Merlot

This is a predominantly Merlot-based wine from a small Grand Cru property managed by one of the best winemakers on the Right Bank, Alain Vauthier. The nose is classic St Emilion, showing rich bramble fruit with a hint of chocolate and vanilla. The palate is enticingly soft and rounded, with generous fruit and warmth. The superb quality of the 2016 vintage shines through here. A perfect match for roast lamb or beef
Max Lalondrelle, Wine Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

Ch. Feytit-Clinet has been making our own Pomerol for many years, and they have excelled with this vintage. It’s deeply coloured with a dark, glossy appearance and a terrific nose of ripe, bramble fruit, black cherry and mocha. There is a luxurious depth and richness to the fruit here – decadent Merlot in all its glory. Delicious now (with a shoulder of lamb), this will also cellar well for a year or two.
Max Lalondrelle, Wine Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

Bottles of this product are discounted by 30%. Price shown includes saving.

Set at the foot of the rolling hills of St Emilion, Ch. Billeron Bouquey has been a family-owned domaine for over two centuries. The winemaking has been in the trusted hands of the women in the family for more than three decades, producing modern wines with elegance and class. From the highly rated 2016 vintage, our Wine Merchant’s Range St Emilion shows an attractive nose of red and black berries, with a hint of cedar which gives way to a palate of opulent fruit, fine, firm tannins and a long, cool finish.

Winemaker John Williams was adopting sustainable and organic practices at Frog’s Leap in the 1980s, long before it was fashionable to do so. The dry farming philosophy and earlier picking style has helped to create more restrained style of wine and this Merlot is very much a nod to its Bordeaux counterparts.

The wine combines juicy, red plums with red liquorice and cherries. There is a concentrated core of sweet spice here that is supported by refreshing acidity. The tannins are generous and ripe but have a grip and tension that persists on the finish. Subtle cedar, dark chocolate and vanilla notes add in layers of complexity.
Fiona Hayes, Wine Buyer (Spring 2019)

Simply irresistible. Well, possibly, if the price can be controlled! This is really sumptuous and pure. Hedonistic is not an adjective I have used often this year. Words like “firm”  “grip” “structure” “tannic pile-up” are more scattered over the 350 or so wines we tried. This however is the antitheses of words like that. If this can come in at around £600 per case, bite its arm off. Fingers crossed.
(Simon Staples, Berrys’ Fine Wine Director)

Lucid in color, it has a quintessential L'Eglise-Clinet bouquet with blackberry, raspberry coulis, liquid minerals and hints of iris and incense. The palate is very precise and crisp, some of the finest tannins that you will encounter in Pomerol, tensile right from the beginning, taut and linear with immense precision towards the extended mineral-soaked finish. This is nothing less than a brilliant wine from Denis Durantou, undoubtedly one of the stars of the vintage.
Neal Martin - Wine Advocate #230, April 2017

Ch. Pavie occupies some of the best terroir in all of Bordeaux. The vineyards sweep up the steep slope and onto the plateau that rises high to the right of you as you enter St Emilion town from the southern plain. Bought in 1998 by Gérard Perse, he gave the property as high a level of attention and passion as he did to amassing a fortune from supermarkets. The wines entered a controversial period when, under the guidance of Michel Rolland, yields were slashed and the wines became super concentrated and super intense. This achieved 100-point scores from Robert Parker and the coveted “Premier Grand Cru Classé (A)” grade, but at the possible expense of the property’s magnificent terroir.

The 2016 vintage has seen a marked shift back to making a wine that is less extracted and which will be aged in less punishingly new oak. The proportion of Merlot has been reduced and the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon raised. The 2016 itself is inky deep in colour and slow to come through on the palate, although the expressions eventually work their way through, revealing plum fruits, enticing notes of spice and gentle hints of leather. The close is dense and tannic, yet the fruit persists and is accessible; promising a wine that is altogether more amenable to some of the supercharged wines of Perse’s earlier years. It will be drinking that bit sooner and it undoubtedly gives more of the vineyard itself. Drink 2024-2040.

Fantastic aromas of lavender, rosemary, violets and currants. Full body, a wonderful concentration of fruit yet tense and taunt energy. The new wood is exposed now but will become integrated and polished. Give it three or four years together. The pure merlot magic is there. The 2011 was a perfect wine, and this is very close indeed. Drink in 2019.
99/100 James Suckling, Wine Advocate

Masseto, produced by Tenuta dell’Ornellaia, is among the world’s most sought after Merlots. It comes from one of Italy’s most celebrated 7 hectare plots of Merlot in Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast where the vines grow on an outcrop of pliocene clay (ideal for Merlot and not found elsewhere in Bolgheri). Its first full release was 1987, although there was a partial release in 1986, and it quickly became a cult wine revered by collectors. The 2012 vintage is a year that has produced many outstanding wines in the Super Tuscan arena and Masseto looks sure to continue that trend

Made in tiny quantities.  Despite having only debuted back in 1986, Masseto has almost taken on the mystique we see with the likes of Ch. Petrus – rare, expensive, ground breaking and much sought after. Total production is circa. 2500 cases

There is a high quality of fruit here. Floral and expressive on the nose, it is both rich and firm on the palate. Brambly fruit, spice and redcurrants combine to create an intense and brooding wine. It is a dark, deep cherry colour in the glass. This is a wine of generous fruit, neat perfume and rich complexity. A slight earthiness and minerality confirm the wine’s origin; another excellent Pomerol from this vintage.

100% Merlot

Le Pin 2011 boasts an intense nose of cedar with very slight hints of the new oak that will meld into the wine during elevage. On the palate, it is rich and firm with both redcurrant and brambly fruit and a touch of spice. The finish is very impressively long and extremely intense. This is a wine of supreme intensity but without overt weight, and it looks to be an outstanding Le Pin made with a new precision from Jacques Thienpont's new chai. This is top of the tree in Pomerol.
Nicholas Pegna, Berrys’ Asia

It is a gross over–simplification to label 2012, as some have done, a “vintage of the Right Bank and the Wrong Bank”, but one sip of Le Pin and you understand the reasoning. Where others have had to use all their expertise to make good wine, Jacques and Fiona Thienpont seem to have achieved greatness without really breaking sweat. It helps that the property is so tiny, of course, and that even with interruptions for rain they could harvest the whole crop in two and a half days.  Nevertheless, this is wonderful, floral, expressive wine, and my personal favourite of the vintage.
Simon Berry, Chairman