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This is a feel-good wine, if ever there was one. Lively bright wild hedgerow fruits, with hints of smoke and coffee bean. A graceful and giving style, which in the words of one critic, fires on all cylinders… Extremely complete and will give enormous pleasure with age.
This is a feel-good wine, if ever there was one. Lively bright wild hedgerow fruits, with hints of smoke and coffee bean. A graceful and giving style, which in the words of one critic, fires on all cylinders… Extremely complete and will give enormous pleasure with age.
The 2015 Domaine de Chevalier Blanc has a strict, terse, mineral-driven bouquet, full of energy and very focused. The oak is well assimilated here. The balanced palate offers Golden Delicious apple, white pepper and light pear notes on the entry. Displaying good depth, and perhaps one of the spicier dry white Bordeaux, this feels very long and assured toward the finish. Superb. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.
The 2015 Domaine de Chevalier is a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot picked from 23 September until 15 October at just 35 hl/ha, matured in 35% new oak. It has a sophisticated bouquet that is more reserved than its peers. It possesses one of the most precise, detailed aromatic profiles that I have encountered from this estate, wonderfully poised with black fruit, incense and cold stone. It has wonderful focus and class. The palate is medium-bodied with very fine tannin, very complex with lightly peppered black fruit. What marks this Domaine de Chevalier is the reserve and precision on the finish, a wine that is holding something back for its secondary evolution, a salinity that beckons you back for another sip. What a fabulous, intellectual wine from Olivier Bernard. Expect four decades of drinking pleasure - probably more - given my experience of ancient vintages. Tasted three times with consistent notes.
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The 2015 Domaine de Chevalier is composed of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot. It went through malolactic and aging on its lees during three months in 35% new, 35% one-year-old and 30% two-year-old barrels, with a total aging of 18 months. Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, it has lovely spiciness on the nose—Chinese five spice and black pepper—with a core of red and black cherries and smoked meats. Medium-bodied, finely crafted and refreshing, it's quite minerally in the mouth and persistent on the finish. Lisa Perrotti Brown Score 95/100 Drink Dates 2022-2042
This shows class and finesse with ultra-fine tannins and succulent fruit. Full body yet elegant and long. Gorgeous wine. Such length. Vibrant and focused.
Sexy burnish of charcoal-grilled rich black cherry fruit with firmly held tannins. A lovely wine – fairly high powered compared to some; this is one to cellar for a while. 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 33% new oak.
(63 Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 Merlot, 5 Petit Verdot, 2 Cabernet Franc) Dense, briary and full, there is an extra dimension of power and extraction here which is impressive and very well handled because it leads with fruit and not oak and the tannins are juicy and mouth-watering and not dry or astringent. Gentle handling is the key here and even though this is a big wine is it still impeccably balanced.
Great tension and subtlety. Extremely savoury - almost salty - with freshness and ripeness. Not one of the deepest colours. Lovely appetising low-key classicism. Bravissimo à tous! Drink 2024-2045
Outperformed (only just) by some of its neighbours in 2015, but Domaine de Chevalier is still hard to beat for value and consistency. Firm and smoky with a carapace of tannin concealing the plummy, fruitcake-like flavours beneath. The acidity brings freshness to the finish. Drink: 2022-35
Offers an open, easy feel. The creamy structure lets juicy plum and raspberry notes flow along and linger on the finish. Almost languid in character, and very suave
Stretching from the rather unglamorous southern suburbs of Bordeaux, for 50 km along the left bank of the river Garonne, lies Graves. Named for its gravelly soil, a relic of Ice Age glaciers, this is the birthplace of claret, despatched from the Middle Ages onwards from the nearby quayside to England in vast quantities. It can feel as though Bordeaux is just about red wines, but some sensational white wines are produced in this area from a blend of sauvignon blanc, Semillon and, occasionally, muscadelle grapes, often fermented and aged in barrel. In particular, Domaine de Chevalier is renowned for its superbly complex whites, which continue to develop in bottle over decades. A premium appellation, Pessac-Leognan, was created in 1987 for the most prestigious terroirs within Graves. These are soils with exceptional drainage, made up of gravel terraces built up in layers over many millennia, and consequently thrive in mediocre vintages but are less likely to perform well in hotter years. These wines were appraised and graded in their own classification system in 1953 and updated in 1959, but, like the 1855 classification system, this should be regarded with caution and the wines must absolutely be assessed on their own current merits.
