Les Perrières,

Sculpted cool vintage fruit, with a defined spine, gunsmoke, slate, blueberry and red cherry. High floral aromatics, with grip and salinity. Delivers delicacy and a sense of carefully stepping through the palate, a definite wine to look out for. You have to work a little with it, allow it to open slowly and carefully. Suggest giving a few more years in bottle but it will be worth the wait. From the same team as Château Lafleur in Pomerol.

The 2021 Les Perrieres is a blend of 62% Cabernet Franc, harvested on 1 October, and 38% Merlot, harvested on 30 September. Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, it rolls effortlessly out of the glass with bold notions of black and red plums, boysenberries, and cloves, plus hints of aniseed, fragrant soil, and underbrush. Medium-bodied, the palate delivers impressive intensity with fine-grained tannins and tons of freshness, finishing long and perfumed.

The 2021 Les Perrières, located on limestone-clay soil, has a very perfumed, aromatic bouquet with iris flower, touches of wild mint and mainly black fruit, perhaps a little Margaux-like in style and finely delineated. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit. There’s very good weight here. Smooth in texture, a dash of white pepper leads to a very harmonious and persistent finish, containing the sapidity to beckon you back for another sip. This is excellent, but give it one or two years in bottle.