Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The wine is all about firm structure and dense tannins. It is concentrated while hiding rich, generous fruits. It still needs to balance the structure with the fruit. For the future, it will be a rich wine full of power.
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James Suckling
Beautifully aromatic with lots of flowers and dark fruits. Full body with chewy backbone of tannins and a racy, textured finish. It’s mineral and focused.
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Vinous
The 2011 Clos du Marquis has plenty of fruit on the nose: raspberry, cranberry and pomegranate, sous-bois mixed with cigar humidor and wild mint scents that emerge with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with a fine sappy entry and cohesive with a fine bead of acidity. This is not a deep, fleshy nor fruit-driven Clos du Marquis, but it is finely proportioned with a lovely saline finish.
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Wine Spectator
This is well-packed for the vintage, with graphite and charcoal accents forming the edges, while the core sports steeped black currant, blackberry and plum fruit flavors. The long finish lets a tarry note stride in.
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.
An icon of balance and tradition, St. Julien boasts the highest proportion of classed growths in the Médoc. What it lacks in any first growths, it makes up in the rest: five amazing second growth chateaux, two superb third growths and four well-reputed fourth growths. While the actual class rankings set in 1855 (first, second, and so on the fifth) today do not necessarily indicate a score of quality, the classification system is important to understand in the context of Bordeaux history. Today rivalry among the classed chateaux only serves to elevate the appellation overall.
One of its best historically, the estate of Leoville, was the largest in the Médoc in the 18th century, before it was divided into the three second growths known today as Chateau Léoville-Las-Cases, Léoville-Poyferré and Léoville-Barton. Located in the north section, these are stone’s throw from Chateau Latour in Pauillac and share much in common with that well-esteemed estate.
The relatively homogeneous gravelly and rocky top soil on top of clay-limestone subsoil is broken only by a narrow strip of bank on either side of the “jalle,” or stream, that bisects the zone and flows into the Gironde.
St. Julien wines are for those wanting subtlety, balance and consistency in their Bordeaux. Rewarding and persistent, the best among these Bordeaux Blends are full of blueberry, blackberry, cassis, plum, tobacco and licorice. They are intense and complex and finish with fine, velvety tannins.