Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is so solid and structured. It’s bigger and better than most 2014s! What a wine. Full body with flavors of stones, dried apples and pears. Goes on for minutes. Yes man!
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a deliciously fruity wine that has fine poise between richness and ripe peach and red apple flavors. The tangy texture gives the wine extra complexity. It should age well, although it will also be attractive soon.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Decanter
The twist of clean minerality from the first attack brings a smile. You are in the hands of experts here, citrus dusting, controlled sappy acidity that just keeps on coming drip by drip, lovely persistency. A great wine - both colours highly successful this year, this estate is really hitting it out of the park.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Domaine de Chevalier Blanc is a beautiful white Pessac-Léognan. It offers a very succinct and focused bouquet of dew-speckled Granny Smiths, then flint and wet limestone, certainly a more stony bouquet than overt fruit. The palate is well balanced with crisp acidity, exquisite balance, the citrus fruit dappled with white pepper and spices, but everything very judicious and nuanced. It offers wonderful persistence in the mouth, basically a class act that comes strongly recommended.
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Wine Spectator
Gorgeous, with lemon chiffon, white peach, yellow plum and yellow apple fruit that has weight and cut, underscored with a long honeysuckle note and a streak of quinine. The finish sports some serious depth; this will be fun to cellar. Best from 2018 through 2026.
Sometimes light and crisp, other times rich and creamy, Bordeaux White Blends typically consist of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. Often, a small amount of Muscadelle or Sauvignon Gris is included for added intrigue. Popularized in Bordeaux, the blend is often mimicked throughout the New World. Somm Secret—Sauternes and Barsac are usually reserved for dessert, but they can be served before, during or after a meal. Try these sweet wines as an aperitif with jamón ibérico, oysters with a spicy mignonette or during dinner alongside hearty Alsatian sausage.
Recognized for its superior reds as well as whites, Pessac-Léognan on the Left Bank claims classified growths for both—making it quite unique in comparison to its neighboring Médoc properties.
Pessac’s Chateau Haut-Brion, the only first growth located outside of the Médoc, is said to have been the first to conceptualize fine red wine in Bordeaux back in the late 1600s. The estate, along with its high-esteemed neighbors, La Mission Haut-Brion, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pique-Caillou and Chateau Pape-Clément are today all but enveloped by the city of Bordeaux. The rest of the vineyards of Pessac-Léognan are in clearings of heavily forested area or abutting dense suburbs.
Arid sand and gravel on top of clay and limestone make the area unique and conducive to growing Sémillon and Sauvignon blanc as well as the grapes in the usual Left Bank red recipe: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and miniscule percentages of Petit Verdot and Malbec.
The best reds will show great force and finesse with inky blue and black fruit, mushroom, forest, tobacco, iodine and a smooth and intriguing texture.
Its best whites show complexity, longevity and no lack of exotic twists on citrus, tropical and stone fruit with pronounced floral and spice characteristics.