L'If

L'If, St Emilion, 2014

Name: L'If, St Emilion
Brand: L'If
Price: 427.22 GBP

92/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

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in bond

Broking

2014
6x75cl
DP
£427.22
2014
6x75cl
DP
£523.22

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Jacques was in a playful mood as he greeted us into his impeccable new cellars. This is the fourth vintage of L'If and he is taking a more hands on role with the winemaking and doing a little evangelical work with his cousin's son Cyrille who helps with the wine-making. Jacques is adopting the same wine-making philosophy here as he does at Le Pin - and it is beginning to show! A lot of hard work in the vineyard is also coming to fruition. Velvety, perfumed, not as aromatic as Le Pin, but very serious and expressive nonetheless. Some earthy notes of cèpe, forest floor and raspberry liqueur. Wonderfully succulent and juicy, with cashmere tannins. Gloriously decadent. 91% Merlot and 9% Cabernet Franc.

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GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

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.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

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

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2014 L’If has a dense, sultry nose at first, touches of salted liquorice infusing the black, almost tarry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with sweet but firm tannin, a core of ripe, almost sorbet-fresh fruit, orange rind tincturing the finish. I find this actually improves in the glass, developing more sappiness with time although I would have liked more persistency on the aftertaste. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

drinking window 2020 - 2036

date of review 03/2018

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14.5%

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.