CALON SEGUR 2008

A blend of 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot, the outstanding 2008 Calon Ségur offers a healthy ruby color as well as just a touch of maturity in its classic Saint-Estèphe bouquet of black cherries, ground herbs, dried earth, and cedar. This medium-bodied beauty is seamless, perfectly balanced, and has nicely integrated acidity as well as still-present tannins. It’s drinking well today yet has another two decades of longevity.

Very pretty spicy aromas, with currant and blackberry. Medium-bodied, with fine tannins and a delicate velvety texture. Balanced and easy, with a medium finish. 80 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 18 percent Merlot and 2 percent Petit Verdot. This is much more Cabernet than normal

(80% cabernet sauvignon, 18% merlot and 2% petit verdot; a 50% selection for the grand vin; 80% new oak) Deep ruby-red. Captivating aromas of blackcurrant, sweet spices and milk chocolate, nicely lifted by hints of minerals and graphite. Enters the mouth creamy and fruity, with flavors of small berries and plum, then turns somewhat tighter and distinctly minerally on the long, smooth, restrained finish. This is classic claret, a wine admirably combining grace and power, and just one of a string of very fine wines from Calon-Segur in the last ten years. Denise Capbern-Gasqueton is still very active (at 85 years of age) in the day-to-day running of the winery, helped out brilliantly by technical director and winemaker Vincent Millet, who told me that "the long autumn saved us: in 2008 we started picking the cabs on the day we had finished in 2007."

A solid red, with plum, spices and cedar character on the nose...

Tasted from an ex-château bottle at BI Wine & Spirits Calon-Segur dinner in London. I praised the 2008 Calon Segur when I tasted it blind in 2012 and I have no reason to change my opinion three years later. Here it has a surprisingly deep hue for a 2008. The nose is very detailed and lively, more breezy and carefree than the 2009 with vivacious blackberry, cedar and graphite scents. The palate is medium-bodied and slightly brittle in texture on the entry. The acidity is beautifully judged here with superb balance: smooth and harmonious, though it just tapers in towards the edgy, maybe angular finish. This has a sense of joie-de-vivre perhaps not common in Calon-Ségur's wines. It is one of the best Left Bank wines in 2008 and given its price, one of its best values. Tasted March 2015.