I certainly need to buy more Fronsac. The wines here offer very good value and in a vintage like 2025 they really do shine. The best terroirs here are on limestone and clay limestone and produce wines of complexity that can age well. More modern methods in the cellar combined with more attention in the vineyards have further transformed Fronsac in the last few decades and today the wines here offer increasing refinement and sophistication. This year I have been especially impressed by the wines of Château de La Dauphine, Château Dalem, Château Villars and Château La Vielle Cure. Château Fontenil, Château Les Trois Croix, Château Moulin Haut Laroque, Château de La Huste and Château de la Riverière also look very good.

Fronsac is usually a ‘go-to’ appellation for serious but good value Bordeaux. The finest properties here make excellent, ambitious wine, from exceptional limestone terroir. This over-achieving district doesn’t succeed as much in 2023 as it did 2022 [for me a knockout year for the wines of Fronsac] but there are still good wines to be had. I tasted nine wines blind in the Grand Cercle tastings back in late April. The picks? Château de la Dauphine has made savoury and attractive wine, alongside Château de la Rivière, Château La Huste and Château Fontenil. Château Moulin Haut Laroque also had lots of extract and texture. Château Villars and Château Dalem were good but lacked a bit of middle. They may well pick up depth during élevage. Château La Vieille Cure, usually up at the top of the pack, was not showing well on the day. That said, overall, there more consistency here amongst the wines than in the Castillon appellation in 2023.

There is great consistency to the wines of Fronsac in 2022. The wines showed great colour, plenty of fruit, good structure, nicely handled extraction and ripe tannins at the Grand Cercle event back in April. As a bunch, they were very impressive. I find this appellation really intriguing and it certainly offers value in this vintage for the quality. The picks? Château Dalem, Château de la Dauphine, Château de la Rivière, Château Fontenil and Château La Vieille Cure are all seriously impressive and worth seeking out. This will be a vintage that will age well in bottle but should offer lots of drinking pleasure early on.

A brilliant set of wines have been made in Fronsac in 2020. It completes a run of three wonderfully impressive vintages here 2018-2020. I wonder if perhaps this year pips the rest in terms of balance and harmony. The wines show exceptional freshness and zap, alongside ripeness and there seems to be even greater vibrancy here this year than in 2019. Of the wines I’ve tasted, no one has put a foot wrong in my book, so if you still see any of these offered, you’d not be disappointed. At the very top we have Château Dalem, Château de la Dauphine and Château La Vielle Cure, who have all produced terrific wines but excellent Fronsac has also been made at Château Fontenil and Château de la Rivière. Do search these any of these out.