Wine Score
89 points Decanter
If you enjoy a glass of claret but don’t have the patience to lay it down, this St-Emilion from 2007 could be a good bet. New to Majestic, it provides a taste of mature Bordeaux, since 2007 was a relatively light vintage. The Cap de Mourlin family has owned this grand cru estate for 400 years. The Merlot-dominant blend for this wine includes 25% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, and spent 18 months in oak barrels, 50% new. It displays the savouriness and secondary characteristics that you’d expect from a Bordeaux with this age on it, some spice from the oak ageing, and black berry fruit. Immediate drinking pleasure.
Grape Variety
A Bordeaux Blend, at its most basic, is any combination of those grape varieties typically used to make the red wines of Bordeaux. The phrase, which seems to have originated with British wine merchants in the 19th Century, relates as much to wines made from the blend as to the grape variety combination itself.
Red Bordeaux Blends are known for their powerful structure and deep flavors. Dark fruits and berries such as plum and blackcurrant are commonly used to describe the flavors of red Bordeaux, although there is an unlimited range of terms that have been ascribed to them. Tannins tend to be relatively high in these wines, giving them a firm structure.
St.Emilion
St.Emilion is an appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) for wine in the Bordeaux wine region of France, where it is situated in the Libourne subregion on the right bank of the Dordogne. Saint-Émilion is registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The wines of Saint-Émilion are typically blended from different grape varieties, the three main ones being Merlot (60% of the blend), Cabernet Franc (nearly 30%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (around 10%).
