2000 Château Bel-Air Marquis d'Aligre
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Tasting notes
The 2000 Bel Air Marquis d'Aligre is really beginning to drink brilliantly. It bursts from the glass with aromas of sweet berry fruit, cigar box, dried rose petals, fresh mint and loamy soil, followed by a medium-bodied, ample and fleshy palate that's weightless and sensual, its generous core of fruit framed by lively acids and melting tannins.
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Jancis Robinson MW
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Pale ruby. Pure fermented grape juice plus gypsy cream biscuits. A little dry on the end but with a completely different structure – more burgundian – than most red bordeaux. (JR)
The 2000 Bel-Air Marquis d’Aligre is like the 1986 on the nose: backward and broody, demanding coaxing from the glass. There are moss-like, undergrowth scents, a touch of morels emerging with time and then, after an hour, the nose blossoms and finds its groove. The fruit belatedly surfaces and you find yourself bewitched by the bouquet. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin. This is not a complex millennial Margaux however there is a beguiling sense of effortless class and poise that plenty of its Margaux colleagues crave. Towards the finish there are subtle notes of tobacco and terracotta that lend another layer of complexity. I just love this wine – one of the best vintages from Jean-Pierre Boyer. Tasted at the Bel-Air Marquis d’Aligre dinner. (NM)
Dark brownish ruby. Really quite intense and jewelly on the nose. Lots of concentration and more like conventional bordeaux than earlier vintages. Quite fresh with some tannins still in evidence. Just slightly more velvety than the average 2000 red bordeaux. Good freshness. This grew in the glass with time into something with fine stature. (JR)