Château Peby Faugères 2023

Often very ripe fruit on the nose; mocha, sour cherry, gingerbread; creamy texture, noticeable barrique influence, polished tannins; aromatically complex, with good length and plenty of freshness. A success.

100% Merlot. 34.6 hl/ha. Cask sample. More lift to the nose than Faugères. Dark fruit with a chalky terroir note. Just about handles the powerful tannins. Lots of tension. Stays on the right side of exaggeration, by a slither. (JL)

The 2023 Péby-Faugères races across the palate, showing terrific articulation, detail and finesse. Floral and spice overtones weave through a core of dark red/purplish fruit. This is an especially refined vintage for Péby-Faugères, a wine that has always been incredibly distinctive but also quite pushed in its extraction.

The perfume is packed to the gills with flowers, licorice, crushed rocks, chocolate, and black cherries. The wine is concentrated, lush, creamy, polished, deep, and yet, with all that going on, it is equally vibrant, fresh, and long, with a touch of mint in the chalky endnote. The reduction in the amount of new oak used for the aging has really improved the style of wine being made here. The wine is produced from 100% old vine Merlot. Drink from 2029-2050.

Deep dark ruby, opaque core, purple reflections, brightening on the rim. Ripe blueberry confit, black cherries, ripe plums, hint of liquorice, candied orange zest, fine nuances of oak. Deep, yet cool and fresh, ripe cherries, fine tannins, mineral and long-lasting, certain ageing potential.

100% Merlot, 34.6 hl/ha. A tightly knit, blueberry-driven bouquet of blueberry, blackberry jelly and graphite. With aeration, a generous array of violet, licorice and perfumed pipe tobacco. On the complex palate, a velvety texture, a finely meshed tannic frame, deep and incredibly precise, with a dense, muscular body. The long, concentrated finish brings blue berries, dark minerality and a grainy astringency. A monster of concentration, density and precision.

Classic Peby Faugeres, highly charged oak, there is intensity concentration fruit and spice, it will have plenty of fans, skilfully made and constructed.