Tasting fourteen wines from St Estèphe shows just what a wonderful vintage this is for many properties here in 2019. There is plenty of lush fruit on offer and these are wines with lots of extract, big, ripe tannins and considerable alcohol. I have already posted on Château Cos d’Estournel and Château Calon Ségur, which have both produced brilliant St Estèphe. I was also struck by the quality at Château Lafon Rochet, which has produced a wine of sophistication and class in this vintage. What great strides have been made here by Basile Tesseron over the past decade – starting with an impressive 2009. There are excellent wines to be had from Château Meyney and Château Haut-Marbuzet too. Both have produced typically concentrated St Estèphe in 2019 and are definitely worth seeking out. I also enjoyed with offerings from Château de Pez, Château Serilhan, Château Le Petit Bocq and Château Bernard Magrez. They have all produced impressive wine.

Well there is no doubting the richness of Château Calon Ségur in 2019. They have produced another profound St Estèphe to rival 2018 here. For me that remarkable wine still pips this 2019, but only just. Château Calon Ségur is decadent, verging on the unctuous in 2019. It displays beautiful blackcurrant and violent scented fruit and there is a boatload of ripe extract and tannin here too. The 2018 felt a fraction more nimble from memory, but I’d really like to see these two vintages side by side when there bottled. Obviously 2019 is a terrific wine regardless of the comparison. Both Le Marquis de Calon Ségur and Château Capbern weigh in at a heady 15.1% alcohol. Le Marquis impressed much more. It has plenty of rich fruit and volume and feels decadent almost.

Bordeaux 2018 reaches its hedonistic heights in the northern Haut-Médoc, and no more so than in St Estèphe. At Château Calon Ségur one of the most remarkable wines has been made. This property has had a very impressive run here over the last decade. That said, the 2018 is a legend in the making. The fruit is spectacular, the style is sublime and the wine is voluptuous. For me it was the most memorable wine [amongst many] during primeurs back in April. Not surprisingly word quickly got out. The wine was the most expensive Calon released en primeur and it is now offered at a price higher than any other vintage in the past decade. I guess for a Bordeaux that has first growth unambiguously stamped all over it, and considering the world’s screaming eagles, maybe £1000 a case could still be considered a snip.

St Estèphe has made some very good wine in 2015 but the appellation has not done as well as in 2014 in my book. This is down to the heavy rain showers in mid September, the residual effect of ‘Storm Henry,’ that arrived on the eve of the Merlot harvest, a key varietal component to many of the wines in St Estèphe. While conditions improved from mid September until early October, how estates and different terroirs responded to these conditions determined the relative levels of success. There are some top wines in the appellation – Château Cos d’Estournel, Château Montrose, Château Calon-Ségur, Château Lafon-Rochet and Château Meyney spring to mind – but there is not the uniformity here for me of 2014, nor the exciting power in the wines. Whether 2015 will claw back some of that ground during elévage remains to be seen.