Château Le Tertre Rôteboeuf, St Emilion Grand Cru, 2023
As one would expect from Francois Mitjavile's flagship wine, this is an idiosyncratic, exotic style of St Emilion. Tasted straight from barrel, the sample is heavily influenced by oak, but even so, one detects notions of mushrooms, Kirsch, caramel, sweet earth, cacao, mocha and degraded fruit. Velvety, dark, rich and sumptuous. The overall balance is good, and in time this should reveal lots of charm as those ripe, earthy notes emerge. There is simply nothing else like it in Bordeaux…..
critic reviews
The 2023 Tertre-Rôteboeuf has a very attractive bouquet with pure red cherry, crushed strawberry and cough-candy scents that are well-defined, perhaps a little Grenache-like in style. The palate is medium-bodied with a savory opening. Meat juices infuse the red-berry fruit, a little Provençal herb and allspice toward the nicely composed finish. A typical Tertre-Rôteboeuf, which is no bad thing.
The 2023 Tertre Roteboeuf is deep garnet-purple in color. It erupts from the glass with powerful notes of plum preserves, juicy ripe blackberries, and licorice leading to suggestions of charcoal, black olives, cumin seed, lavender oil, and crushed rocks with a waft of iron ore. The full-bodied palate vibrates with energetic black fruits and savory accents, supported by beautifully velvety tannins and wonderful tension, finishing long and minerally. This is a stunning expression of the vintage!
The juice, the salinity, the plump fruits and the pleasure bursting out of this glass are off the scale. Expect waves of fleshy red cherry, raspberry, squid ink, tar and smoked grilled caramel, tannins full of sinew. All picked in one day, Henri Mitjavile winemaker alongside his father François Mitjavile. 100% new oak for ageing.
The 2023 Le Tertre Roteboeuf offers up aromas of creme de cassis, blueberry liqueur, kirsch, espresso roast and creamy new oak, followed by a full-bodied, rich and layered palate that's sweet, dense and concentrated, somewhat reminiscent of Francois Mitjaville's 2011. When I tasted it, the wine had only been in barrel for a matter of weeks, as the 2023 took an unusually long time to ferment to dryness.