Winemaker Notes
Blend: 85% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very pretty fruit with mushroom and dark-fruit aromas and flavors. Medium body, tight and integrated tannins and a lightly chewy finish. Pretty wine. Give it two or three years to soften. Try in 2020.
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Wine Enthusiast
The d’Arfeuille family, also owners of vineyards in Saint-Émilion, have produced a richly juicy wine from this 20-acre estate. It’s a rich wine with fine tannins, a smoky character, strongly structured and with excellent potential. Drink from 2023.
Editors' Choice -
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The hits just keep coming on, Fronsac brings so many excellent wine values to the marketplace, one always has to pay attention to this AOC. The 2015 Château Tessendey is a prime example of what I am talking about in top deals. TASTING NOTES: This wine shows beautiful red currants in both its aromas and flavors. Its soft tannins make it an attractive match with and herb-accented baked chicken. (Tasted: May 11, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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.
Home of the very first remarkable Right Bank wines, dating back to the 1730s, Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac actually retained more fame than Pomerol well into the 19th century. Today these wines represent some of Bordeaux’s best hidden gems.
Fronsac is a very small region at an unusually high elevation compared to other Bordeaux appellations. Its vineyards unroll along the oak-dotted hills bordering the river’s edge, making it perhaps Bordeaux’s prettiest and most majestic countryside.
Merlot covers 60% of the vineyard acreage; the rest of the vines are Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac appellations are limited to the higher land where soils are predominantly limestone and sandstone. Lower vineyards along the Dordogne River mainly qualify for Bordeaux AOC status
The best Fronsac are deeply concentrated in ripe red and black berry; they have a solid mineral backbone and are rich and plush on the finish.