2021 L'Ecole No 41 Ferguson Vineyard
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2021 Red Wine Estate Ferguson Vineyard is youthfully inward, with a dark floral resonance giving way to ground cloves, mentholated herbs, crushed blackberries and sage. It washes across the palate like liquid velvet, maintaining fantastic lift and energy as polished red and black fruits saturate. Tactile minerals and hints of spice add further complexity. The 2021 is tannic and dramatically long, shutting down the experience with its power and youthful girth yet displaying impeccable balance.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2021 Estate Ferguson Vineyard is slightly broader and more structured, with a darker core of currants, truffly earth, chocolate, and hints of iron. Based on 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc, 7% Malbec, and the rest Petit Verdot, it has beautiful mid-palate depth, a layered, full-bodied mouthfeel, building tannins, and a great finish. It's going to benefit from 2-4 years in the cellar, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it evolve gracefully (and maybe warrant another point or two) for at least two decades.
56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc, 7% Malbec, 5% Petit Verdot. From 30 planted acres in fractured basalt rock with a thin layer of wind-blown loess. Hand-harvested, gently crushed into 1.5-ton open-topped stainless-steel fermenters. Aged 22 months in small French oak barrels, 45% new. TA 6.2 g/l. Certified Sustainable and certified Salmon Safe. 1,400 cases made. Bright acidity and spice radiate out of this wine's dark fruit before the tannins hit like a ton of bricks. This is youthful and jaunty, a blast of fruit, tannins and acidity that needs time to sort itself out. But the vibrancy is impressive, the sense of volcanic soil and earth firm, saline and savoury; the wine medium long. (TQT)
This young, brilliant, age-worthy wine is wound rather tightly with fine-grained tannins, but a profusion of fresh, vivid red and black fruit is waiting to open up. Red cherries, dried cranberries, blackcurrants and subtle oak spices are beautifully layered. 56% cabernet sauvignon, 18% merlot, 14% cabernet franc, 7% malbec and 5% petit verdot. Drinkable now, but best from 2029.