Connétable de Talbot, Saint-Julien, Château Talbot 2018
Falstaff 93; James Suckling 92; La Revue du Vin de France 91; Jeff Leve 90; Wine Spectator 90; JancisRobinson.com 89; Jane Anson 89; Vinum Wine Magazine 87; Jean-Marc Quarin 86
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Why this wine
Connétable was one of the very first Médoc second wines, and it comes off Talbot's single 110-hectare vineyard rather than bought-in fruit. Thirty-year-old vines on Dordogne gravel, sixteen months in French oak, only a fifth of it new. The 2018 warmth gives it flesh without losing the Saint-Julien frame.
At a glance
- Grape
- Merlot 57%, Cabernet Sauvignon 43%
- Region
- Bordeaux, France
- Alcohol
- 13.50%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Short (3-5 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Black cherry and cassis with cedar, spice and a graphite edge running underneath. Full-bodied and round, the acidity moderate and the tannins beautifully integrated, holding a persistent finish. Merlot 57%, Cabernet Sauvignon 43%.
The producer
Château Talbot is the 4ème Grand Cru Classé of Saint-Julien, and unusually its 110 hectares sit in one unbroken block on alluvial gravel hilltops laid down by the Dordogne. The Cordier family has held the estate for over a century; Nancy Bignon-Cordier leads it today, with Jean-Michel Laporte as general manager since 2018 and Jean-Max Drouilhet making the wine since 2007. Vines are planted at 7,700 to the hectare, average thirty years old and are held to forty-five hectolitres per hectare, with traditional four-way ploughing, a manual harvest and HVE Level 3 certification for sustainability. Connétable, created in the 1970s, was one of the first Médoc second wines: the fruit was dried in a warm-air tunnel, sorted by hand, optically and by flotation, fermented in temperature-controlled steel and aged sixteen months in French oak, 20% of it new. 2018 brought early rain then a long hot summer, giving ripe, concentrated wine.
Food and drinking
Serve at 17–18°C. Good with roast beef, slow-cooked lamb shoulder, duck confit, or a board of hard cheeses. Drinking well now and over the next five to eight years; an hour in a decanter helps.