CHÂTEAU VALANDRAUD

84 Merlot, 8 Cabernet Franc, 8 Cabernet Sauvignon 100% new oak 15% alc 3.5 pH 35000 bottles produced You always know what you are getting yourself into when you taste Valandraud, and I feel myself starting a (mental) run-up as I approach this wine.  Yes, the statistics are pretty unnerving, and there is always a lot of wine to wrestle onto your palate and then try to make sense of its dimensions without the help of a team of helpers, but I must admit, this 2023 is a much more civilised wine than many.  Proud, full, swaggering and showy, while there is a lot of action and no expense spared on the CGI fruit notes, there is also terrific balance here in the form of dynamic acidity and profound minerality.  The oak seems to sit back and allow the purity and freshness to dictate the direction of this wine.  Hats off!  There was even a skip in my step as I moved away from this wine’s powerful tractor beam and onto my next victim! Rating: 18+ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (May 2024)

The 2023 Valandraud is a full-throttle, opulent Saint-Émilion endowed with notable textural richness and tons of intensity. This really feels pushed to the edge, but it pulls back at the very last second. Inky dark fruit, chocolate, new leather, licorice and menthol saturate the palate. I imagine that the 2023 will require a number of years to shed some of its baby fat. Harvest took place from September 20 to October 10—on the later side. Drinking range: 2030 - 2048 Rating: 94-96 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (May 2024)

The first time I tasted the 2023 Valandraud, a blend of 84% Merlot and 8% each Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, I found a nose of all cigar box, tobacco and smoky fire embers from the new oak, with rather desiccated layers of fruit, dried plum and prune, topped off with a light dusting of cinnamon and clove spice. Revisiting it a few days later I find the same, although the fruit comes out ahead of the oak – just – on this more recent encounter. The palate presents this flavour profile set in a glossy and velvety texture, with a rich, savoury and mouth-filling substance. There is a touch more toast, spice and coffee bean oak here, perhaps, with the plum and dried-cherry fruits, underpinned by plenty of grip, with a rich frame of tannins in evidence. These support the palate right through to the end, where they finally come out from beneath the fruit. An extraordinarily fragrant, tightly drawn and structured Valandraud in this vintage, which will need a long time in barrel and bottle before it will ever be approachable. Tasted twice. The alcohol is said to be close to 15%, which does not show on the palate at the moment, fingers crossed that remains the case. Rating: 94-96 Chris Kissack, www.thewinedoctor.com (Apr 2024)