chateau cheval blanc 1er grand cru classe st emilion

Château Cheval Blanc

Château Cheval Blanc, 1er Grand Cru Classé, St Emilion, 2011

Name: Château Cheval Blanc, 1er Grand Cru Classé, St Emilion
Brand: Château Cheval Blanc
Price: 2407.22 GBP

94/100

Inside Bordeaux

96/100

The Wine Independent

94/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

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Broking

2011
6x75cl
DP
£2,407.22

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Tasted in the new 13€ million winery, the 2011 Cheval Blanc is rather more graceful than the lines of the new construction. It is a rather gleaming and magnificent interior, which will no doubt push the qualitative bar even higher, but close neighbours may be saying the French equivalent of NIMBY... Produced from 54% Merlot and 46% Cabernet Franc, this was one of the superstars of the appellation, even the vintage. Perfumed bouquet of minerals, cut flowers, graphite, stones and crème de cassis. This really is very mineral and speaks of its finer terroir. On the palate it is linear, racy and ripe with a haunting finesse. Flavours develop in the glass and on the palate as some decadent red cherries, violets and dark chocolate notes come to the fore. There is a wonderfully persistent perfume and tremendous length to this athletic beauty. Another sensational Cheval which proves that if you have great terroir, you don't need to force extractions to create a vin de garde. Outstanding.

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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

96/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

The 2011 Cheval Blanc has a deep garnet-brick color. The nose is redolent of tar, fertile loam, licorice, and prunes, giving way to a core of fruitcake, new leather, and black truffles. The palate is full-bodied, rich, and concentrated with earthy nuances coming through on the long finish.

drinking window 2023 - 2037

date of review 09/2023

94/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2011 Cheval Blanc has an elegant, quite refined bouquet with brambly red fruit, scorched earth, terracotta and sage, very complex and harmonious. Could this be Figeac? [Post-script. No, but not far off!] The palate is medium-bodied with rounded tannins, quite plush and sensual, rich for this vintage with plenty of concentrated, quite sweet and spicy, hoisin-tinged fruit on the precise finish. This is a very fine Saint-Émilion. Tasted blind at the annual 10-Year-On tasting.

drinking window 2020 - 2040

date of review 04/2022

94/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Plenty of grip at 10 years old, but as with many of the bigger wines in the 2011 vintage, it is fairly closed right now, after a good number of years when it felt approachable. I would suggest leaving it for another five years to let these tannins soften and the peony aromatics fully emerge. It does soften after a double carafing (I tried this both from bottle and later over food), when the violet and precisely-drawn raspberry and redcurrant notes take the lead. Cabernet Franc dominant right now, but it lacks a little generosity at this stage of its life. 64% first wine.

drinking window 2025 - 2045

date of review 09/2021

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13%

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.