2007 Château Ausone, St Emilion, Bordeaux

2007 Château Ausone, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20078008785
Prices start from £2,100.00 per case Buying options
2007 Château Ausone, St Emilion, Bordeaux

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Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
Case format
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6 x 75cl bottle
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Description

Proprietor Alain Vauthier has made another virtually perfect wine in 2007. The divinely scented nose is wonderfully complex and expressive, with creamy wild blackberries to the fore. Immensely elegant and vibrant, the dark fruit rolls across the tongue in waves with lovely focused minerality and a straitjacket of acidity from which it will gently ease free as it matures. Made from 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot, from 50 year old vines, this wine is all about intensity and balance. With only 1500 cases made, the possession of this elixir will be a rare privilege indeed.

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate92/100
Tasted blind at Farr Vintners 2007 Bordeaux tasting. The 2007 Ausone has a high-toned bouquet, a little flashy in style compared to its peers with touches of salted licorice coming through with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins and fine acidity. This is more cohesive and mild-mannered than the feisty aromatics, with good depth and a caressing, quite plush finish. It is a fine Saint Emilion, though it does not quite possess the breeding of the Cheval Blanc 2007 that was tasted alongside. Tasted March 2015.
Neal Martin - 30/06/2017 Read more
Jancis Robinson MW17/20
"55% Cabernet Franc, 45% Merlot. Heady. Rich and heady. A bit angular, not exaggerated but in this damp vintage not as mellifluous as Cheval's gravel-based wine. Some green notes, a little awkward. Not Ausone's finest hour, I feel. A bit chewy and green. We have to take the development on trust really, although I know the wine provoked greater enthusiasm a couple of days before."
Jancis Robinson - www.jancisrobinson.com - Apr 08 Read more
Robert Parker94/100
The 2007 Ausone is a candidate for one of the wines of the vintage, rivaling Pavie and Lafite Rothschild. Its deep ruby/purple hue is accompanied by a beautiful nose of spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, and crushed rocks. The wine is dense, medium to full-bodied, and pure with sweet tannin as well as a surprisingly evolved, forward style. It is one of the few Ausones I have tasted that can be drunk with great pleasure at this stage, yet it promises to evolve for two decades.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate - April 2010 Read more
Decanter17.5+/20
50% Cabernet Franc in the blend. Really polished wine. Close to Ausone in style and stature. Has the depth and intensity many lack in 2007. Full and fresh with a fine tannic line. Read more

About this WINE

Château Ausone

Château Ausone

Château Ausone is a wine estate in St Emilion on the Right Bank of Bordeaux. It takes its name from the poet Ausonius, who is thought to have owned a villa where the estate stands today – just outside the medieval village of St Emilion. Ausone’s vineyards sit atop St Emilion’s limestone plateau and extend in terraces down the côtes. There are just over six hectares of vines planted today, mostly Cabernet Franc along with Merlot. The team practice organic and biodynamic viticulture though without certification.

The estate belongs to the Vauthier family, led by Alain Vauthier and his children, Pauline and Edouard. In 1955, Ausone was ranked at the very top of the St Emilion classification – as Premier Grand Cru Classé A – alongside Château Cheval Blanc. In 2021, both Ausone and Cheval Blanc announced that they were voluntarily withdrawing from the classification.

Ausone is known for its structured, long-lived wines. A second wine, Chapelle d’Ausone, was introduced in the 1990s. The Vauthier family also own a number of other properties nearby in St Emilion, including Château Moulin Saint-Georges, Château La Clotte and Château de Fonbel.

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St Émilion

St Émilion

St Émilion 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 Émilion 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 Émilion, 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 Émilion 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

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Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

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When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.