L'If

L'If, St Emilion, 2023

Name: L'If, St Emilion
Brand: L'If
Price: 600 GBP

94-96/100

The Wine Independent

93-95/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

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in bond

En primeur

2023
6x75cl
EP
£600.00

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

After a decade restructuring the L’If vineyards, the final piece of the jigsaw has been added, a brand-new vat room. This is no longer a "garagiste" operation, Jacques has lots of new concrete and steel tanks at his disposal to allow plot by plot vinification. One immediately senses the extra precision in the wine with initial notes of flowers, tobacco, cedar, over hedgerow fruit and minerals. Very bright, crisp fruit, with a real sense of purity and drive, some sapidity and a lovely grip from the chalky, limestone tannins. Noble flavours and a beguiling perfume - a very successful L'If. 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc with a low pH of 3.37 (Jacques explained that this limestone terroir always has much higher acidity than Le Pin).

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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

94-96/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2023 L'If sashays out of the glass with flamboyant notes of kirsch, juicy plums, and mulberries followed by hints of rosebud tea, underbrush, dark chocolate, and aniseed. The medium to full-bodied palate is coated with red and black berry flavors, framed by firm fine-grained tannins and fantastic tension, finishing long and fragrant. This is beautiful! The blend is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc.

drinking window 2029 - 2050

date of review 05/2024

93-95/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2023 L'If was picked from September 18 to 27 for the Merlot. The Cabernet Franc was picked on October 2. The wine aged for 12 to 16 months in 50% new oak, the first time in the new cellar in concrete vats instead of stainless steel. It has quite an exuberant bouquet with ripe red cherry and wild strawberry fruit, a hint of blood orange and iris flower. It is very focused and beautifully defined, the limestone terroir percolating through. The palate is medium-bodied with the Cabernet Franc shaping the entry—a little peppery in style. The tannins are quite strict at the moment (which came as some surprise to the Thienponts), framing the dark berry and graphite-tinged fruit. Linear toward the finish, reflecting the slightly cooler growing season, this is a very fine, cerebral L'If.

drinking window 2027 - 2043

date of review 04/2024

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abv:

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.