Bordeaux

Attractive bouquet of red and black fruit, lovely and fresh, clear cut and complex. Dense and round on the palate, it is powerful yet elegant and has a very creamy texture.

Whilst we make every effort to ensure our information is up-to-date where the current vintage is not available this will be replaced by the next available vintage. We will of course endeavour to contact you where this is the case before dispatch

This wine is a very deep red colour, almost black, but is bright and shiny. The aromas are of black cherries, blackcurrant and fresh plum. There is also a hint of pepper and old rose. The use of wood in this wine is well judged making the flavours prolonged. There is a fullness to the wine which is well balanced by tannins. The finish has a spicy yet plummy note. This wine will drink well between 2013 – 2025.

Awarded a Platinum Medal and 97 points at the 2018 Decanter World Wine Awards (click link for details).

For other 2018 DWWA winners, click here.

For our blog on the wine and the 2015 harvest, click here.

For a full description of this wine - including a few charming translations and turns of phrase - we would direct you to the data sheet/fiche technique from Château Castera themselves (click blue link below). 

The one piece of information missing from the data sheet is the barrel ageing/élevage time, which is 12 months.

Château Castera Cru Bourgeois Medoc 2015 - fiche technique

** DELIVERY AND AVAILABILITY **

** Fri 3rd August - We've a generous allocation from Château Castera, but they are not the largest of Bordeaux's producers. Although there's no real limit to a customer's allocation (although not beyond 36, please: that's to prevent secondary trading, which is not what Exel are about), we do expect demand to be very high, and it's our best guess that we'll sell through in a week to ten days. **

** It's August and the grandes vacances in France, and that means an inevitably later arrival time to us than we might like. We expect the wine to reach us between the 23rd and 31st of August, for immediate despatch upon arrival. **

The wine has a fine, deep, intense colour. The complex bouquet displays notes of cocoa and vanilla, more subtle hints of smoke and tobacco-leaf and a fleeting suggestion of blackberry and humus. From the attack, it develops highly complex aromas around well-integrated tannins. The finely balanced structure combines wild berry fruit flavours (blackberry, bilberry) to give great richness on the palate, lengthening into a dense, substantial, highly expressive finish.

The call of faraway lands. As mysterious and intriguing as a lone adventurer returning from a solitary sail, Cos d’Estournel is slow to reveal itself. Little by little, it evokes stories of distant places, market stalls brimming with unfamiliar fruits, spices and wares, village festivities warmed by the joy of revelers and the setting sun, and sumptuous visions of ladies and their voluptuous curves. A myriad of scents, colors and tastes appeals to the senses. The Grand Vin of Cos d’Estournel is both demure and deliberately sensuous, a fascinating and elegant nectar.

Cos d’Estournel is ideally situated at the heart of an undulating landscape in the northern Médoc. The estate’s rolling contours served as inspiration for its name; ”cos” is derived from the word for “hill of pebbles” in the old Gascon dialect. Keeping the oldest vine plants alive is crucial to perpetuating Cos d’Estournel’s rich heritage. Despite their low yield and the special care they require, these plants produce the grapes that shape the core identity of the estate’s wines.

The low yield of the vines promoted the ripening of the Cabernet Sauvignon, with stunning precision. It naturally blends with the roundness of the Merlot, to deliver a wine of classic style and elegant finesse. Cos d’Estournel 2008 has beautiful freshness and the powerful notes soften to allow the fruit flavours to appear.

"Ripe and generous with all the flavours quite open and accessible now even in its youth. This is a solid vintage for Cos but one that is an early drinking style. Tannins are firm and supple with the dark fruits and spices already at the fore. Enjoy now and over the next 8 years." Jeannie Cho Lee

A deep colour with shades of violet. A bouquet of spices and burnt wood with hints of orange peel and black-currant leaves. A gentle attack in the mouth with a close-knit, very unctuous background. A straightforward wine, superbly balanced, elegant and full bodied.

A concentrated deep red wine, with ripe red and black fruit flavours enhanced by spicy notes of cloves and subtle truffle flavours. Silky smooth on the palate with fine and elegant tannins and a long, succulent finish.

Grand-Puy Ducasse 2006 has an intense, deep garnet colour, with a pure nose of ripe fruits and blond tobacco. The palate, juicy and delicious, is dominated by a vibrant fruit, mixed with notes of soft spices and of licorice. The wine is medium-bodied with integrated and silky tannins, and has a long length. It is a Pauillac to keep in the cellar and that has started to show a part of its charms.

Awarded 88 points and Recommended status by Decanter (www.decanter.com) in their April 2018 edition review of the St-Emilion satellite appellations 2015 vintage (see blue link below).

Château La Fleur Grands-Landes Montagne St. Emilion 2015 - April 2018 Decanter review

The Durand family has owned the seven hectare estate in the Montagne district since the 18th century. In 1969, M. Carrère, Mme Durand's husband took over the estate, shaping it to its current form. Since 1997, his daughter Isabelle Carrère, oenologist from Michel Rolland's team, has been running the estate having taught viticulture and oenology for 10 years.

Generous flowering took place followed by a hot, dry early summer. August was slightly cooler and damper, followed by good weather in September enabling the grapes to reach full maturity. Generally the harvest took place earlier than the previous year. 2015 has been cited as a great modern Bordeaux vintage of excellent quality.

The vines are grown on slopes in clay soils. The vineyards are carefully managed throughout the year, with debudding, manual removal of the vine-shoots, leafthinning and green harvesting all being carefully performed. Chemical fertilisers are not used; instead vegetal based compost is added moderately to the soil having monitored its equilibrium. A manual harvest takes place when the grapes are slightly overripe to get a better phenolic maturity of the skins and the pips.

The grapes were carefully sorted by hand after a total destemming on the sorting table. 20% of the wine was bled off. A cold maceration took place prior to fermentation, which lasted three to four days. The fermentation was carried out in temperature controlled stainless steel vats, with daily pump-overs and lasted for three weeks. The wine was then matured, with 80% aged in vats and 20% in oak barrels.

A medium bodied Bordeaux , with spicy, dark fruits and herbal notes combined with earthy hints. A beautifully balanced wine with silky tannins and a light finish. A lovely match for beef wellington or barbequed chicken.

This wine is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Chateau Poujeaux is situated in Moulis en Medoc which is in the heart of the vineyards of the Haut-Médoc, 3 miles from the two great appellation of Margaux and St-Julien. The vineyards are planted on the finest outcrops of günz gravel, which is the ideal soil for the Great Classified Growths of the region.

The vat room where this wine is made houses wooden vats, epoxy-resin lined concrete vats and stainless steel vats. They are all thermo-regulated to control the vinfication temperature. The Chjateau Poujeaux 2007 underwent 12 months of barrel-ageing. Half of the barrels are renewed every year. The wine was clarified by racking from barrel to barrel, and fining with egg whites. Château Poujeaux is not filtered or chilled, enabling the wine to keep all its richness.

Decanter gave this wine the following review and a score of 90 points in February 2017:

This is a rather lovely Médoc, if a touch more restrained that some others here. There is richness to the fruit, but it is tighter, with layers of bilberry and cassis and cedary oak, with attractive menthol notes on the finish. Ready to drink. - Jane Anson

A powerful yet elegant red with ripe berried fruits enhanced by a subtle note of oak spice. Full bodied, with juicy fruit and an attractive savoury note on the finish.

This wine has a beautiful purple red color. Its fragrance is complex, combining fruit notes with some aromatic freshness. His mouth, fleshy and velvety, giving way to a long and fruity finish.