Château La Conseillante 2010

Vinum Wine Magazine

Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider

Just about to enter its prime-time drinking window, the wine balances its sensuality with its vibrant core of ripe, sweet, plums, chocolate with truffles with a floral edge. The combination of finesse and silky on the palate hits all the right notes. Drink 2022-2040.

Jeb Dunnuck

The 2010 La Conseillante is a tour de force that will rival the 2005, 2000, and 1990 at maturity. Just loaded with notions of blackcurrants, damp earth, tobacco leaf, violets and toasty oak, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, building, ripe tannin, and a huge finish. Sexy and opulent, yet also classy and elegant, it’s a sensational Pomerol that has another three decades of life ahead of it.
This tiny, yet brilliantly run estate covers 11.8 hectares of sandy, gravely soils located between Vieux Château Certain, Château L’Evangile, and Cheval Blanc. Managed by the talented and vivacious Marielle Cazaux, they produce one of the most exotic, perfumed, and elegant wines of the appellation, yet it never lacks for fruit and/or texture. Harvest is all by hand and done block by block, the grapes are fermented in concrete tanks, and the wine spends roughly 18 months in 70% new French oak, from a number of different coopers including Seguin-Moreau, Taransaud, Baron, and Darnajou. Production is around 3,200 cases. While all of the recent vintages showed beautifully, I suspect the 2016 will be the finest wine to date from this estate.

Decanter Magazine

Individual judges’ scores: Stephen Brook 18.5 James Lawther MW 18.5 Steven Spurrier 18.5 Adjoining Cheval Blanc, La Conseillante has a similar diversity of soils and subtlety of style. It has been owned for 140 years by the Nicolas family of Libourne. The winemaker since 2004 has been Jean-Michel Laporte, who has maintained, and even amplified, the already considerable reputation of this 12-hectare estate. One fifth of the domaine is planted with Cabernet Franc, though Laporte would like to increase it. The winemaking is classic, and now facilitated by a new cellar, opened in 2012, equipped with concrete vats. The wine has enough heft to support ageing in entirely new oak in top years, though Laporte will diminish the proportion in lesser years. For many, this is quintessential Pomerol, especially with age. Stephen Brook: Rich, suave, opulent and chocolatey, with lovely texture and fine depth of fruit. Very concentrated yet not extracted, with a lively, peppery finish. Admirable length and finesse. Modern but well judged. James Lawther MW: Opulent fruit. Suave and smooth on the palate. Polished tannins. Rich and luxurious. Loads of fruit extract. Well defined. Steven Spurrier: Finely concentrated, irony nose; already lots of depth and character and good, earthy fruit. Natural richness on the palate, with acidity blended in and tannins there to back it up for a very good future.

James Suckling

The nose is exuberant, with pure violets and berries. Insane. This is so straight and racy, with super fine tannins and a long, long finish. There is a minimalist clarity to the wine. Superb.

Bettane et Desseauve

La Revue du Vin de France

Jane Anson - Inside Bordeaux

Falstaff

Dark ruby, opaque core, purple reflections, delicate bright rim. Underlaid with fine oak aromas, black wild berry, attractive fruit, fine herbal savouriness. Complex, ripe soft cherry fruit, vivid well-integrated tannins, pronounced fruit and persistent, very good length, it has certain ageing potential, elegant and silky.