Château Laroque has produced a wonderful wine in 2022. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. This large, historic property has seriously been on the up since the arrival of David Suire. The ‘22 follows on from a series of impressive vintages here, starting with the ‘18 and followed on by excellent wines in ‘19 and ‘20. Prior to these vintages the wine was distributed exclusively and not sold through the Place de Bordeaux. All that has changed. I’ve been offered Laroque ’22 en primeur by at least half a dozen independent merchants in the UK this week. Buyers have cottoned on to the improvements here. Price-wise, even with a bit of an uplift this year, Laroque remains something of a bargain. I tasted the ’22 in after an afternoon that included tasting Château Figeac, Château Canon-la-Gaffelière and La Mondotte. Laroque held its own. This is a seriously good ’22, perhaps even more impressive at this stage than the remarkable ’18 was during primeurs.

Hopefully you weren’t holding your breath. The delay in getting Part 2 of my review of the Grands Crus Classés of St Emilion up and published was due to a combination of COVID over the winter break and then the volume of other work in January which blew me off track. Anyhow, finally here is my summary of the second tranche of twenty-one 2018s St Emilion classed growths tasted last September. Again, these are a generally rich and ripe set of wines, some quite precocious, and many already a joyful drink. Alongside these, properties also showed one other vintage. As in my earlier piece, the 2016s really impressed, but so too did many 2017s. So what are the picks?

Way back in early September the Association de Grands Crus Classés de Saint-Emilion put on a tasting high up above London at Landing Forty Two in the remarkable Leadenhall Building. The views were impressive. So were many of the wines. Ostensibly it was an opportunity to taste the joyful 2018 vintage, but each producer also offered an additional, older vintage. This was fascinating. For me it also confirmed the superlative quality of the 2016 vintage in St Emilion, but also the quality of some of the rather unsung 2017s. In fact, there were quite a few properties to my mind that performed better in ’17 than they did in ’18 – and that was no mean feat given the challenges of the frost that so badly affected the former vintage. Given that some 45 different chateau were represented at the tasting, I’m dividing my report into two parts. This one contains notes and thoughts on some twenty-four properties [and forty-seven wines], starting with Château Barde-Haut and ending with Château Franc-Mayne [essentially half of them alphabetically].

There are many properties to search out in the St Emilion satellite appellations. For the last few years I’ve been impressed with the wines of Château Barbe Blanche, Château La Rose Perrière and Château de Lussac in Lussac St Emilion. There is real polish and style exhibited here by these properties. Over in Montagne St Emilion Coralie de Boüard is blazing a trail with Château Clos de Boüard but this year I have also been impressed with Château Faizeau, Château Messile-Aubert and Vieux Château Palon presented by the Grand Cercle. Overall in 2020 all these wines show strong colours and exhibit lots of extract but the winemaking is sophisticated and the tannins soft and pure.