critic reviews
The 2016 Palmer has a wonderful bouquet with blackcurrant pastilles, blue fruit and pressed flower scents that are beautifully defined. Wonderful focus. The palate is medium-bodied with smooth tannins. Very harmonious, a little peppery towards the finish, which feels long and tender and not unlike the 1983 tasted just a couple of days later. I could drink this all day! Tasted blind at the Southwold 10-Year-On tasting.
Just hover your nose over the glass to get excited about this wine. Inky purple in colour, cigar box, tobacco bud, pencil lead, tight cassis and bilberry fruit. Where the 2015 is generous, the 2016 is tighter, less expressive at the five year mark, but with layers and potential to fire up an entire room. Has the structure and the chiselled fruit that signposts great Bordeaux in an exceptional vintage, with the nuanced whisper of violet and peony that takes you to the Margaux appellation. Powerful and muscular, still austere but the morieish juice on the finish tells you how much this has to give over the next few decades. Harvest October 3 to 18. Gets better every time you go back to it. 60% new oak.
The 2016 Palmer is a blend of 47% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Petit Verdot. Opaque garnet-purple colored, it slowly glides out of the glass with compelling notes of blueberry compote, warm cassis and kirsch with emerging hints of violets, cigar box, black tea, sandalwood and Sichuan pepper. Medium to full-bodied, wonderfully rich, concentrated and packed with latent energy, the palate literally grows in the mouth, revealing layer upon layer of black, blue and red fruits and tons of floral sparks, framed by super ripe, incredibly fine-grained tannins and finishing with epic length. Its a wine that makes you wanna drape yourself languidly over a chaise lounge, glass of Palmer in hand, sighing with deep satisfaction, This is so wonderfully Palmer.