Community Tasting Note
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slaughterer wrote: 94 points
February 11, 2014 - There is a great deal of megalomania, narcissism, and bone-headed pretence in the Magrez empire that is bound to turn off a purist like me, and the fact that his wines are so thoroughly Parkerized and even have celebrity tie-ins makes matters worse. Nevertheless, I do think "La Tour Carnet", especially in top vintages, is a serious enough wine to warrant attention. This is bottle #4 for me, and I must say this wine is pleasant today, much better than the case of "Les Grand Chenes" 2005 I have nearly fully worked through. The high level of Merlot makes this wine have the full, dense, decadent black cherry fruit of a lot of the Right Bank in 2005, and the ripe Cab Sauv gives it a bit of Left Bank structure. Despite having quite a depot, the wine is showing a clear rim, and is surprisingly light in texture, sort of like a high-quality village Burgundy in a ripe vintage. Besides the crowd-pleasing big-cherry fruit, there is vanilla (another crowd pleaser), pudding, spearmint, cassis, and even sensations of terroir, by which I mean soil. I actually think, at $40 sticker price in futures, this was a good buy. At higher prices, there are other competitors that might triumph. Ignore the gaudy image of Magrez on the label and the prejudices you might have against his Napoleonic business empire philosophy, this is a very good wine.
2nd night: floral elements are combining with the fruit, and there are butterscotch and whiskey barrel notes mixed in now. The wine is now sinking down into the palate and spreading out very wide. Nice effort.4 people found this helpful 4,581 views
2 Comments
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Jojala commented:
2/11/14, 11:43 PM - ...what a great review. I wish everyone would write like this. One lone bottle in my cellar. Looking forward to drinking that sometime in the future... Greetings from Finland.
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Motz commented:
1/10/21, 6:34 AM - Great assessment!
Cheers!