Château Le Tertre Rôteboeuf, St Emilion Grand Cru, 2017
Francois explained that he was initially very cautious with his extractions. He started off being gentle so as to not extract anything aggressive, however, he pressed harder and harder tasting each time. To his surprise, the fruit kept on giving and there were no ‘rude tannins'. As a result, the wine has terrific colour and is one of the densest and most profound wines of the vintage. The bouquet is a smorgasbord of fine herbs, beautiful perfumed fruit, decadent griotte liqueur, graphite, truffle and damp earth. The palate is sumptuous as ever with velvety crème de mûre fruit. Utterly hedonistic; yet another spectacular Tertre Roteboeuf which belies the challenges of the vintage.
critic reviews
Beautifully fragrant, this is a great example of limestone terroir encouraging floral aromatics, particularly in lighter vintages such as 2017 (I am thoroughly enjoying the 2017 vintage right now by the way, and just a few days ago had a delicious example of the neighbouring wine, Larcis Ducasse). Expect a swirl of gunsmoke, plenty of rich and juicy blueberry and blackberry fruits, violets, peonies, cloves and cumin. Traditionally the southen slopes of St Emilion were called the most Burgundian of the region, and there is a touch of Musigny about this. 100% new oak for ageing. Easily one of the wines of the vintage, tasting even better with six years under its belt, brilliant stuff from François Mitjavile.
The 2017 Tertre-Rôteboeuf has Saint-Émilion blood pumping through its veins, although this 2017 has tones of Left Bank, subtle cigar box and smoke aromas infusing the tightly knit red fruit, a faint marine influence in the background. The palate is silky smooth on the entry with a fine line of acidity, quite savory in character with cracked black pepper and a touch of spice on the persistent finish. There is a nice "bite" to this Tertre-Rôteboeuf and it should give over 20 years of drinking pleasure.