Château Gruaud Larose, 2ème Cru Classé, St Julien, 2024
While perhaps not reaching the heights of the exceptional 2022 and 2023, the Gruaud Larose 2024 is a commendable effort, offering good ripe fruit with plenty of pure, silky cherry notes interwoven with floral nuances. This culminates in a pleasing finale with fruit-laced tannins, exhibiting characteristics of griotte, cassis, and fine minerals.
critic reviews
Deep garnet-purple in color. Notes of red currant jelly, fresh blackberries, and raspberry coulis sail from the glass, plus fragrant wafts of red roses and allspice. The light to medium-bodied palate is lively and plush with delicate red and black berry flavors and a perfumed finish.
The 2024 Gruaud Larose, picked between September 27 and October 8, matured in 95% new oak. This has an impressive bouquet for the vintage with pure blackberry, bilberry, cedar and light pressed flower scents. This leans a little toward Margaux in style. The palate is medium-bodied, fresh and quite saline, with sappy black fruit laced with notes of black olive tapenade. Not a persistent Gruaud Larose insofar as there is no peacock's tail on the finish, yet it has a statesman-like classicism that you could not find 10 or 15 years ago.
Gorgeous dark ruby colour with vivid reflections, slow and steady reveal of grilled earth, savoury rose bud, peony, black tea and floral Cabernet finesse. This is a little softer than the recent exceptional vintages of Gruaud, but the fragrant aromatics have a ton of charm, and this shows skilful construction. Harvest 27 September to 8 October, 3.55pH, 31hl/h yield, slap bang on the appellation average, organic certified. 40% of production in this 1st wine. 95% new oak for ageing.
The 2024 Gruaud Larose shows excellent potential, bursting with notes of cassis, pencil shavings, iris and violets. Medium to full-bodied, suave and seamless, it's ample and pure, with a precise, refined pro-life and good persistence on the finish. A blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc, it is the fruit of a growing season defined by fully 30 organic phytosanitary treatments and a harvest that concluded on October 8. It checks in at 12.4% alcohol and pH 3.77 (for Gruaud, a rather low number).