DOMAINE DE CHEVALIER
2014 Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan
This feels very nicely 'claretty'. Great poise is allied with lovely dense fruit extract, perfectly ripe, soft red plum and blueberry, touch of cigar-box spice. The power of this fruit is impressive - but balance is spot on. Good. Rating: 93 L&S (Apr 2015)
* This is a pre-shipment/primeur offer. All orders are accepted under the TERMS of this offer which differ from the terms of the rest of the site.
The 2014 Domaine de Chevalier has always been an impressive wine for the vintage. This has a superb bouquet with blackberry, graphite, sea spray and pressed roses, which are very well-defined and classy. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant, fine tannins, a keen line of acidity, fresh with white pepper and allspice towards the harmonious and precise finish. This is a Pessac-Léognan ratcheting through the gears - recommended. Tasted blind at the Southwold 10-Year-On tasting. Drinking range: 2024 - 2050 Rating: 94 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Mar 2024)
Dark fruits, stony ground, crushed rocks, serious Left Bank feel, with Cabernet Sauvignon dominant, well structured, plenty of life ahead, not the most geneous of Chevaliers but brilliant quality, restrained, confident, a consistently impressive wine that I have enjoyed on several occasions since En Primeur and that is clearly still at the beginning of its life. Drinking range: 2024 - 2042 Rating: 94 Jane Anson, Decanter (Feb 2024)
The 2014 Domaine de Chevalier has a classy, quite sophisticated bouquet with blackberry, boysenberry, graphite and brine aromas that feel very well defined. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy red berry fruit, quite saline in the mouth with a brisk, lightly spiced, white pepper sprinkled finish that lingers long in the mouth. Olivier Bernard has crafted quite a sublime 2014 Pessac-Léognan. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting. Drinking range: 2021 - 2050 Rating: 93 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Mar 2018)
Sweet and round and with sufficient fruit for the acidity. Bravo! Really nice wine with more fruit than tannin – though not quite as much flesh as Ch Les Carmes Haut-Brion. Drinking range: 2023 - 2040 Rating: 17.5 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Feb 2018)
The 2014 Domaine de Chevalier is a total knockout. Precise, brilliant and finely sculpted, the 2014 possesses superb intensity. Freshly cut flowers, mint and sweet red berries, along with finessed but persistent tannins, give the wine its regal personality. The 2014 needs a number of years to shed some baby fat and develop the full breadth of its aromatics, but it is a fabulous wine by any measure. The 2014 is 65 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 % Merlot and 5 % Petit Verdot that spent approximately 35 days on the skins. Olivier Bernard noted that the Merlots were brought in between October 10 and 17, which is quite late by the domaine's standards. Tasted two times. Drinking range: 2024 - 2044 Rating: 96 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Feb 2017)
The Domaine de Chevalier 2014 is a blend of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot and 30% Merlot. It has a fragrant bouquet with blackberry, black plum, cigar ash and woodland scents, complex though not as intense as its white counterpart. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy, quite firm tannin that underpin a classic Domaine de Chevalier that has just the right amount of austerity at this stage. Reserved perhaps, but it is beautifully knitted together with a lovely bay leaf tinged finish. Quintessential Domaine de Chevalier...which is what we all want. Drinking range: 2020 - 2040 Rating: 92-94 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2015)
Rich and silky with a great sense of controlled power despite being more extracted than some. Promising hints of how it will develop. Restrained tannins. 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot. (Highly Recommended Pessac-Léognan, Decanter.) Drinking range: 2023 - 2040 Rating: 94 Steven Spurrier (Apr 2015)
The 2014 Domaine de Chevalier is stunningly beautiful. Dark red cherry, plum, smoke, spice and leather are all supported by veins of underlying acidity and minerality. Sweet floral and spice notes continue to open up over time, but it is the wine's imposing structure that stands out most. Readers will need to be especially patient here, as the domaine's wines are typically very slow to mature. That is especially like to be the case with the 2014, as the tannins are quite imposing at this stage. The 2014 is going to need a considerable amount of time. The only question is how much. I expect the 2014 will still be magnificent at age thirty and likely beyond. The 2014 is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot that spent approximately 35 days on the skins. Olivier Bernard adds that the Merlots were brought in between October 10 and 17, which is quite late by the domaine's standards. Tasted three times. Rating: 92-95 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Apr 2015)
Particularly dark crimson. Intense nose. Quite thick and dense. Then soft and beguiling on the palate. Unusually low in acidity! Quite luscious. And a cool finish. Complete. Drinking range: 2022 - 2036 Rating: 17.5 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Apr 2015)
Whatever the vintage, Domaine de Chevalier is a wine that rarely disappoints. This is typically fresh and well balanced, with poise and concentration, well handled oak and the backbone and perfume you’d expect from such a high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon. Has the structure to age. Drinking range: 2022 - 2035 Rating: 93 Tim Atkin MW, www.timatkin.com (Apr 2015)
A solid and muscular Domaine de Chevalier with layers of fruit. Very dense, loads of flavor. Full body, bright acidity and a long, long finish. Tangy acidity. It lasts for minutes. Rating: 95-96 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Mar 2015)
Domaine de Chevalier
Domaine de Chevalier, located in Léognan and surrounded by forest, enjoys a particular microclimate. Unlike some of the Pessacs which are surrounded by urban development which raises the average temperature, Chevalier is quite a cool terroir.
