A little cheapie from a decent vintage just SINGIN. Dark ruddy garnet with tinted rim so spicy and decadent in the nose, churning nutmeg and cinnamon and dank petrichor along rich, deep berry lines quite astonishing. In the sub-40$ Superieur catagory, you can do way, WAY worse–quite easily.

The 16’s are supposed to be approachable earlier than the also-well-thought-of 15’s, and this is place and mark for that argument. Thin and delicious, all that BDX angst and acid piling up against fruit pitching gobs of blackberry and decadent cherry toward pomegranate and maraschino goodness. It dries out ridiculously into green-briar and achy tannin, offering a slight *balance* down-side of huge structure against ripe fruit. But I’ll get over it.

2016 CHATEAU CHAPELLE d’ALIENOR ‘Selecion Maracan’ ME/CF 92/8 Bordeaux Superieur AC 13.5

www.bordeaux.com/us