2021 CHÂTEAU PALMER 3ème Cru Classé Margaux, Lea & Sandeman

CHÂTEAU PALMER

2021 3ème Cru Classé Margaux

Grapes Petit Verdot, Merlot, Cab Sauv
Colour Red
Origin France, Bordeaux
Other Certified Organic
Sub-district Haut Médoc
Village Margaux
Classification 3ème Cru Classé
ABV 13.5%

This wine is very fragrant, with blackberries, blueberries, black olives, bark and forest floor as well as some minerals and stone. Medium-bodied with racy and firm tannins that build to a fresh and steely finish. Needs three to five years to soften. You can almost taste the skins. Reminiscent of the 1995 Palmer but with more precision. 56% merlot, 41% cabernet sauvignon and 3% petit verdot. Best after 2028. Rating: 95 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Jul 2024)


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Vivid ruby and violet colour, this is a brilliant wine, inky and with clear supple give to the tannins. Give it a full 8 to 10 years before drinking, and here you feel that they have sacrificed very little to the vintage, this feels entirely Palmer in character. Savoury but abundant blue and black fruits, plenty of crayon, cocoa bean and slate, with a floral prettiness and a mouthwatering finish. 27hl/h yield, harvest September 24 to October 16, 55% new oak (first year in barrel, second year in larger oak caks of 3,000l). Drinking range: 2028 - 2043 Rating: 96 Jane Anson, Decanter (Apr 2024)

The 2021 Palmer is a heady, showy wine. Clay-rich soils yield a Margaux of breadth, power and textural richness. Black cherry, lavender, mocha and dried herbs infuse the 2021 with tons of character. A wine of density and intensity, this is seriously impressive. It is also going to need time to fully blossom. There’s real juiciness from the Merlot, and an exotic quality that suggests it was picked on the later side. The 2021 spent one year in barrel and one year in cask, as is the norm these days here. Drinking range: 2031 - 2061 Rating: 96 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Feb 2024)

The 2021 Palmer, which is 80% matured in foudres and the second year in regular barriques, has a very intense and well-defined bouquet. I feel that this is the first vintage where Duroux's incremental increase in foudres is moderating the impact of wood on the nose, now much more discrete and terroir-driven, with pure black fruit and a touch of brine/seaweed. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit, quite velvety in texture, with a keen line of acidity and a judicious sprinkling of cracked black pepper on the finish. This Palmer seems to ride the challenges of the growing season and comes out the other side with a very classically styled wine that has intellectual heft. Drinking range: 2030 - 2065 Rating: 94 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Feb 2024)

Château Palmer

Margaux Troisième cru 1855 What is now Château Palmer was originally part of a larger Château d'Issan but was divided among heirs and came into the ownership of the Gascq family in 1748. The widow of the last of the Gascqs, in 1814, and apparently having met him on a stagecoach, sold the estate to an Englishman, General Charles Palmer, and Château de Gascq became Château Palmer. He extended the estate and built quite a reputation for his wines (especially in London) but financial difficulties forced him to sell up in 1843 and, by the time of the 1855 classification, the reputation of Château Palmer had slipped sufficiently to rate "only" 3rd Growth status - a status it has exceded for most of its subsequent history. The present château was built at the end of the 1850's. In 1938 the Société Civile de Château Palmer was formed to take ownership of the estate, with the Sichel and Mähler-Besse families as leading shareholders, a situation which persists to this day. Château Palmer sits between Margaux and Cantenac, just east of Issan. The 55ha of vines are planted to 47% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with the balance being Petit Verdot. The Grand Vin spends 21 months in wood (45% new). The second wine is Alter Ego de Château Palmer. In the best years of General Palmer's reign, the wines of Château Palmer were regarded on a par with those of Château Margaux and, indeed, during the worst years of the 1960's Palmer probably had a better reputation. Today, despite huge improvements by its neighbours, Palmer sits very squarely as the leading Margaux estate that isn't actually Château Margaux.

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