2024 Fonplegade

Beautiful black raspberries, cassis, violets, and flowers emerge from the 2024 Château Fonplegade, which incorporates 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc. Very perfumed and complex on the palate, it's medium-bodied, round, and supple, with great mid-palate depth, ripe, polished tannins, and outstanding length. The wine was aged in 40% new oak, with the balance split between once-used barrels, concrete eggs, and amphora.

The 2024 Fonplégade shows considerable promise in a challenging vintage, opening with a graceful bouquet of flowers, violet, iris, cassis and mulberries. Medium to full-bodied, lively and tensile, it offers a juicy core of fruit framed by elegant, chalky tannins, concluding with a long, ethereal finish. This is a blend of 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc.

A soft sweep of grilled vanilla bean oak, clearly with the aim of balancing out the austerity on this limestone-heavy site, I am totally confident that will soften over ageing, but right now it is pretty high in acidity. Still, there are fragrant rose petals, orange peel, black tea, cherry pit and gunsmoke, Harvest 24 September to 5 October. 40% new oak. 20% amphora. Owner Stephen Adams died in March 2024, making this his last vintage, with his wife Denise continuing to run their estates.