Cheep-cheep BDX actually showing REALLY NICE. Deep beautiful fruit in the nose from a dark ruby glass, grainy minerality mixing a teensy clean barnyard of decomposed granite and fresh straw. Ripe and concentrated to almost-California proportions, a slight oxidation oozes from the flabby edges, but the rich Christmas-tree spice quickly negates it.

In the mouth, all fantasies of Napa are dashed by lean & mean directives issuing from a place immediately behind the lush entry. Green unctuous tannins–fleshy but viral–drive everything into a bitter cloud of concentrated cedar and pepper positively marbled with late-summer boysenberry and rhubarb pie. If I were a gambling man, and were going to put a decade-or-more’s worth of money on a case of sub-20$ Haut-Médoc… this would be it.

2012 CHATEAU LA FLEUR HAUT CARRAS Hait-Médoc Bordeaux France 13.0