through to a medium to full body with polished, velvety tannins that go on for minutes. Surprisingly open and so attractive. Wonderful length to this. Needs four to five years to open.
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Vinous
The 2020 Rauzan-Ségla is very perfumed and delineated on the nose, with vivacious black fruit, cassis and violet blossoming in the glass. The oak is very well integrated. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, quite rounded and plush, but there is backbone and structure here. Very persistent on the finish, this is a Rauzan-Ségla for the ages. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine has a fine structure, with dense tannins from the Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend. It is a full wine, the spicy character mingling with black currant flavors. The wine has an excellent future. Drink from 2027.
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.