Medium ruby and based on 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc, brought up in new barrels, the 2021 Château Tertre Rôteboeuf has a beautiful perfume of mostly red fruits (redcurrants, framboise) as well as smoked tobacco, leather, spice, and white chocolate nuances. It's medium-bodied, has a supple, layered, elegant mouthfeel, ripe tannins, and outstanding length. This is a wine that offers pleasure today yet will nevertheless evolve gracefully on its overall balance, elegance, and charm.

The 2021 Tertre-Rôteboeuf is a wine very much in its style, which means deep, fleshy and unctuous. Black cherry, gravel, chocolate, cloves and menthol infuse the 2021 deep layers of intensity that build in the glass. Even in 2021, Tertre-Rôteboeuf is a wine of real texture and dynamism. As always, Tertre-Rôteboeuf is an exotic, quirky wine that exists in its own little world, and what a beautiful world that is.

Never one to shy away from risks, proprietor François Mitjaville opted to encourage the vintage's inherently more evolved style to arrive at its logical conclusion, so he kept his chai at a rather warm 17 degrees Celsius throughout the year. The result is a rather wild, carnal 2021 Le Tertre Roteboeuf that mingles the estate's signatures of rich dark fruits, espresso roast and exotic spices with more savory suggestions of saddle leather and smoked meats. Medium to full-bodied, broad and layered, with supple tannins and the evident ripeness that Mitjaville manages to attain, whatever the vintage, it concludes with a long, meaty finish. I tend to love Tertre Roteboeuf in cooler, more challenging vintages, but the 2021's more animal side disconcerts me.