CHÂTEAU KIRWAN
2020 3ème Cru Classé Margaux
51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc, 7 % Petit Verdot 14 % vol. PH 3.64. 33 hl/ha. Picked September 14th to 25th.L&S (Apr 2021)
* 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.
Attractive nose of hazelnuts, chocolate, blueberries, blackcurrants, peach pits and sandalwood. Hints of olives and mushrooms, too. Complex, layered and integrated, with a medium to full body and powdery tannins. Long and savory at the end. Drink from 2025. Rating: 94 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (May 2023)
The 2020 Kirwan is quite the powerhouse, just as it was en primeur. Élevage has softened some of the contours, but Kirwan remains a bruiser. Dark fruit, scorched earth, gravel, incense, tobacco and cedar add to an impression of virile intensity. The 2020 is a good wine, but it is not exactly elegant. Even so, it does have character. There is no denying that. Drinking range: 2027 - 2040 Rating: 91 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Feb 2023)
The 2020 Kirwan has quite an expressive nose with blackberry, mint, incense and touches of orange zest. It gains intensity with aeration, quite open and expressive. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit, fine delineation, balanced and poised with ample concentration on the finish. Fine precision here, a really quite excellent Kirwan. Drinking range: 2025 - 2045 Rating: 92 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Feb 2023)
Attractive nose of hazelnuts, chocolate, blueberries, blackcurrants, peach pits and sandalwood. Hints of olives and mushrooms, too. Complex, layered and integrated, with a medium to full body and powdery tannins. Long and savory at the end. Drink from 2025. Rating: 94 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Dec 2022)
This is a little more red-fruited than many of its neighbours and it holds this fruit fairly well on the palate, but like so many Margaux in 2020, it falls away and becomes searingly dry and far too resinous. There is an under ripe feel on the finish, too. Rating: 15.5+ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (Jun 2021)
The 2020 Kirwan is a pretty tough, brooding wine. It will be interesting to see if the searing tannins soften during élevage. There is good depth to the fruit, but I am not sure if that will be enough to balance the tannins. Red purplish berries, gravel, smoke and grilled herbs linger. This is an especially potent, brooding style. Drinking range: 2030 - 2045 Rating: 88-91 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Jun 2021)
The 2020 Kirwan, cropped at 33hl/ha and tank-fed via gravity, undergoes an 18- to 22-month élevage. It offers ripe black currant and raspberry coulis scents on the nose, violets and citrus peel emerging with time. There is a seductiveness to these aromatics. The palate is medium-bodied with a sweet, ripe entry that disguises the backbone, a very silky texture and traces of tobacco and graphite furnishing the opulent finish. One of the more luxuriant Margaux 2020s. Drinking range: 2025 - 2045 Rating: 91-93 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2021)
The deep purple 2020 Château Kirwan offers a rocking bouquet of jammy blackberries, blueberries, violets, cedary oak, and sappy flowers. Playing in the medium to full-bodied, rich, concentrated end of the spectrum, on the palate it shows the more focused and elegant style of the vintage, with wonderful tannins and impressive purity of fruit. This is another strong showing by Château Kirwan that will benefit from 4-6 years of bottle age and have more than two decades of longevity. Rating: 92-94 Jeb Dunnuck, www.jebdunnuck.com (May 2021)
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2020 Kirwan prances out of the glass with pretty scents of redcurrant jelly, black raspberries and Morello cherries, followed by hints of lavender, black tea and dried Provence herbs, with a touch of tree bark. The medium-bodied palate has fantastic tension and fine-grained tannins framing the tightly wound red fruit and savory layers, finishing long and refreshing. Drinking range: 2025 - 2040 Rating: 91 - 93+ Lisa Perrotti-Brown, RobertParker.com (May 2021)
Classic and powerful with plenty of architectural features giving angles and walls as the wine stretches out. This has confidence and juice, but lacks exuberance. The tannins are pretty high, there is some chewiness, a little austere, it will benefit from softening over ageing. 7% Petit Verdot completes the blend. A yield of 33hl/ha. Drinking range: 2028 - 2042 Rating: 92 Jane Anson, Decanter (May 2021)
51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Franc, 7% Petit Verdot. Black core with purplish rim. Intense blackcurrant aroma and a lovely lift from all that Cab Franc – lively dark-red fruits. Juicy, bright and yet well structured. Complete, harmonious and fresh. Not a blockbuster but all in proportion. Drinking range: 2028 - 2038 Rating: 17 Julia Harding MW, www.JancisRobinson.com (Apr 2021)
Château Kirwan
Margaux Troisième cru 1855
The distinctively Irish name is derived from Mark Kirwan who, in 1751, married the daughter of Sir John Collingwood, who had purchased La Terre Noble de la Salle in 1710. Their Irish ancestory allowed the Kirwans to escape the worst privations of the Revolution and to emerge in the Napoleonic era bigger and better than before. Unusually for a Bordelais estate, the vineyard area at 37 hectares is unchanged since. Château Kirwan came into the hands of the Schÿler family in 1925, and they own it to this day.
