Goulée by Cos d’Estournel, Médoc 2018
James Suckling 92 (2025); La Revue du Vin de France 92; Giuseppe Lauria 92; Chris Kissack 92; Vinous 91 (2025); Decanter 91 (2025); Wine Enthusiast 90; Jeff Leve 90; JancisRobinson.com 90; Adrian van Velsen 89; Jean-Marc Quarin 89; Christer Byklum 88
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Why this wine
Goulée is made in the northern Médoc by Cos d'Estournel, the Saint-Estèphe Second Growth, using the same careful, low-temperature approach as the classed-growth cellar. The 2018 is dense and ripe without losing its freshness, and critics place it consistently in the low nineties. A route into a famous Bordeaux address from a different corner of the Médoc.
At a glance
- Grape
- Merlot 73%, Cabernet Sauvignon 21%, Cabernet Franc 6%
- Region
- Bordeaux, France
- Alcohol
- 14.00%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Short (3-5 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Ripe red and black berries lifted by spice and a mineral edge. Dense and vivacious, full-bodied, with enough freshness to cut the opulence and firm, well-covered tannins behind it. Merlot 73%, Cabernet Sauvignon 21%, Cabernet Franc 6%.
The producer
Goulée is the Médoc wine of Cos d'Estournel, the Saint-Estèphe estate founded in 1811 by Louis Gaspard d'Estournel, classified a Second Growth in 1855 and acquired in 2000 by Michel Reybier, who has since rebuilt the property around a fully gravity-fed cellar. The vines sit in the northern Médoc between the Gironde Estuary and the Atlantic, where a pronounced oceanic climate blunts both harsh winters and heat waves, so ripening is slow and favours complexity and freshness; the wind that runs through the vineyard dries excess humidity and keeps the fruit healthy. Fermentation took place in small stainless-steel tanks at low temperature with gentle pump-overs to avoid over-extraction and hard tannins, and the wine was matured in French oak. 2018 opened wet and turned into a long, hot, dry summer, giving ripe, concentrated wines with high alcohol and powerful tannins.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16–18°C. Good with ribeye, roast lamb, venison, duck and mature hard cheese. Drinking now and over the next ten to twenty years; decant an hour ahead. Sealed with a natural cork.