98
Jeb Dunnuck Tasting Note
The Grand Vin 2023 Château Cheval Blanc is based on 52% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon and, as always, is resting in 100% new French oak. It's deep ruby/plum-hued and offers a gorgeous array of ripe black cherries, currants, leafy herbs, spring flowers, and spicy oak. This carries to a medium- to full-bodied Cheval with gorgeous mid-palate depth, ripe, building yet polished tannins, and a decidedly salty, mineral character on the finish. This is a classic, regal, aristocratic Cheval Blanc that will need bottle age, but it’s absolutely gorgeous. It's the finest wine I tasted on the Right Bank.
96
Wine Spectator Tasting Note
This impressive red lets warm paving stone, smoldering tobacco and iris hints peek out from behind its prodigious core of cassis and plum reduction, before a cascade of black tea and loam asserts itself on the finish. Broad and deep but doesn’t try to outmuscle the vintage, staying poised and focused through the long finish. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2028 through 2045. 10,000 cases made, 1,300 cases imported.
98
Vinous Tasting Note
The 2023 Cheval Blanc is uncharacteristically backward on first meeting, and it takes time to really fire up its engines. Quite strict and focused (surprisingly so), the bouquet reveals black fruit, a touch of bilberry, with just a whiff of iris flower. The palate has wonderful symmetry, outstanding mineralité and ample tension. It's extremely pure, with less weight than the 2022 but perhaps a touch more nerve. Modestly grippy on the finish, this "serious" Cheval Blanc will deserve several years in bottle. It's cerebral…and I like that. The 2023 is very different from the 2022—a beautiful minor chord.
99
James Suckling Tasting Note
Blackberry and dark-chocolate aromas with bark, mushrooms, stems, flint, lead pencil and a hint of violets. Medium- bodied with a toned structure from the tight, compressed palate and fine, polished tannins. Extremely long. A blend of 52% merlot, 46% cabernet franc and 2% cabernet sauvignon. Best after 2029.
100
Wine Advocate Tasting Note
From bottle, the 2023 Château Cheval Blanc is one of the most compelling wines of the vintage, just as it was from cask. Bursting with aromas of cherries and mulberries mingled with notions of violets, rose petal and anise, it's full-bodied, velvety and layered, with a deep and enveloping core of vibrant fruit, ripe tannins and a long, expansive finish. It's a blend of 52% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Franc and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon, drawing on fully 46 of the blocks that make up Cheval Blanc, and it attained 13.8% alcohol.
