2016 Château Fonroque

Community Tasting Notes (34) Avg Score: 91.1 points

• Options

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

  4/7/2024 - Chied Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Very good! Borderline 92 in my book, but a solid St Emilion GCC wine…
  
  Cheers!

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

• Options

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

  3/10/2024 - Caruso Likes this wine: 94 Points

  From a warmer than textbook cellar. reaching 18°C in Summer. Ruby with purple hue to german pink in thin layers. Pnp, partly decant. From the start medium to intense nose of sweet cherries, blackberries, earthy notes, almonds. On the palate it is tannic, but not unbalanced as its structure is easily balanced by its concentrated fruit. Nice quite long finish. No alcolhol shining trough, though it is light on its feet and not overdone. This is clearly very young and is in need for cellaring for at least 5 more years for those who like there wine less tannic and smooth. Nevertheless it is a fun to drink it at this stage, especially with food. The decant part shows more intensity after approx. 90 minutes. 5/12/17/10. -2035+

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

• Options

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

  1/25/2024 - WojteG Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Well... very powerful wine (14.5% ABV) with black pepper from the first second to the last minute, with grippy, grainy tannins, vivid acidity, with finish that lasts forever and I would never have guessed it's 90% M and 10% CF from St.Emillion.
  Who said Merlot can be boring?! 🙂
  I just discovered its another face.
  Let's start from the beginning and third glass ( by the way it was decanted for 3 hours). Yes now I smell coffee, cocoa powder, earth, leather ( nice), but no fruits! Interested as it could be.
  Taste - everything I mentioned above plus red cherry, red currant, sweet spice, minerals, black chocolate.
  This wine walks a thin line between chaos and perfection.
  
  The 2016 vintage got 96 points according to the WA Vintage Guide. Extraordinary. Still tannic, youthful or slow to mature.
  
  How about the wine?
  RP - 95
  Decanter - 95
  WS - 93
  JD -91
  JS - 90
  CT - 91
  WE - 91
  Atkin - 89
  Jeff Leve - 93/88*
  
  * Jeff Leve rated this wine 93 points in 2017 and it was downgraded by him by 5 points in second tasting in 2019
  
  Interesting take by my most respected wine critic.

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

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View OldHick95's profile
  • Report Issue

  1/14/2024 - OldHick95 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  I feared this might be too young to enjoy, but it just needed some coaxing. To start, black pepper was central from aroma to finish. Needed an hour of decanting for the fruit and spice to emerge: red berry jam, black cherry, and milk chocolate, with fresh raspberry and dusty tannins on the finish.

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

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Lemmy-W's profile
  • Report Issue

  12/28/2023 - Lemmy-W wrote: 90 Points

  A good wine, but nose was not a pleasant one (for me at least).

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

View all 34 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.