2022 Clos Fourtet
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Tasting Notes
The 2022 Clos Fourtet has a lovely sense of overriding freshness and balance, which is significant in this vintage due to the heat during the growing season. The wine is one part fruit, one part mineral with moreish, earthy savoury notes sitting alongside blackberry fruit and dark chocolate coated tannins. There is a lovely fan-tail finish with licorice and floral violet notes. The tannins are supremely fine, bringing finesse, while the palate is held together with a subtle underlying tension. This is superb.
Critic Scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
Harvested around the 9th of September and based on 90% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 3% Cabernet Franc (it also includes grapes from the discontinued Grandes Murailles bottling), the 2022 Château Clos Fourtet reveals a vivid purple hue as well as aromatics of black cherries, blackberries, white flowers, and crushed stone. A quintessential Saint-Emilion from the upper plateau, it has an incredible sense of minerality as well as full-bodied richness, ripe tannins, a vibrant sense of freshness, and a great finish. The 2020 was brought up in 40% new barrels, with the balance in once-used oak and a tiny portion in clay amphora. Tasted twice.
With a dark, almost purple hue, the wine expresses flowers, licorice, smoke, black cherries, blue fruits, spice, salt and oyster shell. The fruits on the palate are long, rich, elegant, deep, and ripe. There is concentration, silky tannins, vibrancy, length and strong, mineral-influences on the mid-palate, and in the opulent, lively, long and intense finish. This is the first vintage where the parcels of Grandes Murailles were integrated into Clos Fourtet. The wine blends blending 90% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14.5% ABV, 3.54 pH. The harvest took place, September 9 - September 27.
Now incorporating the vineyards of the former Grand Murailles, the 2022 Clos Fourtet is lovely, wafting from the glass with aromas of dark berries, plums, rose petals, orange zest and exotic spices. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and seamless, it's deep and complete, with a layered core of vibrant fruit and a long, saline finish. This is another terrific wine from this 19-hectare vineyard situated on the limestone plateau of Saint-Émilion, just outside the village. It's a blend of 90% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon.
