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Cantemerle 2010

RegionBordeaux
Subregion France > Bordeaux > Left Bank > Haut Médoc
ColourRed
TypeStill
Grape VarietyCabernet Sauvignon/Merlot

View all vintages of this wine | View all wines by Château Cantemerle

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Tasting Notes

The wine needs a good 7-10 years of cellaring and should keep for 30 more years, but this is the finest Cantemerle I have encountered in my professional career of tasting young vintages (dating back 34 years now). Stunningly deep ruby/purple, with a beautiful nose of spring flowers intermixed with perfumed raspberry and blueberry notes, it exhibits a sort of cool-climate character. Broad, rich and intense on the palate, the wine has plenty of tannins, but they are sweet and well-integrated. Everything is delicately entwined into this beautiful, medium to full-bodied, dense purple wine, which shows stunning character and a prodigious potential for development. This is definitely a major sleeper of the vintage and even better than I thought from barrel. Drink 2020-2050.

With its 2010, this classified growth located in the southern end of the Medoc may well have made a modern-day version of their legendary 1949.

94+
Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (205), March 2013

Layered and rich with lots of blueberry character and ripe velvety tannins. Lovely texture. Best wine from here in years

93/94
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com, March 2011

Deep garnet colored, the 2010 Cantemerle gives up notes of cassis, baked plums and fragrant earth with hints of pencil shavings and bay leaves. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is chock-full of bright, juicy fruit with a lively backbone and a bit of chew to the finish. 2020 - 2038

90
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate (March 2020), March 2020

Lower yields in general than 2009 but they almost reached the maximum allowed because of their high density. 53 hl/ha. Very dark purple. Big and raw and blustering. Quite a bruiser! Very sweet and lively and classy with marked mulberry fruit. Very powerful with masses of tannins hidden away underneath too. Well-integrated nose with both concentration and vivacity. Nicely balanced and behaved even without real nerve. Just a little stolid on the finish. Tasted both open and blind.

16
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com, April 2011

Deep purple in colour, the nose here is expressive with blackcurrant and savoury, smoky spices. The palate has an impressive core of dense cassis and black cherry fruit, layered by nutmeg and clove from new oak. The fresh acidity gives a savoury and refreshing edge to complement the firm and chewy tannins at this young stage. Intensity builds on the mid palate and peaks on the long cassis and violet finish. This is a Cantemerle with great promise, and is quite possibly the best ever made from this Chateau.

94+
Farr Vintners, Farr Tasting, March 2016
93
Tim Atkin MW, timatkin.com, April 2011

Finely expressed, deep but lifted and potentially complex fruit, refreshing acidity and firmness to add length to its habitual charm. Drink 2017-26.

17
Steven Spurrier, Decanter.com, April 2011
Read more tasting notes...

A quintessentially elegant style of Bordeaux, the opaque ruby/purple-tinged 2010 Cantemerle possesses elegant floral notes intermixed with hints of blueberries, raspberries, sweet red cherries and currants. Medium-bodied with impressive purity, concentration and texture, it is not a heavyweight, but rather a well-proportioned, stylish red that should drink nicely for 15-20 years.

91/93
Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (194), May 2011

Tasted twice with consistent notes the Cantemerle 2010 has a tertiary bouquet with ripe blackberry, plum and citrus peel. The palate is medium-bodied with a citrus thread lending fine freshness and vitality. There is a little hardness to the tannins but this should soften by the time of bottling. Good tension here. This is a sterling effort from Cantemerle. Tasted April 2011.

90/92
Neal Martin, RobertParker.com, April 2011
Please note that these tasting notes/scores are not intended to be exhaustive and in some cases they may not be the most recently published figures. However, we always do our best to add latest scores and reviews when these come to our attention. We advise customers who wish to purchase wines based simply on critical reviews to carry out further research into the latest reports.