2018 Château Gruaud Larose

Community Tasting Notes (12) Avg Score: 92.7 points

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  2/18/2024 - PSPatrick wrote: 91 Points

  A blend of 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, and 9% Cabernet Franc. 14.2% ABV. Half-bottle. Decanted for four hours in a small decanter. Dark purple colour. Black currant, dark cherry, blueberry, blackberry, bitter chocolate, coffee, earth, spices, vanilla, lead pencil, and gravelly minerality, with good, medium-level acidity, ripe, round tannin, and great persistence. Ripe, and loosely structured, yet tight and too young to drink now. Consistent on day two. For mid-term drinking, maybe 2029 to 2042. 91(?)

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  7/4/2023 - englishman's claret wrote: 91 Points

  While you wouldn't mistake the 2018 Gruaud Larose for anything but a big, warm vintage, it also avoids the excesses common to a vintage with those climatic (and climactic) conditions. The aromatic profile here is a near-identical expression compared with a bottle tasted at the chateau in May 2023, with a big, ripe, slightly roasted nose of blackberry, plum, toast, bay leaf, and a little umami with black olive tapenade. The nose really bursts from the glass but there’s also an appealing, subtle potpourri note that's there if you look for it (happily, this grows more conspicuous with time). There's still some integrating oak imparting some coffee notes, but that's almost resolved. This is velvety, big, and enveloping in the mouth with just a hint of the 14.2% alcohol it actually possesses.
  
  The heat of the vintage has imparted a jovial and broad-shouldered style at Gruaud Larose. It stays just on the right side of ripeness and the extraction has been quite gently handled, with tannins that are already velvety. This needs a little more time for the oak to integrate, but it's almost ready to drink. This shows well right out of the bottle, improves at hour 12, and flags by hour 24.
  
  The assemblage here is 67% CS, 24% M, 9% CF, biodynamically farmed. Fermented (with co-inoculation) in 50% wood / 50% cement at 24-26 C. Elevage in 80% new oak.

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  5/26/2023 - Mafshar Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Young with silky tannins, all fruit with black currant that has a long finish

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  5/9/2023 - englishman's claret wrote:

  Tasting the 2018 Gruaud Larose, plum, grilled nuts, and potpourri fill the glass. The palate is plush and gourmand but it's no push-over, either. This is essentially ready to drink now, surprisingly, at age 5. It's interesting to see this without some of the problems of other 2018s. I'm told that harvest was done very early in the mornings, to bring grapes in with better acidity and cooler temperatures.

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  11/26/2022 - Docemann5 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Dark purple. Strawberry / blueberry nose
  
  Young wine, pop of cork very tight. Opened up in 10 min to drinkable. Decanted for an hour and did much better. Full mouth chocolate oak dark berry. High tight finish. Curious how it will be in 5 and 29 years.
  
  Drank at a friends house and would invest in this winery and hold in my own cellar

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