Region | |
---|---|
Subregion | France > Bordeaux > Right Bank > Côtes de Bourg |
Colour | Red |
Type | Still |
Often close in quality to the same owner's top Saint Emilion, Le Tertre Roteboeuf. This Cotes de Bourg is head and shoulders the best wine of the appellation and very much a wine for those "in the know". A right bank wine, yet only 4 or 5 kilometres from Chateau Margaux as the crow flies. This vineyard is a south facing slope with well ventilated vines. The 20% of Cabernet Sauvignon vines here are over 50 years old. 80% Merlot. Half the normal production in 2018.
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Tasted blind. Smells rather like Tertre Roteboeuf! So is it Roc de Cambes? Very round and fleshy. Masses of pleasure. Not quite the follow-through of the Tertre though. 14.5%
Drink 2025 – 2038
Pretty oaky but not quite as marked as on the Dom de Cambes. Still pretty toasty on the palate. There's freshness but a very slight bitterness on the finish that seems to be the oak, so may die back. I would not give many other wines this oaky the benefit of the doubt but Mitjavile wines nearly always turn into something delicious.
Drink 2024-2030
Very deep purple, with an exotic nose of caramel, dark chocolate, espresso, and bramble fruits. The palate is very powerful, concentrated and dense. The explosive, ripe black fruit is contained by mouthcoating and grippy, ripe tannins. This is full bodied and heady, with creamy, oily richness and heady plack fruits. This drives through to an exceptionally long finish, which is pure, ripe and spicy. This will need a decade in the bottle, at least, before approaching maturity.
Beautiful cassis and blackcurrant notes, as well as classy oak and tobacco, emerge from the 2018 Roc De Cambes. It's beautifully layered, textured, and deep on the palate, with fabulous tannin quality and length. Coming from the Cotes de Bourg, this brilliant wine will shine for two decades
(80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon) | 100% new oak | 15.5% alc Roc is more backward and more obviously tannic than Domaine de Cambes in 2018. It is more red-fruited and more austere and the elegance and edge are fascinating as it shuns the black fruit spectrum and it majors on red fruit. The oak is perfectly matched to this lusty red fruit and there is a cinnamon dusting of spice which invigorates the palate. The length is mellow and long and the tannins never dry the palate.