Château Margaux, Margaux, Bordeaux, 2007

Overview of the Wine
Chateau Margaux, a Premier Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux, is one of the most famous wines in the world. Care has been lavished on the property by a line of owners with an abiding concern for the reputation of the estate.

For more than five hundred years, season after season, generations of vineyard-workers, grape harvesters, cellar-workers, coopers and many other craftsmen have all played a part in making Chateau Margaux what it is today: a wine with an incomparable personality, reflected in the elegant Palladian building which adorns its label. In 1977, the estate was purchased by the late André Mentzelopoulos, and it is now run by his daughter, Corinne Mentzelopoulos.

Grape / Blend
87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc

Origin
Margaux, Bordeaux, France

Winemaker's Tasting Notes
2007 is one of those vintages in which worry (sometimes anguish), hope, enthusiasm, doubt and serenity are all felt in succession. However, our most consistent reaction at the end of this year was…..severity; particularly at the blending, where only 32% of the crop was selected to go into the first wine. This was the most rigorous selection ever performed. However, all our great parcels went into the blend, some of them at their best level of quality. The Cabernet, of course, so noble, such pedigree, both fine and dense at the same time, making up 87% of the blend, dominates, as usual, the personality of the Château Margaux 2007. The Merlot (11%) is more where it belongs this time, thanks to its full, tender and rich texture, along with the Cabernet Franc (2%) which clearly benefited from the conditions of the vintage. 

95 Points - Decanter
All of the Left Bank firsts are tasting excellent, but Margaux stands out for the tightness and clarity of its sweet cherry and cassis fruit expression, the menthol grip on the finish, and the perfume that runs through the palate. This is a vintage that could almost be ready to drink with a good carafing, but the layers of graphite and the finesse to the tannins suggest it could also go longer. A great example of the subtle crafting possible in 2007. 

93 Points - Int'l Wine Cellar
Bright, dark red. Knockout nose combines redcurrant, blackberry, spices, flowers, tobacco and sexy sweet oak tones; complex and aristocratic. Then sweet, suave and seamless, with lovely inner-mouth perfume and noteworthy finesse to the flavors of blackberry, cherry and flowers. Finishes long and sweet, with noble tannins for the year. Not a big wine but one of the classiest examples of the vintage.

93 Points - Wine Enthusiast
Silky wine, fresh and light, balanced with high acidity cutting through black berry fruits. The structure has some substance, but this is a light, aromatic wine, developing fast, already delicious, and only for medium-term aging.

92 Points - Wine Advocate
Tasted at BI Wine & Spirits' 10-Years-On tasting, the 2007 Chateau Margaux was just missing a little intensity on the nose compared to the other First Growths: scents of incense and iris, blackberry and tobacco, perhaps just missing the floral nature of other vintages. The palate is well balanced with supple black fruit laced with graphite and tobacco, fully matured but clearly with sufficient substance to last another 15-20 years.

Product size: 750ml