2018 - Meyney, Saint-Estephe

This could easily be kept for another five years before opening, but honestly you are going to get a ton of pleasure if you don't wait and instead just ensure you have opened it up with a good three or four hours in a carafe. It's a consistently good quality estate, with 51ha of vines just next to Château Montrose but unclassified and often one of the best value St Estèphes - particulary in 2018, where Estuary breezes were so helpful during the heat of September. Majors on fleshy, almost primary blackberry and raspberry fruits, powerful but restrained, with a ton of spice through the finish. Reactive winemaking choices also, as they ensured one week maceration of the grapes with their skins than usual to ensure the ripe fruits weren't overplayed. Yield 49hl/h. Harvest 24 September to 11 October.

The 2018 Meyney is deep garnet-purple in color. It storms out of the glass with notes of baked plums, crème de cassis, and blueberry, plus suggestions of unsmoked cigars, wood smoke, and cracked pepper. Medium-bodied, the palate has a sturdy frame of chewy tannins and seamless fruit, with a savory finish.

The 2018 Meyney has opened up slightly on the nose since I tasted it from barrel, gradually revealing attractive scents of brambly black fruit, raspberry, Indian ink and hints of sage and clove. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins, well-judged acidity and plenty of graphite toward the finish, which just needs to develop more precision. This feels a bit blocky at the moment, but I am sure it will eventually come round.