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 stellar, just as it was en primeur. Lithe and elegant, the 2023 is super impressive right out of the gate. It possesses superb textural density yet remains so elegant, so precise. Exotic floral and spice notes weave through a core of red/purplish fruit. Hints of lavender, rose petal and menthol follow, adding myriad layers of dimension. The 2023 is wonderfully vivid, even in the early going. It's a magnificent young Cheval Blanc that will provide many decades of exceptional drinking. Yields were 39 hectoliters per hectare, the highest since 2004.
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
One of the most profound wines of the vintage is the 2023 Château Cheval Blanc, a striking wine that stands out for its strong sense of identity and seamless integration at such an early stage in its life. Wafting from the glass with notes of mulberries, lilac, dark fruits, iris root and violets, it's medium to full-bodied, supple and seamless, with a gourmand core of cool, vibrant fruit that entirely conceals its sweet structuring tannins, concluding with a long, perfumed 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.
