Need help? Call +44 (0)20 7793 7900 or email wine@goedhuiswaddesdon.com.
An inviting youthful nose of blackcurrants, bilberry and cassis, wrapped up with hints of smoky oak. The palate is succulent, deliciously juicy, and very true to the nose with flavours of sweet plum, black and redcurrants. Backed by fine-grained tannins, this is very pure and fruit forward, nicely balanced with a lingering spicy finish.
An inviting youthful nose of blackcurrants, bilberry and cassis, wrapped up with hints of smoky oak. The palate is succulent, deliciously juicy, and very true to the nose with flavours of sweet plum, black and redcurrants. Backed by fine-grained tannins, this is very pure and fruit forward, nicely balanced with a lingering spicy finish.
The 2019 Le Petit Smith Haut Lafitte has a lively bouquet of blackberry, briar and just a hint of espresso, classic in style and nicely focused. The palate is medium-bodied with a smooth texture and quite approachable in style (not "furry," as I found last year). It builds pleasantly toward the finish, which displays impressive density combined with elegance. A couple of years in bottle will do this fine.
The 2019 Le Petit Smith Haut Lafitte is fabulous. Rich, powerful and vibrant, Le Petit packs a serious punch. Readers will have a hard time keeping their hands off this jewel of a wine. Black cherry, plum, new leather, licorice, mocha and dried herbs build as this effusive, generous wine shows off its racy, alluring personality. I loved it.
This is a 2nd wine that you can always rely on for confidence and quality, and that begs to be opened with friends. Packed with cassis and bilberry fruit, smoked coffee beans ans an earthy edge. Sleek and enjoyable, can be drunk now with a carafe and over next 5 to 10 years. Supple tannins, don’t wait too long to maximise enjoyment of the bright fruits. 36hl/h yield, 20% new oak.
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.
