Valandraud Ex-Chateau 2019 (750ML)

99 JD / 98 JS / 97+ VM / 97 JA / 97 DE / 97 WI / 96 WA / 98-100 WE

#27 James Suckling Top 100 Wines of France 2022

The local bad boy of Bordeaux, Jean-Luc Thunevin, continues to fashion truly brilliant wines, and his 2019 is no exception. Based largely on Merlot with small amount of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2019 Château Valandraud is a deep purple-hued beauty offering up a kaleidoscope-like bouquet of black and blue fruits, scorched earth, chocolate, gravelly earth, spicy oak, and sappy flowers. Deep, rich, full-bodied, and wonderfully concentrated, it has insane purity of fruit, brilliant tannins, a stacked mid-palate, and just has everything in the right places. It's up with the top wines of the vintage and a tour de force that readers should snatch up. It shows a very different style than the sexier 2018, but it's every bit as good. It needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will evolve for 2-3 decades. - Jeb Dunnuck

Vivid and focused with brightness and clarity of fruit. Dried flowers, too. Full-bodied with layers of fine, soft tannins that spread across the palate and show class and refinement. It goes on for minutes. A beautiful bottle. Try after 2027, but so attractive already. - James Suckling

This is gorgeous. There is high alcohol here and you do feel a slight trace of heat, but it is met by fruit that rises to fill in every step through the palate, along with cocoa beans, chocolate shavings, plum, boysenberry, loganberry, all textured, welcoming, juicy fruits of autumn, alongside cigar box, cold ash, shot through with smoke and bitter chocolate. So good.- Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux

Highly charged and high toned on the nose, smells abundant and seriously expressive. Lovely intensity here, tannins are mouth coating and super persistent but this has excellent depth with such concentrated fruit flavours that are balanced so well with acidity and the soft wood spicing around the edges. A bold wine for sure, with tons of flavour and personality, and excellent freshness throughout with minerality and wet stone nuances. One to age, but delivering excellent clarity and confidence. A top buy. Drinking Window 2025 - 2047 - GH, Decanter

The 2019 Valandraud is deep garnet-purple in color. It gallops out with energetic notes of blackberry preserves, kirsch, and wild blueberries plus suggestions of spice cake, dried roses, star anise and forest floor. Concentrated, full-bodied and super-rich, it explodes in the mouth with vibrant black fruit preserves and exotic spices flavors, supported by exquisitely ripe, velvety tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with epic length. - Lisa Perotti-Brown, Wine Independent

Rich and dramatic, the 2019 Valandraud bursts with aromas of berry fruit, plums and licorice, framed by a lavish but far from exaggerated application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, fleshy and sensual, it's broad and enveloping, its lavish core of fruit framed by ripe, polished tannins and succulent balancing acids. Seamless and integrated despite its ripe, hedonistic style, this has turned out beautifully and has the balance to perform well for at least two decades, even if there's no youthful asperity to preclude near-term enjoyment. - WK, Wine Advocate

Barrel Sample. This is a dense and luscious wine, the best yet from this estate. Its great structure and tannins show a style that is powerful but all within. This is a magnificent vintage from this Premier Grand Cru Classé estate, and fully deserves to be aged for many years. - RV, Wine Enthusiast