Domaine de Chevalier - Pessac Leognan 2019 (Pre-arrival) (750ml)
Price: $95.00
| Producer | Domaine de Chevalier |
| Country | France |
| Region | Bordeaux |
| Varietal | Bordeaux Blend |
| Vintage | 2019 |
| Sku | 1006818 |
| Size | 750ml |
James Suckling: 97 Points
Beautiful ripe redcurrants bay leaf violets and raspberries on the nose. Full-bodied with firm and very tight tannins that are polished and layered. Crushed stones highlight the beautiful blue fruit. Poised and refined. 60% cabernet sauvignon 30% merlot 6% petit verdot and 4% cabernet franc. Try after 2026.
Vinous: 97 Points
The 2019 Domaine de Chevalier is pure silky and exceptionally beautiful. The 2019 is all in reserve today. Sweet red berry fruit mint spice and blood orange lend brilliance to this understated super-classy Pessac-Léognan red. Lifted floral aromatics and silky tannins grace this exquisite wonderfully polished wine. Tas
Wine Advocate: 97 Points
The 2019 Domaine de Chevalier is a magical wine in the making wafting from the glass with aromas of wild plums crushed blackcurrants and violets mingled with hints of pencil shavings subtle spices and coniferous forest floor. Medium to full-bodied deep and seamless with a vibrant core of fruit beautifully refined tannins and lively acids it's exquisitely elegant and harmonious concluding with a long perfumed finish. Stylistically this wine exhibits a much closer affinity with the great Domaine de Chevalier of yesteryear than much of what was produced here in the early 2000s. It's a masterclass in what contemporary Bordeaux can deliver and worth a special effort to seek out. This 67-hectare estate in Pessac-Léognan is at the top of its game today and the 2019 vintage is a striking success. When the Bernard family purchased Domaine de Chevalier in 1983 the vineyards amounted to only 20 hectares: expansion followed in the woodlands (much of which remain) that occupy this site on the same stony gravel and black sand over iron-rich clay that defines the estate's historic vineyards. It's a cold site in winter surrounded by trees but warm in summer as the stones reflect heat and the black sands absorb it. Farming is now organic and biodynamic with experiments with cover crops and unhedged canopies and drainage to improve more humid parcels. Sauvignon Blanc is planted in the estate's coolest sites Cabernet Sauvignon on its warmest and everything else is planted in between. Since 1983 Domaine de Chevalier has naturally evolved: as new plantings came online the wines lost some of the intensity-without-weight that had always been their signature; in the early 2000s a concerted effort was made to attain fuller maturity and more concentration and the wines became a little chunkier and more obviously oaky too; but recent years have seen a return to seamless elegance without any loss of depth or persistence. In many respects indeed the last few vintages of Domaine de Chevalier bear a closer stylistic kinship to the great wines produced at this address in the 1970s and before than they do to the vintages of the early 2000s. Olivier Bernard and his team in short are to be congratulated for ushering in a new golden age at an estate that produces one of Bordeaux's most singular and characterful wines.
Jeb Dunnuck: 97 Points
I loved the 2019 Domaine De Chevalier, which is unquestionably up with the crème de la crème of the vintage. A blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and 5% Petit Verdot that saw just 35% new oak, it sports a dense purple hue as well as a killer, quintessential Graves bouquet of darker black fruits, scorched earth, truffle, cold fireplace, tobacco, and graphite. More medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has brilliant purity, ultra-fine tannins, flawless balance, and a great, great finish. It's not a blockbuster but has this incredible sense of class, balance, and finesse while being rich and concentrated. It's a gorgeous wine, and wine lovers will adore being able to compare this side by side with the 2015, 2016, and 2018 over the coming 3-4 decades.
Wine Spectator: 94 Points
Very lush and forward with a lovely wave of warmed plum reduction cassis and blackberry preserve flavors. Features a subtle rumble of dark earth and warm stone through the finish where licorice and apple wood accents also peek in. Delivers spine for form but this is going to provide its best showing in the medium-term as the fruit is so precocious. Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2023 through 2035. ?J.M.