Château Kirwan is in the village of Cantenac. The vineyards, with vines an average of 30 years old, are planted at 9000 vines per hectare with 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and an unusually high 8% Petit Verdot, planted on the classic Haut Médoc terroir of deep Pyrenean gravels up to six metres deep. Production is around 200,000 bottles, representing 40-45hl/ha. Picking is by hand, into small (6 kg) boxes for transport to the winery, where the grapes are double-sorted before fermentation in tulip-shaped concrete tanks, using selected yeasts and malolactic bacteria to ensure the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations happen simultaneously, over a period of 7 to 15 days at temperatures controlled not to exceed 25-26C. Pumping-over is used over the 18-25 day time in vat. The Grand Vin spends up to 18-21 months in barrel, of which around a third are new every year. The wines are racked every 3 or 4 months and fined with egg white.
Whilst not being among the cream of the Margaux crop, Château Kirwan is a steady producer and relatively good value. A tendency to slightly over-extracted fruit and lots of well-toasted oak has abated now that Eric Boissenot has taken over from Michel Rolland as consultant oenologist
Please make sure that you have read the terms of this offer which are different from those on the main website. If you are unclear as to what is involved in primeur purchases please do contact our private client team via email or on 020 7018 0187.
Ordering
Prices are all in bond by the case size stated.
Pre-Orders are a firm commitment to buy wines on release, as long as the release price is within the upper and lower price bands set by you on the pre-order form. Pre-orders will be fulfilled subject to availability but providing this firm commitment to buy effectively gives you priority and is a good idea for the most desirable wines.
Wines listed on the website can be ordered in the usual way via the website wishlist order form. You can also send orders directly to our private client team via email. Please note that, for the most sought-after wines, priority will be given to those who ordered the same wines last year and to those that have pre-ordered.
Confirmation
All orders will be confirmed by email and are binding unless written cancellation is received within seven days of email confirmation. Pre-orders are not binding if the release price is above your upper price band.
Invoices are all raised at the in bond price (excluding any duty and VAT) which will become payable at the prevailing rates when the wines arrive in the UK, should you wish to take duty paid delivery.
Payment is required on sight of invoice, by cash, cheque, debit card or bank transfer. We regret we cannot accept credit cards for en primeur orders. We reserve the right to apply a dunning charge of 2% per month on invoices unpaid after 30 days.
Delivery
- Shipment to our bond (at 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 £500. Orders below this total will be charged an administration and handling fee of £16.50+ VAT when invoices are issued. We will group deliveries and this is a charge for your entire purchases, not a per-case charge.
- Delivery of 2024 Bordeaux bought en primeur is expected during 2027. Delivery dates may vary as wines are shipped from Bordeaux at different times.
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). Immediate payment of invoices is then required by cash, cheque, debit card or bank transfer. We and our customers find that having a single invoice for the vintage is the simpler option but please note that confirmed orders are still binding even if the final invoice has not yet been issued.
Please specify on your wishlist order form where you would like the wines shipped on arrival in the UK. If this is to a third-party bonded warehouse, please specify the relevant account details. If the wines are required duty-paid we will issue a second invoice for duty and VAT at the prevailing rate when the wines are available for delivery.
Half-bottles, Magnums and larger bottles.
One of the additional advantages of buying en primeur is being able to order the wine in the format you want. While most of our listings are for 75cl bottles, we can source wines in any format that is offered by the Château. Please note that format requests cannot be changed once wines have been invoiced. Additional charges for special formats do apply and are as follows:-
- +£18.00 per case of 12 half-bottles
- +£30.00 per case of 24 half-bottles
- +£7.50 per case of 3 Magnums (2 bottles equivalent, 1.5 litres each)
- +£11.00 per case of 6 Magnums
- +£45.00 per individually boxed Double Magnum (4 bottles equivalent, 3 litres)
- +£60.00 per individually boxed Imperial (8 bottles equivalent, 6 litres) for Salmanazars, Balthazars, Nebuchadnezzars and Melchiors please enquire for availability and price.
Storage Options:
Wines bought en primeur won't arrive in the UK until 2027. If you do not wish to take home delivery at that point, you may wish to consider where you would like the wines shipped. Lea & Sandeman offers duty paid and in bond storage through a dedicated storage company called Elephant Storage. For more details on the terms and fees associated with storage please go to our Storage Homepage or contact our private client team for more information.