2016 Le Bon Pasteur
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2016 Le Bon Pasteur has a more dainty nose, well defined and leaning more towards red fruit, wild strawberry and raspberry, mixed with potpourri and white pepper scents. The palate is well balanced with pliant tannins. Maybe there is a touch more extraction compared with its peers, but it retains balance and there is a pastille-like purity mixed with pepperiness towards the finish that shows just a simulacrum of heat. Tasted blind at the Southwold 10-Year-On tasting.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
Wine Spectator
More reviews and scores
Tasted blind. Very dark. Exotic. Only just not overripe. Sweet and round. A little more freshness wouldn’t go amiss but it’s pretty impressive. (JR)
A surprisingly elegant, medium to full-bodied effort from the genius of the Rolland family (this is their property in Pomerol), the 2016 Château Le Bon Pasteur offers loads of barbecue smoke, graphite, violets, and vibrant black and blue fruits in a complex, layered, classy package. With fine tannins, good concentration, and a pretty, perfumed style, it’s not a blockbuster by any means, but it’s beautifully balanced, with everything in the right place. It will benefit from short-term cellaring and drink well for two decades.
About the producer
Famed winemaking consultant Michel Rolland is synonymous with this estate. The vines here were purchased by his grandparents and he ran the property from 1979. Although Rolland still makes the wine today, he sold the estate in 2013.