A Haut-Medoc wine from an great vintage
A historical estate in the Haut-Medoc and a Fifth Classified Growth of 1855, Chateau Cantemerle is a must-see on the Left Bank. After several decades of reconstruction, investment and reflection, Chateau Cantemerle is now one of the elite in the Haut-Medoc appellation. The 91-hectare vineyard grows Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot in silica-gravel soils.
The 2009 vintage will be remembered for a long time in Bordeaux and in the Haut-Medoc appellation. The Chateau Cantemerle 2009 is a perfect ambassador for the appellation with a beautiful dark red color that is highly concentrated with a precise and tight tannic structure. The estate considers it a reference vintage that will open up over time, but it can also be enjoyed now by those who love young, dense wines.
Readers looking for the more ethereal, elegant side of Bordeaux need search no further than Cantemerle, one of the estates in the very southern end of the Medoc. Dense ruby/purple (nearly opaque), this wine offers up notes of lead pencil shavings, spring flowers, raspberries and black cherries. The wine is ethereal, medium-bodied, and by no means a blockbuster, but long and intellectual. However, the tannins are present, and the wine is certainly capable of putting on weight with time in the bottle. Give it 3-4 years of bottle age and drink it over the following 25+ years.