L'Esprit de Chevalier Rouge 2020

FALSTAFF

WINE MANIACS

Smooth and ripe tannins, dominant red fruit mixed with some dark fruit. Filled with refreshing acidity, making for a highly palatable wine. Medium body, firm mid-palate, velvety texture.

JEFF LEVE, THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER

James Suckling

Impressive depth of fruit and polished tannins to this second wine of Domaine de Chevalier. Full and intense with beautiful texture and an attractive finish.

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

Fleshy and demonstrative, the 2020 L'Esprit de Chevalier bursts with aromas of sweet berries, plums and petals. Medium to full-bodied, rich and layered, with polished tannins and an expansive finish, it will drink well young.

This 67-hectare estate in Pessac-Léognan is at the top of its game today, and the 2019 vintage is a striking success. When the Bernard family purchased Domaine de Chevalier in 1983, the vineyards amounted to only 20 hectares; expansion followed in the woodlands (much of which remain) that occupy this site, on the same stony gravel and black sand over iron-rich clay that defines the estate's historic vineyards. It's a cold site in winter, surrounded by trees, but warm in summer, as the stones reflect heat and the black sands absorb it. Farming is now organic and biodynamic, with experiments with cover crops, unhedged canopies and drainage to improve more humid parcels. Sauvignon Blanc is planted in the estate's coolest sites, Cabernet Sauvignon on its warmest, and everything else is planted in between. Since 1983, Domaine de Chevalier has naturally evolved; as new plantings came online, the wines lost some of the intensity-without-weight that had always been their signature. In the early 2000s, a concerted effort was made to attain fuller maturity and more concentration, and the wines became a little chunkier and more obviously oaky, too, but recent years have seen a return to seamless elegance, without any loss of depth or persistence. In many respects, indeed, the last few vintages of Domaine de Chevalier bear a closer stylistic kinship to the great wines produced at this address in the 1970s and before than they do to the vintages of the early 2000s. Olivier Bernard and his team, in short, are to be congratulated for ushering in a new golden age at an estate that produces one of Bordeaux's most singular and characterful wines.