virginie de valandraud grand cru classe st emilion

Château Valandraud

Virginie de Valandraud, Grand Cru Classé, St Émilion, 2005

Name: Virginie de Valandraud, Grand Cru Classé, St Émilion
Brand: Château Valandraud
Price: 1481.92 GBP

92/100

Inside Bordeaux

100/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

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Broking

2005
6x75cl
DP
£1,481.92

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

A blend of 85% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc and 1% Cabernet Sauvignon, cropped at 25hl/ha from 4.5ha. There is the usual 100% new oak, and the wine carries 14% alcohol. Could the garagistes be returning to the fold? This Valandraud is so pure and elegant, with its habitual power and extraction seemingly abandoned in favour of a more classic style, that one must ask the question. Very pure fruit on the nose, quite tight on the palate with good (but not excessive) concentration, very fine tannins and great balance. Or is this simply a true reflection of an exceptional vintage?

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When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

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Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

92/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Heavy oak toasting and tar on the oak, these were the time when Valandraud was in full flight of exuberance and extraction, before it took the foot off the pedal over the last five years. Spice and grilled cedar give plenty of impact, and are backed up by gourmet slabs of cocoa bean and smoked earth, but the ripe dark fruits are so concentrated that they lack juice, giving it more estate than vintage signature. Cleverly constructed, but lacks light and shade. 100% new oak, harvest October 1 to 5.

drinking window 2022 - 2038

date of review 09/2022

100/100

Antonio Galloni,

Vinous

The 2005 Valandraud is off the charts. Easily one of the wines of the vintage, the 2005 Valandraud possesses tremendous richness from start to finish. Moreover, it has aged exquisitely. Inky red fruit, iron, smoke, dried herbs, menthol, licorice and blood orange infuse the 2005 with striking layers of nuance to play off all that unctuous fruit. This full-throttle Saint-Émilion is a prodigious effort from Jean-Luc Thunevin and Murielle Andraud.

drinking window 2021 - 2035

date of review 04/2021

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abv:

15%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.