CHÂTEAU CHEVAL BLANC

Contrasts intensity and depth with nuance and softly spoken character. Lift and tension, precisely placed cocoa bean, liqourice root, tomato leaf, tannins, violet and peony florals and slate, sinewy, slow-tug tannins, powerful with lift off. Has plenty to say and demands that you slow down to hear it. 40hl/h yield, 75% of overall production (no press wine as ever), harvest September 6 to October 3. Pierre-Olivier Clouet director. Drinking range: 2032 - 2050 Rating: 98 Jane Anson, www.janeanson.com (May 2024)

The 2023 Cheval Blanc is uncharacteristically backward on first meeting, and it takes time to really fire up its engines. Quite strict and focused (surprisingly so), the bouquet reveals black fruit, a touch of bilberry, with just a whiff of iris flower. The palate has wonderful symmetry, outstanding mineralité and ample tension. It's extremely pure, with less weight than the 2022 but perhaps a touch more nerve. Modestly grippy on the finish, this "serious" Cheval Blanc will deserve several years in bottle. It's cerebral…and I like that. The 2023 is very different from the 2022—a beautiful minor chord. Drinking range: 2030 - 2060 Rating: 96-98 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Apr 2024)

52 Merlot, 46 Cabernet Franc, 2 Cabernet Sauvignon: 100% new oak (seven coopers, with a focus on medium toast, for 16-18 months) I have been talking about the human interventions that made this vintage such a success for the best protagonists, and Cheval Blanc and Le Petit Cheval are perfect cases in point. Floral ignition was simply stunning here, with every flower and every fruit exploding into life. In June, the viti-teams had to fight hard - they sprayed 11 times to combat mildew, and in July, everything dried out, and three careful green harvests took place. The term green harvest sounds somewhat brutal because the teams practised ‘cleaning’, ‘aerating’ and ‘taking weight out of bunches’ to balance the vines with precisely the correct crop load for each vine. In some cases, they dropped one bunch in two to give every vine, including the vigorous young vines, a chance of being eligible for the Grand Vin! It is always a joy to taste with Arnaud de Laforcade, Commercial & Financial Director at Cheval Blanc because he comes out with truly passionate one-liners that frame the wines perfectly. “We love our young vines”, he said wistfully. “If you left them in this vintage, they would make 70hl/ha, so we must harmonise the ripening.” He explained that this critical pruning was delegated to subcontracted crews because the “home team” hates cutting off fruit because they are so inextricably linked to their vines. This says a lot about the ethos at Cheval Blanc. August’s sprinklings of rain, interspersed with sunny weather, particularly in the second half, meant that conditions were perfect. This brought on complete ripeness, particularly in Cabernet Franc – the vital member of the team in both first and second wines. They started picking on the 6th of September with the younger Merlot vines and then cherry-picked for one whole month, ending on the 3rd of October. Even the ‘downpour’ in mid-September that was predicted to be a slightly worrying 60mm managed only 20mm, and like so many experienced crews, they ‘played the game’, and this prompted Cabernet Franc to hit a perfect picking window four days after this mini storm. In fact, Arnaud described picking as “serene”. It was a luxury to pick precisely what you wanted when you wanted, and the results are simply jaw-dropping. While this famous château has been flying high the last couple of years in my notes and scores with stunning wines with different characters and dimensions, I think that 2023 Cheval Blanc has one of the most attractive perfumes I can remember. It is like walking in the most extraordinary florist imaginable when the rare and exotic flowers have their stems trimmed, ready for display. The mix of pungent florals and electrifying keen, green hints is captivating. This is a thrillingly detailed wine, and I have not yet moved onto the palate. It must be impressed on all comers that this is a medium-weight, high-tensile Cheval Blanc that derives its scale of flavour by summoning up beguiling intensity without any apparent weight. It focuses its efforts firmly on a complex red spectrum of fruit, which goes against the grain of the three-dimensional red and black peacock tails found over the fence in Pomerol. This is a devastating Cheval Blanc with operatic high and deeply resonant low notes, and at every step of the way, there is luxury perfectly offset by freshness. It is one of a handful of wines in 2023 that could never have been so utterly dreamy without the timely interventions of humans. In fact, it inspired the title of this entire report. 20+/20 Rating: 20+ Matthew Jukes www.matthewjukes.com (May 2024)