Valandraud 2018

This is really rich and intense with beautiful blackberry, violet and blueberry aromas that follow through to a full-bodied palate with extremely polished tannins that caress your palate. Love the texture and purity to the wine. Fantastic. Try after 2025.

Deep purple-black in color, the 2018 Valandraud is still sporting a fair bit of oak on the nose, with the cedary notions giving way to a profound core of Black Forest cake, stewed plums and boysenberry preserves, plus suggestions of espresso, clove oil, unsmoked cigars and charcuterie with a waft of Chinese five spice. The full-bodied palate is jam-packed with rich black fruit preserves, framed by sturdy tannins and just enough freshness, finishing long and tinged with exotic spices. It will need a good 5-6 years for everything to marry and for the nuances to be fully expressed, then enjoy it over the next 25+ years. 2026 - 2051

Rich, deep, powerful and hugely persistent, this has tons of juicy black fruits but clearly in the more restrained frame that owner Jean Luc Thunevin has introduced over the past few vintages. It's a brilliant wine, full of personality, keeping its concentration and glamour and just easing towards balance, but still with its signature insouciance. Tasted several times and always delicious, this just pips the excellent 2016 for me. 3% Malbec completes the blend, the first time it's been included in the wine. 40hl/ha yield. 3.6pH. 100% new oak for extended ageing.

Drinking Window 2027 - 2042

Long-term wine that was the group's favourite within its flight.
Tasted blind. Blackish crimson. Obvious Merlot with lushness. Very sweet start. Then all zipped up to a tight dry end at the moment. May bloom but it’s not 100% obvious that it will at this stage. 15.5%
Drink 2027 – 2044

Black with barely a rim. Very archetypal New World on the nose: sweet, ripe fruit and toasty oak. Barossa Shiraz? Thick, chewy, rich and sweet. Nothing in moderation but it is all in harmony. A hard wine for the table – at least for the next 10 years. Will give pleasure but not classic Bordeaux pleasure. Impressive rather than enjoyable. There is some freshness on the finish, just.
Drink 2025-2035

Deep purple in colour. This has an exotic nose of liquorice, damson and ripe blackberry. Still sweet and bold on the palate, there is a toning down of the most extreme elements to this year's Valandraud, and it is all for the better. The tannins are rich but in balance with the fruit, complementing rather than dominating the sweetness. The opulent ripeness is on the right side of jammy, and there is enough acidity to retain the freshness. The result is a powerful, exuberant and impressive wine with a long and heady finish.

Another great vintage for Jean-Luc Thunevin’s flagship wine, the 2018 Château Valandraud sports a glass-staining purple color as well as a mammoth-sized personality in its blue and black fruits, liquid violets, and graphite aromas and flavors. Possessing incredible depth and richness, full body, sweet tannins, and a finish that won’t quit, it’s one of the most hedonistic wines in the vintage, yet also possesses purity, balance, and elegance. It’s a thrilling, blockbuster to drink over the coming two decades or more.

This is richly fruited, with waves of fleshy raspberry, boysenberry and red currant cruising through, inlaid with singed vanilla and apple wood notes along the way. Shows density and cut through the finish, with a tug of tobacco at the end. This is dialed up to 11.