2012 Château l'Evangile, Pomerol, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
This dark ruby/plum Pomerol offers up sweet black cherry and blackcurrant fruit, velvety tannin, medium to full body, and a nice lushness and silkiness. A beauty with great fragrance and suppleness, it’s not enormously endowed, as a great vintage would be, but it is undoubtedly an outstanding wine and a brilliant effort from ’Evangile in 2012.
Drink 2015 - 2030
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (April 2015)
Crimson – still bluer than La Conseillante. Buttery nose and very sweet. A little less luscious than some Pomerol 2012s with a still-dry finish. But all the ingredients are there for the future, and it’s already a convincing drink. Much better bottle than the one tasted chez Farr.
Drink 2021 - 2035
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (March 2022)
An extremely polished L'Evangile with light chocolate, stone and cedar that turns to green olive with hints of sweet tobacco. Full body, tight centre palate with polished and very tight-grained tannins. So much energy here.
Beautiful to taste, but I can't wait to see it in 2020.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (March 2018)
A deep-coloured wine with real Pomerol ‘flesh’ and structure. This wine grows in the glass, showing its class as it opens up; it will probably benefit from two or three more years of early decanting. The property was replanting Cabernet Franc, so this is almost entirely Merlot.
Drink 2025 - 2035
Sebastian Payne MW, Decanter.com (March 2022)
About this WINE
Chateau l'Evangile
Château L'Evangile is one of the prestigious estates in Pomerol and produces some of the most sought-after wines in the appellation. It is located in the far east of the Pomerol appellation and its vineyards border those of Château La Conseillante, Château Gazin and Château Cheval Blanc. Its 14.1 hectares of vineyards (Merlot 78%; Cabernet Franc 22%) lie on deep gravel beds pitted with sand and clay.
The wine is vinified traditionally, undergoing a lengthy cuvaison followed by maturation in oak barriques (40% new) for 16-20 months. L`Evangile has always been a top-class estate but quality has been pushed noticeably higher since Domaines Baron de Rothschild of Château Lafite acquired a majority shareholding in 1990.
With Michel Rolland as consultant winemaker, the wines of L'Evangile are now challenging Pétrus and Lafleur in terms of their sheer class and quality.
Pomerol
Pomerol is the smallest of Bordeaux's major appellations, with about 150 producers and approximately 740 hectares of vineyards. It is home to many bijou domaines, many of which produce little more than 1,000 cases per annum.
Both the topography and architecture of the region is unremarkable, but the style of the wines is most individual. The finest vineyards are planted on a seam of rich clay which extends across the gently-elevated plateau of Pomerol, which runs from the north-eastern boundary of St Emilion. On the sides of the plateau, the soil becomes sandier and the wines lighter.
There is one satellite region to the immediate north, Lalande-de-Pomerol whose wines are stylistically very similar, if sometimes lacking the finesse of its neighbour. There has never been a classification of Pomerol wines.
Recommended Châteaux : Ch. Pétrus, Vieux Ch. Certan, Le Pin, Ch. L’Eglise-Clinet, Ch. La Conseillante, Ch. L’Evangile, Ch. Lafleur, Trotanoy, Ch. Nenin, Ch. Beauregard, Ch. Feytit-Clinet, Le Gay.
Merlot
The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.
In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.
Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.
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Description
This dark ruby/plum Pomerol offers up sweet black cherry and blackcurrant fruit, velvety tannin, medium to full body, and a nice lushness and silkiness. A beauty with great fragrance and suppleness, it’s not enormously endowed, as a great vintage would be, but it is undoubtedly an outstanding wine and a brilliant effort from ’Evangile in 2012.
Drink 2015 - 2030
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (April 2015)
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