2005 Petit Gravet Aine
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Tasting notes
This is a mineral-dominated 2005 from proprietor J. J. Nouvel. This small estate in St.-Emilion has turned out a tannic, tightly knit, but promising wine loaded with chalky limestone notes, some blue and red fruits, high tannin, medium body, and a closed down character that is nearly impenetrable. Don’t touch it for another 5 years, as it should keep for at least two decades.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Captivating aromas of roasted black cherry, smoked meat and flinty minerality. Sweet, rich and strong, offering a wonderfully smooth, glossy texture and complex flavors of sweet cherry, mocha and minerals. As suave as this is, it's got the spine and youthful vibrancy to evolve slowly in bottle. Finishes with fine-grained tannins and sneaky persistence. A compelling expression of fully ripe Right Bank cabernet franc.
Red-ruby. Fascinating, perfumed nose combines an almost liqueur-like ripeness with cooler notes of bitter cherry, minerals and crushed stone. Suave on entry, then sweet, shapely and sharply delineated, with a penetrating stony quality giving the fruit and mineral flavors superb grip. Not a fat wine but has the sheer intensity to buffer its firm tannic spine. An essence of ripe-vintage cabernet franc and likely to evolve slowly in the bottle.
(an unusual blend of 80% cabernet franc and 20% merlot, from a vineyard next to Canon La Gaffeliere with an average vine age of 70 years) Bright ruby-red. Pristine aromas of blackberry and licorice. Highly aromatic and sharply detailed in the mouth if a bit youthfully stunted today in a cabernet franc way. But this is very fine-grained, precise and elegant, not to mention uncommonly vibrant. Finishes fresh and long, with a lingering flavor of bitter chocolate. Very classy juice. This vineyard was actually split in half, and Catherine Papon-Nouvel, who also owns Clos Saint-Julien, ended up with all the cabernet franc vines while her cousin's portion is 100% merlot.