Château la Conseillante 2022

JEB DUNNUCK

A wine that has perfection written all over it is the 2022 Chateau La Conseillante, which is 87% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Franc that’s still resting in 70% new French oak, with a tiny amount in amphora as well. Revealing a vivid purple hue, it offers a perfumed yet incredibly classy, almost discreet bouquet of crème de cassis, spring flowers, red plums, incense, and spice. This terroir never seems to yield the biggest, richest wine in a vintage, yet it's almost unrivaled in its ability to deliver complexity and elegance. Full-bodied on the palate, with ultra-fine tannins, flawless balance, and again, a purity of fruit that's just about off the charts, it's going to offer pleasure with just 4-6 years of bottle age (these usually enter their prime drinking window a decade after a vintage) and have 30-40 years of prime drinking. The 2022 hit 13.9% alcohol with a pH of 3.65.

ROBERT PARKER WINE ADVOCATE

The 2022 La Conseillante is a remarkable wine that has the potential to emerge as one of the wines of the vintage. A blend of 87% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Franc, it unfurls in the glass with deep aromas of black raspberries and mulberries mingled with notions of rose petals, violets, orange zest and mint. Medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, it's velvety and enveloping, with a textural attack that segues into a multidimensional mid-palate that's framed by sweet, powdery tannins, concluding with a long, saline finish. Checking in at a very healthy pH of 3.65 and 14% alcohol, it is a beautifully supple, suave wine that retains all this estate's signature elegance but in a slightly deeper-pitched and broader-shouldered format than the profound 2020. Congratulations to winemaker Marielle Cazaux, consulting enologist Thomas Duclos, the Nicolas family led by Jean-Valmy, and all the team at La Conseillante who have firmly established this estate at the very top of Pomerol's qualitative hierarchy in recent vintages.

JEFF LEVE, THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER

If you ever wondered what a chocolate, violet smells like, check out the perfume here. Dark, almost opaque in color, the wine is pure silk, and velvet on the palate. There is a sense of luxury, as well as approachability here. Viscous, deep, and concentrated, yet, also, light, elegant, sensuous, and multi-faceted, the finish, looks at the 60 second mark, and just keeps on going. This is hedonism at its best. 2022 is at the level of the perfect 2016, if not even better. This is what rock-star wine is all about. La Conseillante lovers should be all over this wine! The wine blends 87% Merlot with 13% Cabernet Franc, with 8% press wine. 14% ABV, 3.65 pH. The harvest took place September 5 - September 20. Yields were 33 hectoliters per hectare. Drink from 2027-2060.

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