Community Tasting Note
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Keith Levenberg wrote: 88 points
September 30, 2019 - Soft scents of cedar, metal shavings, and gravel. The fruit starts out in restrained blueberry tones but by the end of the bottle has shifted to a lighter profile with apple-skin flavors that are a little odd in the context of a wine just released. There's a leafy, sage-like streak running through it from beginning to end as well as a steady hiss of tannin that's old-style enough to feel woolly but friendly enough you could at least say it's a soft merino wool. I don't think that alone accounts for the fruit being hollower than it feels like it ought to be in context of the vintage, though. (Blind, I might have guessed this as a 2014, but it wouldn't be among the better 2014s.) After the 2016 Talbot seemed so promising, I was hoping to see some sign of Gruaud going back to its glory days, but the Talbot while being at least as structured as this had more vivid fruit and more stuffing - this one is really going to have to pull a few rabbits out of its hat if it's going to turn into what this chateau is capable of, because it definitely doesn't seem as if the materials in front of me are enough to do it.
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