2018 Château Cheval Blanc
Community Tasting Note
Cailles wrote:
Sunday, January 2, 2022 - Like many out there, I fear that many Bordeaux and especially right bank wines might be too massive, too ripe, too hot in 2018. But not this Cheval Blanc. Despite being this young, this Cheval is close to perfection. The epitome of elegance, without any hard edges yet with a beautiful tension and freshness, not a shred of over-ripeness and massive depth. I’m not a big scorer on potential but call it more like it is in the glass right now, so this 98/99 pts are the experience you can get from it today. This is just a WOW wine and certainly a candidate for perfection. So what was missing for the three digit score? The nose could have been a touch more expressive and certainly the tertiary complexity that will come with age.
TN: Medium expressive on the very seductive yet so elegant nose full of fine dark red and blue berries, lots of floral notes, some wet earth notes and some spices. With time more and more signature espresso notes come forward. On the palate this is so elegant and soft, so much fine dark red berries, espresso, caramel, wet earth, some meaty notes, strong minerality, spices. The highlights are the unbelievable elegance and weightlessness, with ultra-fine tannins, absolute no hard edges, perfectly integrated perfect acidity, creamy texture, yet - as mentioned - no weight. Very long and complex finish with loads of espresso and pure blue and dark red fruit. Superbly complete and harmonious.
Decanting: Decanted for roughly 60 mins, back in the bottle and consumed 2 hours later over a time span of another 2 hours in which the wine gained with every minute. A solid two hours in the decanter seems right at this point (but with young wines it’s always a bit dangerous to decant for too long).
Glass: Conterno Sensory
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