2019 Château Valandraud

Community Tasting Notes (19) Avg Score: 95.3 points

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Collector1855's profile
  • Report Issue

  3/26/2024 - Collector1855 wrote: 96 Points

  Canon vs. Duffau-Lagarrosse 2009-2020 tasted blind (Fribourg): Pirate bottle. Dark garnet. Wonderful nose, wow, deep dark fruit, eucalyptus. Lots of ripe dry extract on the palate. Modern, but within the right borders. Will this age though? Let's keep the fingers crossed.

  2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View sirpat00's profile
  • Report Issue

  12/4/2023 - sirpat00 wrote: 94 Points

  Valandrau vertical (1991-2020) (Fribourg): Selected tasting notes from a complete Valandraud vertical (1991-2020) hosted by a collector with an estate representative. Main observation was that both the work the estate did during the transition phase 2000-2012 is clearly bearing fruit in more recent vintages, further helped by warmer growing seasons that are favorable for this cool site in St Emillon. Additional comments included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  This was decanted prior to serving. A fresh, ripe and sweet fruit, fine mineral lead notes and sweet oak. Mouthcoating, rustic and wild palate, but with great substance behind it and I’m hence not too concerned. Appears more an untamed beast that will eventually come around. But could take 10+ years easily.

  1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View csimm's profile
  • Report Issue

  11/24/2023 - csimm wrote:

  Valandraud, St. Emilion: I was able to try two separate bottles side by side at the estate. The first was a fresh PnP and the other had been open in bottle for 16 hours.
  
  16 hours open: Significantly prune-ridden, which was a little concerning in terms of potential aging. What to think there? It wasn't totally blasted, but it was surely more than skirting the prune juice and raisin side of the spectrum.
  
  PnP: The fresh bottle was consumed with coconut and alcohol on the nose. The palate was wood and bitter blackberry seed. Minerality to be had here, but more on the powdery side of the house. Overall, it was angular and pretty mad at just having been bothered.
  
  Score withheld on both. Perhaps somewhere in the middle of these two wines is a sweet spot, but I'm just going to leave my bottles alone for a while and cross my fingers. Try again in 2030?

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comments (2)

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View wcf1946's profile
  • Report Issue

  10/11/2023 - wcf1946 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Hard to rate this at this stage. Wait 5+ years. Drank over two days. Day 2 big improvement. A bit closed now, but potential is excellent. Bad QPR @$120 now, but will improve greatly. Mint/licorice nose. Very dark color but no purple fringes. Medium tannins and finish. Ultimate smoothness. Complexity better than depth at this stage. Wine will reward greatly for those who wait. Lack of purple color tells me it will plateau 2025-2030 and stay at that level for several years.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View stschutz's profile
  • Report Issue

  2/20/2023 - stschutz Likes this wine: 98 Points

  Two separate notes here:
  
  Day 1: Everything is separated; the structure, the tannins, the acidity, the fruit, everything is on its own, like an every man for himself attitude, and quite strong tannins. But wow, when all this is in place, behold. We opened this late into the evening, and to paraphrase a CT friend, as happens towards the end of any good evening of wine and food, there's always someone who goes and grabs a great bottle out of the cellar when there's no time to decant.! And so, this was me tonight. After the sheer shock of the structure, we decided to fridge slow ox the remaining 1/2 bottle for a few days before trying again.
  
  Day 3: after a slow ox of 1/2 bottle in fridge. Gentle but powerful nose with a silky earthy musky radish chocolate aspect to it. The nose is almost worth the price of admission alone. Heavier than Mouton even if it was aged equally. The structure has come together, with a wonderful array of pure fruit, earthiness, mushroom, oak, silky tannins and anything else your palate might throw in there for good measure. This is simply a stunning wine that will be on full force 5-10 years from now. Can't wait to live that long to try it again. We've had several 2019 Bordeaux and this seems to be a trend; tightly wound wines with insane purity of fruit and tightly knit structure that portends great things to come for those hardened enough to wait.! 98 on potential.

  3 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comments (1)

View all 19 Community Tasting Notes

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.