Description

Chateau Pavie Macquin is 15ha on the St-Emilion limestone plateau. The wines are bold, powerful and extracted. But still silky and textural. Named for Albert Macquin. The man who saved Bordeaux from phylloxera by suggesting grafting on to rootstock. The vineyard neighbours Pavie, Pavie Decesse, Troplong-Mondot and Trotte Vieille. The vineyard at Chateau Pavie Macquin is 80% Merlot with 18% Cabernet Franc and the rest is Cabernet Sauvignon.

[box type=”note” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]This wine is sold En-Primeur. You order and pay now, and receive the wine in mid-late 2022[/box]

Chateau Pavie Macquin St-Emilion, 1st Growth Grand Classe 2019

Phil’s Notes
Chateau Pavie Macquin is super-ripe. Rich, silky, oaky. It was a big step up in a lot of muted Right Bank wines. Very impressive. Potentially, this is the wine of the vintage. At this price, I think Chateau Pavie Macquin is unmissable.

Tasted by Jane Anson(at Bordeaux, 11 May 2020)
Part of Best St Emilion 2019 wines tasted en primeur
97 points
Violet-edged floral attack, hitting you straight up with the full range of concentrated black fruits and spices. Such a great quality wine that stands out from the pack. Full of nuance, just when you think you are done it pushes another flavour into the room. The texture is controlled and precise, with slate edges that slow down its progress through the palate; just all round excellent terroir and winemaking. Tasted twice, a week apart, and its the depth to the palate that really sets it apart, and the mouth-scrapingly slow slate finish.
Drinking Window 2028 – 2044

Bordeaux

Situated near the Atlantic coast of France. The Gironde, Dordogne and Garonne rivers provide its shape. Cool conditions and frequent rainfall, including during harvest time, make Bordeaux quite a marginal region with vintages frequently ruined by rain or saved from the rain at the last-minute by timely sunshine.

Saint-Emilion

With approximately 5400 hectares planted it is a vast appellation with a few distinct personalities. Like the famous neighbour Pomerol, the wines are Merlot dominant and offer the silk, perfume and charm that Merlot can give. The best of the wines will live as long as, if not longer than most Left Bank wines and often cost two or three times more.

Merlot

It gets a tough time most of the places it is grown. But in Pomerol and Saint-Emilion Merlot not only dominates but makes some of the best wines in the world. Perfume, silky and plush. Cabernets Franc and Sauvignon season the wines with structure and acid but in some places, like Petrus, they are almost not needed.

Cabernet Franc

Is one of the parents of Cabernet Sauvignon… along with Sauvignon Blanc (oh! The name makes sense now!).  It is most famous for being the third most important grape in quality Bordeaux. But also excels in the Loire Valley (where it lived before it went to Bordeaux), especially Chinon and Saumur. The wines are bright red, highlight aromatic with raspberries, rose petals, violets along with tobacco, cassis and some herbal elements. The best examples can live as long as any great wine.

Cabernet Sauvignon

The main grape of Bordeaux’s left bank. Cabernet is late-ripening and full of acid and tannin. The great wines have structure but finessed with beautiful cassis, violets and it also transmits the flavours of the soil it is grown in really well. Cabernet isn’t a drink now variety, it needs 10 or more years to show its best. But when you get there, WOW! Often blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc or in Australia Shiraz to fill out its mid-palate referred to as the ‘Cabernet doughnut’.

2019

This year I got to taste the barrel samples for the first time. And while I don’t think 2019 is the vintage of the century. But is of outstanding quality. 2019 is up there with some of the best in the modern era. What’s more, this is the most affordable great vintage of Bordeaux we’ve seen in many, many years. And if you’ve been as lucky as I have and drunk a fair bit of mature Bordeaux, you will know that the great vintages, like 2019, are always a pleasure to drink.