Lagrange (St Julien) 2016

Tasted blind. Dark blackish crimson. Light toasty nose. Appealing rather than really grand and intense. No one could object to this charmer.Drink 2025 – 2037

The Grand Vin 2016 Château Lagrange checks in 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot brought up in equal parts new and used barrels. It shows the fresher, elegant style of the vintage and offers beautiful black cherry and cassis fruits intermixed with tobacco leaf, damp earth, and cedar. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully pure, seamless, and layered, it has a vibrant, tight texture, terrific tannin quality, and a great finish. It's a quintessential expression of this vintage. Give bottles 4-5 years and enjoy over the following two to three decades. Drink 2022-2047.

The 2016 Lagrange has a tightly knit, focused bouquet of intense blackberry, briar and cedar aromas. This is impressive, and it gains intensity with aeration. The medium-bodied palate delivers grainy tannin, a fine bead of acidity and a vivacious, spicy, almost peppery finish. One of the most powerful Lagrange that I have tasted. A Saint-Julien that is consistently underrated, this 2016 will give a great deal of pleasure over the next 30-plus years. Drink 2023-2056.

The Lagrange 2016 has a deep garnet color. It charges out with pronounced scents of warm cassis, blueberry preserves, and juicy blackberries, plus suggestions of cedar chest, tar, and bay leaves. Medium-bodied, the palate delivers great intensity of savory-laced black fruit with firm, grainy tannins and great tension on the finish.

Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Lagrange sashays out of the glass with notions of candied violets, cassis, underbrush and warm black plums with waves of Black Forest cake, cedar chest and yeast extract scents. Medium to full-bodied, the bags of perfumed black fruits are solidly structured with super ripe, grainy tannins, finishing long and layered. Drink Date 2021 - 2045.

The 2016 Lagrange is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot and 6% Petit Verdot that is matured in 50% new oak. The yield came in at 46.5 hectoliters per hectare, lower than in 2015. It has a very well defined bouquet with intense black cherry, red plum, touches of cedar and with continued aeration, a hint of blueberry. It certainly is one of the most expressive Lagrange that I have tasted (and I write that having tasted them all back to the early 1980s). The palate is extremely well balanced with tensile tannin, vibrant and animated with blackberry, crème de cassis, a hint of orange zest. This is a great Lagrange, one that almost "zings" around the senses, barely able to contain the energy. A superior Lagrange to the 2015, this may well rank as the finest produced. Drink 2025 - 2060.

70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot. Château Lagrange is at 50% grand vin in 2016, which is its highest since the Suntory group became owners in 1983. They say that until now the percentage of Fiefs de Lagrange has always been higher, but in 2016 many plots planted in 1985 reached maturity. Together with the exceptional quality of the vintage and the intra-plot selection, this means more top quality wine destined for the grand vin. There is lovely concentration in this wine, with spicy pepper and cinnamon notes coming to the fore before the blackcurrant takes over on the mid-palate. 2016 was the longest harvest ever, according to technical director Matthieu Bordes, right through to 24th October. No doubt this is a fantastic Lagrange, to be savoured. Drinking Window 2025 - 2045.

Dark purple. Quite high volatile acidity. Big and broad but lacks a bit of precision and focus. A tad scrawny on the end. Was everything ripe enough? Dilute finish.Drink 2024-2038