Château Tertre Roteboeuf 2023

As always, a bouquet to sink into; you could lose yourself in it. Listing aromas makes little sense—it's a fan, a painting. Full on the palate, precise tannins, ripe fruit, excellent length, great harmony. Once again, a one‑of‑a‑kind wine.

As ever an outlier – with the highest pH among reds tasted in Bordeaux this vintage (3.9!), according to Henri Mitjavile, who drew a sample from a new oak barrel in the dark cellar – this 14.5% alcohol red is a winner! Savory aromas include violet, aniseed, black cherry skin, and freshness in the form of eucalyptus. “We harvested late so a bit of a Mediterranean style,” he said. But the difference with 2022 is superior freshness, as the ripe and vivid dark and red fruit, delivered in velvety tannins, also comes with quite a bit of energy. Grapes in 2022 had lost 20% of their weight so you felt concentration that was very ripe, but in this vintage, a more even ripening over a longer period of time conveys more balance for this richer style of St-Emilion. Long finish.

The 2023 Tertre-Rôteboeuf has a very attractive bouquet with pure red cherry, crushed strawberry and cough-candy scents that are well-defined, perhaps a little Grenache-like in style. The palate is medium-bodied with a savory opening. Meat juices infuse the red-berry fruit, a little Provençal herb and allspice toward the nicely composed finish. A typical Tertre-Rôteboeuf, which is no bad thing.

Licorice, black raspberries, flowers, smoke, truffle, and cherries are all over the nose and the palate. The wine is balanced between freshness, concentration, depth, and energy. The fruit offers an almost racy profile, with mint-accented dark red berries, peppery spice, and licorice on the palate. The finish carries on with more of those sweet, spicy, fresh black raspberries. The blend is 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, 14.5% ABV. Harvest took place in a single day, September 26. Drink from 2028–2050. 94–96 pts.

Beguiling, delicately spicy bouquet with morello cherry juice, blackberry jelly and licorice. On the second nose, captivating violets and chocolate pralines. On the complex palate, a silky texture, a tight-knit tannic framework, balanced verve and a well-trained body. In the concentrated, very long finish, plenty of blue berries, chocolate pastilles, dried rose petals and a noble astringency.

The juice, the salinity, the plump fruits and the pleasure bursting out of this glass are off the scale. Expect waves of fleshy red cherry, raspberry, squid ink, tar and smoked grilled caramel, with sinewy tannins. All picked in one day, Henri Mitjavile winemaker alongside his father François Mitjavile. Aged in 100% new oak.