Château Tertre Roteboeuf 2011

If you ever cook with truffle and raspberry to create an exotic dish, I’m sure this will offer a similar result. Silky, mineral-driven, with a saline quality to the tannins along with spicy, fresh, red berries and earthy notes. This is a wine to enjoy in its youth.

Deep purple-garnet, dense at the core, lilac hue on the rim. Warm, plummy bouquet, freshly fermented black tea, dark rye bread, a touch of damson. Silky, juicy palate, again showing quite warm fruit aromas, medium body with terrific aromatics in the spicy, concentrated extract. This wine, usually too dried-fruit-driven for me, particularly appeals this year, and I might describe it for the first time as classic. Although that term still needs defining for a Tertre-Rôteboeuf. As one would say in English: from too much to quite enough!

Deep purple-garnet, dense at the core, with lilac highlights at the rim. Warm, plummy bouquet, freshly fermented black tea, dark rye bread, a touch of Damassine. Velvety, juicy palate, again showing rather warm fruit aromatics, medium body with wonderful aromatics in the spicy, concentrated extract. This wine, usually too dried-fruit-driven for me, pleases me especially this year, and I might describe it for the first time as classic—though that term would still need defining for a Tertre-Rôteboeuf. In English you’d say: from too much – to quite enough!

Silky, finely opulent, creamy bouquet, dried fruit, tobacco, black cherries, pralines, mint. Velvety, balanced and multifaceted palate with a creamy texture, powerful, sweet aromatics, fine tannins, very long, full, fragrant finish with excellent lingering flavors. 18/20 2017 - 2034

Fine tannins, less opulence than you find in the warmer vintages, but still with inky depths and grilled herb richness to the blackberry, bilberry and cassis fruit. This was a very dry spring, unusually so for Bordeaux, followed by a dry but cooler summer, and the focus is on Cabernet Franc with edges of coffee, cold ash, mint, all wrapped up with tannins polished by 12 years in bottle. The flavours remain vibrant, and this is just a deliciously nuanced bottle. 100% new oak. François Mitjavile owner at this distinctive estate.

Le Tertre Roteboeuf has produced a dense, tight, austere, and tannic wine with lovely length. This is one of the most rigorous Tertre.

The nose is fruity and reveals a fresh-stewed touch, indulgence, brightness, a certain concentration, and a lovely enveloping feel. It shows notes of fairly ripe Boysenberry, fairly ripe black berries, and lighter hints of graphite, combined with touches of toast, coffee, fine hints of fresh lily, hazelnut, roasting, as well as a discreet pistil note, a subtle hint of bergamot, and a very discreet hint of vanilla. The palate is fruity, balanced, and elegant, offering juiciness, indulgence, richness (precisely controlled and almost discreetly condensed/framed), fine straightness, energy, a lovely acidity/acidulated backbone, a fine grain, and a lovely guideline. On the palate, this wine expresses notes of Bigarreau cherry, ripe pulpy plum, crushed blackberry, and lighter crushed raspberry, combined with touches of small blue fruits, pepper, cardamom, grilled almond, coffee/roasting, a discreet hint of pepper, as well as a subtle hint of vanilla and an almost grilled-thyme note. The tannins are precise, elegant, and polished. Good length and lovely persistence.