Château Angélus

Château Angélus, St Emilion, 2023

Name: Château Angélus, St Emilion
Brand: Château Angélus
Price: 1560 GBP

96/100

Inside Bordeaux

96-98/100

The Wine Independent

94-96/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

delivery

in bond

En primeur

2023
6x75cl
EP
£1,560.00

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Stephanie de Bouard-Rivoal set a clear direction of travel when she took up the mantle at Angelus, and we have to say, we're mighty impressed. Cool fermentations and a greater proportion of aging in wooden foudres has preserved the essence and purity of the fruit. This is a case of less is more. Less showy, but much more refined. Crafted from 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc this opens with suggestions of sweet plums, goji, exotic spices and freshly cut flowers. Perhaps not as seductive and fruity as some of the Pomerols, this is dark, salty and mineral, underpinned by notes of gravelly cassis, tobacco leaf and flecks of graphite. A very even keeled, handsome Angelus.

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

96-98/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

A blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc, the 2023 Angelus has a pH of 3.65 and is deep garnet-purple in color. It needs a little shaking to bring forth an eruption of energetic scents of wild blueberries, Morello cherries, and ripe plums, followed by nuances of cedar chest, clove oil, cinnamon stick, and violets, with a touch of garrigue. The medium-bodied palate is so, so finely knit with a mille-feuille of red, black, and blue fruit layers interspersed with mineral and floral notes, framed by firm, fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and earthy. It will need time but it will be a jaw-dropper!

drinking window 2029 - 2050

date of review 05/2024

96/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Cocoa bean, liquorice, pomegranate, smoked earth, sage, anis, fennel, slate tannins, this combines nuanced and sinewy tannins with a generous supple expansion through the palate, building in power and impact. Beautifully fragrant, measured and skilful. 50% in foudres for Cabernet Franc, 50% new oak for the Merlot. Harvest September 14 through to October 1, Benjamin Laforest winemaker, Stephane de Boüard-Rivoal owner.

drinking window 2030 - 2050

date of review 05/2024

94-96/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2023 Angélus is the traditional blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc. It aged for 20 months in new oak with just over half the Cabernet Franc aged in foudres (the Merlot is apparently less receptive to this larger vessel). It has a crisp and precise bouquet, not powerful, a light marine influence coming through with background scents of oyster shell. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins. There’s a pleasant saline edge to this Angélus, perhaps a little more compact on the mid-palate than usual, with touches of white pepper toward the finish. It needs a little more persistency on the aftertaste. This will deserve five of six years in bottle.

drinking window 2030 - 2060

date of review 04/2024

product details

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abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.