2018 - La Conseillante, Pomerol

La Conseillante 2018 is deep garnet purple in color. It offers scents of baked black cherries, chocolate box, and warm blueberries, with hints of black raspberries, menthol, and cinnamon stick. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is firm and grainy, with a lively backbone and vibrant, pure fruit, finishing with skip in its step.

The 2018 La Conseillante was given a two-hour decant and then monitored over the following 12 hours. What a stupendous Pomerol! It has a bravura nose that immediately seduces the olfactory senses, delivering a cornucopia of black cherries, cassis, crushed violets and iris. Such intensity here, and then it blossoms, accentuating its floral component while retaining the DNA of Pomerol. The palate is exquisitely balanced with fine tannins that frame the pure black cherry and strawberry fruit. But it is the texture and the harmony of this La Conseillante that knocks you sideways, that tertiary finish that I noticed out of barrel gone, replaced by satin-textured, almost citrus-fresh fruit. Marielle Cazaux and her team have overseen a brilliant La Conseillante.

Knitted-down fruits and muscular tannins that are rippled through with juice and salinity. As it opens the palate is flooded with redcurrant, raspberry, white pepper and truffle spice and you get incredible richness coupled floral aromatics, a push and pull between concentration and finesse. 70% new oak, 27% one year barrels with the introduction of 3% amphora from this vintage (no stems used during winemaking at La Conseillante). 32.5hl/h yield after mildew - this is the year that they gave up on organic conversion in order to carry out just one treatment that they felt was essential. Harvest September 19 to October 4.