2022 La Conseillante

If you ever wondered what a chocolate, violet smells like, check out the perfume here. Dark, almost opaque in color, the wine is pure silk, and velvet on the palate. There is a sense of luxury, as well as approachability here. Viscous, deep, and concentrated, yet, also, light, elegant, sensuous, and multi-faceted, the finish, looks at the 60 second mark, and just keeps on going. This is hedonism at its best. 2022 is at the level of the perfect 2016, if not even better. This is what rock-star wine is all about. La Conseillante lovers should be all over this wine! The wine blends 87% Merlot with 13% Cabernet Franc, with 8% press wine. 14% ABV, 3.65 pH. The harvest took place September 5 - September 20. Yields were 33 hectoliters per hectare.

A wine that has perfection written all over it is the 2022 Chateau La Conseillante, which is 87% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Franc that’s still resting in 70% new French oak, with a tiny amount in amphora as well. Revealing a vivid purple hue, it offers a perfumed yet incredibly classy, almost discreet bouquet of crème de cassis, spring flowers, red plums, incense, and spice. This terroir never seems to yield the biggest, richest wine in a vintage, yet it's almost unrivaled in its ability to deliver complexity and elegance. Full-bodied on the palate, with ultra-fine tannins, flawless balance, and again, a purity of fruit that's just about off the charts, it's going to offer pleasure with just 4-6 years of bottle age (these usually enter their prime drinking window a decade after a vintage) and have 30-40 years of prime drinking. The 2022 hit 13.9% alcohol with a pH of 3.65.

The 2022 La Conseillante is simply fabulous and also clearly one of the wines of the year. Rich, racy and enveloping to the core, the 2022 is super-impressive in this tasting. In fact, the 2022 is one of the best recent vintages I can remember tasting. All the elements are so well balanced for a young wine. Readers will find a Pomerol of stature and total class. That’s all there is to it. The blend is 87% Merlot and 13% Cabernet Franc. Yields were 33 hectoliters per hectare, about normal these days. For readers who appreciate technical data, the balance of 14% alcohol and 3.66pH is an example of what makes the best wines of 2022 so compelling. This is a superb showing from Technical Director Marielle Cazaux and her team.