2007 Château Cheval Blanc, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20078003285

Description

This is a truly great Cheval Blanc. Just a smidgen below the quality of the 2005 (yes, really) it is a monster of a wine, and utterly complete. Overflowing with dense fruit, huge tannins and balanced acidity it has all the tools to age majestically. The nose is all creamy, rich, intense black fruit while the harmonious palate boasts cool, incredibly concentrated, elegant cassis and plums with an astonishing pure, complex finish that we could still taste 10 minutes after leaving the chteau. Without a shadow of doubt, the wine of the vintage.

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Critics reviews

Jancis Robinson MW18/20

Wine Advocate92/100

Decanter17/20

Jancis Robinson MW18/20

55% Cabernet Franc, 45% Merlot. Selection of the grand vin was limited by the amount of good Merlot available. They made only one third of the usual volume. Quite a long harvest. They usually pick early but had to wait to get full ripeness. More complex than Petit Cheval and lovely freshness and minerality but the difference between Petit Cheval and Cheval Blanc seems much less than in some more dramatically successful years. Cool and calm. Malted milk. Maybe not really really dramatic. Quality of the fruit of 2004 but with softer tannins. So mellow!
(Jancis Robinson - www.jancisrobinson.com - Apr 08)
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Wine Advocate92/100

Tasted at BI Wine & Spirits' 10-Years-On tasting, the 2007 Cheval Blanc has a refined bouquet with scents of red berry fruit, leather, iron filing and orange rind, perhaps a little more advanced than some of its Saint Emilion peers, but still attractive. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin on the entry. This is a stocky Cheval Blanc, with the Cabernet Franc component really forming the backbone to this wine, imparting bell pepper and spice box notes towards the grippy finish. I think it might have peaked a couple of years ago, so drink now and over the next 15 years. Tasted February 2017.
Neal Martin - 30/06/2017 Read more

Decanter17/20

The trademark elegance is there in the bouquet which shows a poise and freshness of fruit (55% Cabernet Franc in the blend). The palate also shows smoothness and suavity of texture with a crisp tannic edge but the finish is just a little less polished than the rest. Read more

About this WINE

Chateau Cheval Blanc

Château Cheval Blanc, a 1er Grand Cru Classé (A) is unquestionably the leading estate in St. Emilion. It is located in the north-west of the St. Emilion appellation, bordering Pomerol.

Cheval Blanc's vineyards (Merlot 39%, Cabernet Franc 57%, Malbec 3%, Cabernet Sauvignon 1%) enjoy a variety of soils: gravel, clay and sand, all underpinned by an impermeable sedimentary rock (`crasse de fer'). Fermentation and maceration last 4 weeks in stainless steel vats, followed by 18 months' maturation in new oak barrels.

Cheval Blanc produces the most famous Cabernet Franc-based wine in the world and present régisseur Pierre Lurton is amongst the most talented winemakers working in Bordeaux today. Cheval Blanc requires a minimum 10 years of bottle age and the best vintages can last for 50 years or more.

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St-Emilion

St Emilion is one of Bordeaux's largest producing appellations, producing more wine than Listrac, Moulis, St Estèphe, Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux put together. St Emilion has been producing wine for longer than the Médoc but its lack of accessibility to Bordeaux's port and market-restricted exports to mainland Europe meant the region initially did not enjoy the commercial success that funded the great châteaux of the Left Bank.

St Emilion itself is the prettiest of Bordeaux's wine towns, perched on top of the steep limestone slopes upon which many of the region's finest vineyards are situated. However, more than half of the appellation's vineyards lie on the plain between the town and the Dordogne River on sandy, alluvial soils with a sprinkling of gravel.

Further diversity is added by a small, complex gravel bed to the north-east of the region on the border with Pomerol. Atypically for St Emilion, this allows Cabernet Franc and, to a lesser extent, Cabernet Sauvignon to prosper and defines the personality of the great wines such as Ch. Cheval Blanc.

In the early 1990s there was an explosion of experimentation and evolution, leading to the rise of the garagistes, producers of deeply-concentrated wines made in very small quantities and offered at high prices. The appellation is also surrounded by four satellite appellations, Montagne, Lussac, Puisseguin and St. Georges, which enjoy a family similarity but not the complexity of the best wines.

St Emilion was first officially classified in 1954, and is the most meritocratic classification system in Bordeaux, as it is regularly amended. The most recent revision of the classification was in 2012