CHÂTEAU LA CONSEILLANTE

The 2017 La Conseillante suffered a touch of frost on the Cabernet Franc and was bottled 5 and 6 June. It is impressive on the nose with blackberry, boysenberry, truffle and bay leaf aromas. I appreciate the delineation and focus of this Pomerol. The palate is medium-bodied with quite firm, slightly chalky tannins at the moment. It is not a deep nor powerful La Conseillante, but it has plenty of character and charm, reflecting the growing season and the vineyard. It just finishes a little curtly like many 2017 Pomerols, but it should flesh out with bottle age. It's probably bad luck that this is sandwiched between the 2016 and 2018 but hey, you cannot choose the year you were born. Drinking range: 2020 - 2025 Rating: 93 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Feb 2020)

The 2017 La Conseillante contains a little less Cabernet Franc than usual because four or five rows were damaged by frost. It has a classic Pomerol bouquet with touches of truffle and incense infusing the broody black fruit that take a few minutes to unwind in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, well balanced with a subtle sprinkling of white pepper and fennel. The Cabernet Franc, despite its diminished contribution, is quite expressive towards the balsamic-tinged finish that shows plenty of energy and decent persistence. It is less powerful than the 2016 at this stage but it is clearly a very well crafted, almost sensual Pomerol by winemaker Marielle Cazaux. Tasted twice with consistent notes, this may well settle at the top of my banded score once in bottle. Drinking range: 2022 - 2045 Rating: 93-95 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2018)

Harvest began with the Merlots on gravel at La Conseillante, on 5 September. The temperature dropped, and they had 30mm of rain on the 9th, so they stopped and restarted in mid-September, not picking the Cabernet Franc until 29 September. With 15% lost to frost (just 1.5ha entirely lost), the final yield was 34hl/ha, with no second generation fruit in the wine. I had the chance to taste through the individual components of this wine as well as the blend, and then retasted it the following week. It's an excellent take on the vintage, the austerity coming through on the attack before it opens to a wonderfully smoky mid-palate with loganberry and blackberry fruit, showing real fullness and volume. This has texture, structure and good aromatics, with a great sense of energy and persistency. The plot affected by the frost was a Duo parcel, so they will make a small amount of second wine but not as much as usual, and the overall production will be 85% grand vin. In organic conversion. 70% new oak. 3.6pH. Drinking range: 2025 - 2040 Rating: 94 Jane Anson, Decanter (Apr 2018)

One of the sure bets in the vintage is the 2017 La Conseillante, which sports a vibrant ruby color and a deep, concentrated, beautifully layered personality. Black cherries, currants, violets, Asian spice, and truffle all flow to a full-bodied 2017 that has terrific depth of fruit, ripe, sweet tannin, and a great finish. It's an undeniable success in the vintage, if not the wine of the vintage in Pomerol. The blend in 2017 is 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, from tiny yields of 34 hectoliters per hectare, aged in 70% new oak. Tasted twice. Rating: 94-96 Jeb Dunnuck, www.jebdunnuck.com (Apr 2018)

Tight and precise with focused tannins and a lovely texture to this young wine. Medium to full body. Compressed and serious. Some salty and dark fruit at the end. Rating: 94-95 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Apr 2018)

The harvest here ran from September 8th until the 22nd for the Merlot, while the Cabernet Franc was picked on one day, September 29th. A little second-generation fruit was also picked at this stage, although none of this has gone into the grand vin (at the time of my tasting, it had not been decided if it might be used for the second wine). The yield was 34 hl/ha, a pretty good figure bearing in mind 10% of the harvest was lost to the frost, and Marielle Cazaux estimates the volume was reduced a further 5% by the summer drought. Of what was picked, 85% has gone into the grand vin. The alcohol here is 13.67%, the pH 3.65 and the total acidity is 3.6 g/l. The sample was drawn from ten different barrels, seven new and three older, and a mix of coopers. It starts proceedings with a very darkly perfumed nose, quite plush, with black cherry and black plum fruits. The palate is very tense though, very pure, very focused, with a lovely dark expression of fruit, all black olive, black plum and damson, underlined by a very fine seam of tannins, which give great tension and poise. The grip and structure here seems perfectly balanced, wrapped up in a very savoury and fresh middle. A very impressive wine, with a poised composition. This estate has moved up a notch in the last few years, and this wine is typical of that new level of quality; it is a wine of great intensity, but with focus rather than fat. It has delicious potential, dark, savoury, with fine tannins. Brilliant wine. The élevage will be in 70% new oak (which explains the selection of barrels for this sample). Rating: 96-98 Chris Kissack, www.thewinedoctor.com (Apr 2018)