Château Pavie, 1er Grand Cru Classé, St Emilion, 2022
Gerard Perse's wines are quite divisive. The unashamedly large-scale wines do not find favour with everyone. His flagship, Chateau Pavie gleams from its wonderful site on the limestone and clay slopes of the eponymous Cote Pavie. Produced from 52% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, they described 2022 as
critic reviews
The 2022 Pavie has quite a rich and extravagant nose, layers of black cherries and boysenberry, a little sloe, showy and decadent. Could be Pavie? The palate is medium-bodied with a glossy opening, but there is structure behind all the intense fruit and pleasing mineralité on the finish. Serious, long-term. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.
The grand vin from Pavie, tasted in Scotland as the wines were deemed not ready to taste by the Pavie winemaking team when I visited Bordeaux in December, is a blend of 52% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon. The vintage is noticeable because it is the first under the new 2022 St Emilion classification, which permitted the vines of both Pavie-Decesse and Bellevue-Mondotte to be absorbed into the Pavie vineyard, signalling the end of the road for both those properties. Now it is in bottle – with its engraved ‘label’ to celebrate 25 years of Perse family ownership of the estate – the 2022 Pavie explodes with an array of rich fruit on the nose, all blackcurrant and dark griottes, all very clearly defined, backed up by a frame of crushed gravel and dark chocolate. The palate builds on this with a firm frame of rich and ripe tannins, confidently knit together, coated in dark and perfumed summer fruits, before a lengthy finish infused with ripe tannin and powdery oak. This is a superb grand vin with huge cellaring potential. The alcohol is 14.47% on analysis, with 14.5% on the label.
Light ruby in colour, with fresh red fruits on the nose, attractive and easy to approach, not huge density through the palate but that keeps things going at a fine pace.