2019 Chateau La Gaffeliere, Saint-Emilion, France (750ml)

WINEMAKER'S NOTES: 

#67 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2022

Blend: 60% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Franc

TASTING NOTES: 

This estate has made a dark, dense wine in this vintage. That density is penetrated by the freshness of the black currant fruits. The result is a wine that is powered both by structure and crisp fruit. There is definitely plenty of aging potential here.
Barrel Sample: 95-97

- Wine Enthusiast, 97 pts. 

A vibrant, fragrant red with aromas of blackberries, currants, walnuts and mint chocolate. Medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins. Pretty walnut notes on the polished finish. Fantastic length. Driven acidity and focus.

- James Suckling, 96 pts. 

An estate with a gathering sense of excitement around it, and once again proves why with the 2019. Sleek and flavourful, with the insistent tug of limestone slowing things down and allowing the juice and the tension to really inform the palate. Creamy texture also, with blueberry and raspberry fruit played gently against tobacco and crushed stone minerality. Highly successful.
Barrel Sample: 95

- Decatner, 95 pts. 

The flagship 2019 Château La Gaffeliere is mostly Merlot, yet the cuvée always includes around 15% Cabernet Franc. It offers a complex array of spiced red and black fruits, cedary herbs, lead pencil, and a kiss of tobacco to go with a medium-bodied, elegant, impressively balanced style on the palate. It shows the more classic style of the vintage, has no hard edges, and is going to be relatively accessible in its youth yet also age gracefully.
Barrel Sample: 93-95

- Jeb Dunnuck, 95 pts. 

The 2019 La Gaffelière wafts from the glass with a rich bouquet of blackberries and cherries mingled with subtle hints of burning embers and loamy soil that's framed by a deft application of creamy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and seamless, it's a concentrated, vibrant wine built around bright acids and fine, powdery tannins. Its vivid fruit tones and classical balance make this Cabernet Franc-rich blend a promising candidate for sustained bottle age. Anyone who has tasted the great wines this estate produced in the 1950's and 1960's knows how great this site can be; and with stricter selection as well as the elimination of fruit from vines growing on the plain from the blend, that potential appears to be being unleashed at last.

- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 95 pts. 

This rolls out dense fig, boysenberry and red currant paste flavors laced with pronounced chalky minerality and notes of tobacco, dried anise and juniper. The serious tannic drive on the finish puts this in the 'classically austere' camp. Worth cellaring for sure, but patience is required.

- Wine Spectator, 94 pts.