Olivier Bernard has owned and run the estate since 1983, and has done much to improve the quality of the wines. The white has always been one of Bordeaux's finest, and is even better now, and Bernard has dramatically increased the quality of the red, especially in the last ten years.
Domaine de Chevalier has a soil of dark sand and fine white gravel. It is planted at 10,000 vines per hectare averaging 35 years old.
There are 7 Hectares planted for white with 70% Sauvignon and 30% Sémillon.
There are 60 Hectares planted for red, comprising 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc.
At the harvest the white grapes are picked in baskets with successive picking through the vines.
The red grapes are also picked in baskets, with triple sorting: first in the vines, then the complete bunch on the sorting table and third by optical sorting machine, berry by berry.
The white is pressed slowly, and settlement (débourbage) and alcoholic fermentation occur in the barrel, with 35% new wood. The wine is aged on the lees in barrel with stirring (batonnage), for 18 months.
The red grapes are vatted by gravity without pumping. The alcoholic fermentation in stainless steel and coated steel temperature-controlled vats. Maceration for 2 to 3 weeks with a maximum fermentation temperature of 30° C and manual pigeage. The wine is aged for 18 months (four months on the lees), with 35% new wood.
Please make sure that you have read the terms of this offer which are different from those of the main website. If you are unclear as to what is involved in primeur purchases please do call us, but see the 'practical notes' below.
Ordering
Prices are per case as listed 'in bond London'.
Pre-Orders are a firm commitment from you to buy the wines you order on release, subject to the price being below the upper price of the estimated band on our website. You may also set your own upper price limit, lower or higher than ours. Pre-orders will be fulfilled subject to availability. Providing this firm commitment to us effectively gives you priority.
Wines listed on the website (after any pre-orders and allocations have been fulfilled) can be ordered in the usual way via the website order form or by email or telephone 020 7221 1982, always subject to stock remaining.
Confirmation
All orders will be confirmed by email and are contractually binding unless written cancellation is received within seven days of the confirmation date, apart from pre-orders which are binding if the release price is below the top estimate or other price you have set.
Invoices are raised at the In Bond price, excluding any duty and VAT which will become payable at the prevailing rates on arrival of the wine if required duty paid.
Payment is required on sight of invoice, by cash, cheque, debit card or credit transfer. We reserve the right to charge 2% per month on invoices unpaid after 30 days.
Delivery
- Shipment to our bond (LCB Creek Road) and insurance are included in the in bond price.
- Delivery is free to Lea and Sandeman / Elephant storage accounts, both duty paid and in bond.
- Other deliveries (In Bond and Duty Paid) are also free subject to a minimum order from the offer of £1000, orders below this total will be charged £16.50+ VAT when the wine invoices are issued. We will group deliveries and this is a charge for your entire purchases, not a per-case charge.
- Delivery for 2016 Bordeaux primeurs will probably be completed by October 2019, but we make no guarantee as to specific delivery times, and some of the Sauternes may be later.
Practical notes - how it works
We start a sale in each customer's name and add all their primeur orders to one sale which is invoiced at the end of the campaign (or when the customer wishes) for immediate payment. We and our customers find that having a single invoice for the vintage is the simpler option, but do please note that confirmed orders are still binding as above even if the final invoice has not been issued.
When the wine is shipped, unless previously specified we will assume that delivery is to be to bonded storage with Elephant Storage, but in any case, we will contact you requesting any alternative instructions. If you have another bonded delivery address you would like the wine to go to, please tell us at the time of ordering. If the wines are required duty-paid we will issue invoices at the rates prevailing at the time for the excise duty (currently £25.98 per case) and the VAT (currently at 20%) on the total of the wine cost and the duty.
Half-bottles, Magnums and larger bottles.
One of the additional advantages of buying en primeur is being able to order the wine in the bottle size you want. Even if a wine is only listed in one size, you can order any bottle or case size you want if the property supplies it, but you must order the case/bottle size you require and check that the correct size has been invoiced.
Additional charges are as follows:-
- +£15 per case of 24 half-bottles
- +£15 per case of 6 Magnums (2 bottles equivalent, 1.5 litres each)
- +£35 per individually boxed Double Magnum (4 bottles equivalent, 3 litres)
- +£45 per individually boxed Imperial (8 bottles equivalent, 6 litres) for Salmanazars, Balthazars, Nebuchadnezzars and Melchiors please enquire for availability and price.