2004 | Château Cheval Blanc | Le Petit Cheval Rouge

Detailed Description

Very dark, opaque crimson. The nose is very dark and brooding at present – quite closed, with spices and an edge of cedar, but there is a really tightly-wound core of black fruit. On the palate it has good concentration, with a liquorice-edge of dark, firm cherry and blackcurrant fruit, some warming caramel and an elegance and freshness from brisk, tight tannins and a clean acidity.

Producer Information

Château Cheval Blanc is a highly lauded wine estate in the Saint-Émilion region of northeast Bordeaux. It is certainly the most famous Cabernet Franc-based wine in the world, albeit often alongside very similar levels of Merlot. Typically, the “grand vin” (the estate’s eponymous wine) is lush and full bodied with great weight of fruit. It tends to require ten years of bottle age and the best vintages can last half a century or more. The second wine of the estate is Le Petit Cheval. The vineyard is located in the northwest of the region, bordering Pomerol (La Conseillante is a neighbor) and consists of 39 hectares (96 acres) divided into 45 plots. There is an unusually large amount of Cabernet Franc planted – about 52 percent – with 43 percent Merlot and five percent Cabernet Sauvignon. The unusual planting proportions reflect the terroir; most vineyards in the region are either clay or gravel-based over impermeable sedimentary rock, but Cheval Blanc is unique in having a patchwork of soils with the two types in roughly equal proportions. The clay soils provide base wines with velvety tannins, while those from gravel soils are more aromatic and elegant. Vines have been grown since the 14th Century at this spot but the vineyard as it is known today took shape in the 19th Century when the core plots were added to by purchases from the nearby Figeac estate. Subsequent replantings established the atypical half-Merlot, half-Cabernet Franc proportions. Cheval Blanc gained its first medal at the 1862 Universal Exhibition in London – the first of a series of successes building its reputation and achieving price levels comparable to the Médoc first growths, which paved the way for a château to be built on the estate. In the first classification of Saint-Émilion wines in 1955, Cheval Blanc was awarded the highest possible rating and remains a Premier Grand Cru Classé A. In 1998, after 166 years of continuous family ownership, Bernard Arnault, the head of luxury goods firm LVMH, and the late Baron Albert Frère (a Belgian billionaire investor) jointly purchased the estate. The spectacular new cellar opened in 2011, with 52 concrete vats (replacing stainless steel) of differing sizes corresponding to different vineyard plots. The grand vin spends 16 to 18 months in new oak barrels from a variety of cooperages. Production totals 80,000 bottles annually. Classified with the top ranking of Premier Grand Cru Classé A since the inception of the Saint-Emilion classification in the 1950s, it famously withdrew from the ranking in 2022. Nonetheless, it is still regarded by many as one of the greatest – if not, the greatest – wines of the appellation (and in wider Bordeaux).