Château Les Grandes Murailles 2019

Substance and freshness, smooth, silky tannins, and a wonderfully fruity finish. A wine with guaranteed pleasure, and we’re happy to acknowledge it.

Ripe blackcurrants on the nose. Sweetly juicy on the palate, this is succulent but also generous with quite intense flavours of blackcurrant and black cherry. It’s smooth with lovely layers and waves of dark chocolate, blood iron, sweet liquorice and cedar. Elegant, expressive. Lovely. Give it time. A top buy!

Aromas of brambleberries, dark chocolate, cedar, tapenade and walnut husk. It’s medium-bodied with firm, tight tannins and fresh acidity. Mineral character on the finish. Better in 2024.

Tasted blind. Sweet and transparent, with fresh fruit and decent balance, though not an especially distinctive flavour. Sinewy. (JR)

The 2019 Les Grandes Murailles is seriously impressive. Bright and vibrant, the 2019 marries energy with an extra kick of richness—a highly appealing combination in my book. Red/purplish berry fruit, rose petal, lavender and spice add gorgeous layers of nuance. The 2019 was aged in equal parts barrique and amphora. Les Grandes Murailles has been a bit uneven over the years. The 2019 gives a pretty good idea of what is possible. It is a stellar wine from the Cuvelier family.

Dried flowers, smoke, licorice, plums, espresso and cherries show off easily in the perfume. Medium-bodied, elegant, silky, fresh and filled with ripe, pure fruits, the finish leaves you with sensuously textured, cocoa-topped sweet cherries, licorice, coffee bean and spice. Give this just a year or two in the cellar and it is going to be even better! The wine is produced from 100% old-vine Merlot. Drink from 2023–2036.

Dark ruby garnet with a deep core, purple reflections and a hint of brightening ochre at the rim. Black cherries and a touch of nougat in the herbal, spiced bouquet, with precious wood in the background. Full-bodied and elegant on the palate, with a core of ripe plums and vivid woody spice. Freshly structured, with subtle nougat on the finish and a mineral aftertaste. Already well developed, a savoury food companion.

Dense purple with a rich core. Restrained bouquet with delicate blueberry contours, backed by blackberry brambles and violets. On the juicy palate, supported by firm tannins, with finely austere extract and pleasant verve. In the focused finish, it shows an introverted character and ends with gentle astringency.

Elegant, silky bouquet of cherries, strawberries, brown chocolate, nougat. Medium-bodied, finely dry palate with good fruit, fine-sandy tannins, spicy aromatics, delicate structure, fragrant finish. 17/20 2025 - 2040

From a 2-hectare limestone plot located next to Clos Fourtet, this offers mouthwatering salinity and a beautifully juicy finish. Moreish and mouth-watering with blueberry and cassis fruits, but also pretty austere. 50% new oak along with 11% amphoras for the ageing. The Cuvelier family has requested for the next classification that this can be included in Clos Fourtet, but for now it is kept separate – so if you like it, buy your bottles now!

[ Primeurs 2019 Scores: 92-93 ] This wine opens with a silky attack and boasts superb energy that perfectly elongates the texture. It shows complexity and potential. A very fine success.

The cramped cellar where this mini-vineyard is vinified offers little real leeway to work the wines. Yet the aromatic expression of the 2019 is exactly that of great plateau wines: ripe, pulsing with the energy that limestone imparts. The baked-earth flavors result from vinification in very small stainless-steel tanks and in amphorae. The wine’s deep sweetness and tannic finish are signs of a distinction just waiting to blossom.

An opulent, sensual, meaty nose with notes of smoked meat. On the palate, the flavors are fairly dark, with minerality and seriousness.

Les Grandes Murailles reveals itself slowly and discreetly, marked as much by freshness as by fruity nuances. Plenty of red fruit, raspberries, redcurrants. White pepper. A wine with tension that unfolds gradually. It is reserved for now, but it projects very well through its many assets, in terms of power, freshness, and persistence.

The nose is pleasantly fresh, stretched, and offers powerful freshness, a lovely fine grain, and a certain complexity. It reveals notes of ripe wild blackcurrant, Boysenberry, and, more lightly, crunchy raspberry, combined with hints of pepper and fresh flowers, as well as a touch of fresh/ripe purple plum and discreet hints of spice. The palate is fruity, nicely racy, and offers juiciness, a lively acid backbone, good definition, a certain silkiness, indulgence, tension, an elegant elongated character, a subtle touch of austerity, and beautiful freshness. On the palate, this wine expresses notes of fresh/juicy blackberry, fresh wild blackcurrant, and, more lightly, raspberry, combined with touches of fresh flowers and spices, a subtle hint of pepper, as well as a discreet hint of crunchy blueberry, limestone, and a subtle almost-cinnamon note in the background. The tannins are precise, elegant, supple, and offer a certain straightness. Discreet hints of cocoa appear on the finish/indulgence. Lovely persistence and a fine bitter framework.

Logo on the cork: inverted T (Trescases) Dark, intense color with slight development. Very aromatic nose, fruity, creamy, and spicy. Delicate on entry, perfumed and flavorful mid-palate, a hint of oak, yet consistently velvety; the wine stretches out on the finish with a slightly licorice note. Good length.

Fresh, pure and clearly defined, with sleek cassis and bitter cherry fruit flavors laced with a subtle minerality that extends to a pinpoint finish. There's a late sparkle of savory too. Lovely and a real sleeper in this vintage. Drink now through 2035. 500 cases made.

The wine's smooth texture comes from fermentation partly in amphoras. This small vineyard, soon to be amalgamated with neighboring Clos Fourtet, makes a generous, rich style of Merlot. Drink from 2025.