Bordeaux EP 2025 - all wines released so far...

The 2025 L'If is full of intensity. Quite sculpted and sinewy in profile, there is a fine, detailed red fruit character layered with notes of blood orange and rosehip. A lot of vibrancy through the palate with a beautifully detailed finish of violets, iris and wild herbs.

This year the wine has a full 50% of Cabernet Franc in the blend, higher than usual. It is a bright, focused and brilliant Angelus this year with captivating aromatics of violets, juniper and wild herbs. Tense, vibrant and coiled through the palate, there is a scultped and seamless feel to the tannins. There is an understated intensity that builds through the palate to a vivid and sophisticated finish.

One of the most impressive wines on the right bank this year, the Ausone 2025 is a blend of 65% Cabernet Franc, 30% merlot, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. A wine of real intensity there is a brooding nose of iris root, bay leaf, wild herbs and dark cherry. There is a sense of completeness here showing both charm and power. Wonderful concentration of bramble fruit, this keeps moving through the palate with a vibrant, chiselled focus. Verticality, structure, power - what more could you ask for?

Rich cassis fruit with cocoa and dark chocolate spice. This is a brilliantly balanced Batailley showing the flesh and mid-palate fruit of the warm summer while maintaining freshness and poise through the finish. Layers of violets, spice, creamy oak, and gravelly Pauillac minerality build on the palate to a long and cohesive finish. Great value this year.

Rich cassis fruit with cocoa and dark chocolate spice. This is a brilliantly balanced Batailley showing the flesh and mid-palate fruit of the warm summer while maintaining freshness and poise through the finish. Layers of violets, spice, creamy oak, and gravelly Pauillac minerality build on the palate to a long and cohesive finish. Great value this year.

Rich cassis fruit with cocoa and dark chocolate spice. This is a brilliantly balanced Batailley showing the flesh and mid-palate fruit of the warm summer while maintaining freshness and poise through the finish. Layers of violets, spice, creamy oak, and gravelly Pauillac minerality build on the palate to a long and cohesive finish. Great value this year.

Rich cassis fruit with cocoa and dark chocolate spice. This is a brilliantly balanced Batailley showing the flesh and mid-palate fruit of the warm summer while maintaining freshness and poise through the finish. Layers of violets, spice, creamy oak, and gravelly Pauillac minerality build on the palate to a long and cohesive finish. Great value this year.

Rich cassis fruit with cocoa and dark chocolate spice. This is a brilliantly balanced Batailley showing the flesh and mid-palate fruit of the warm summer while maintaining freshness and poise through the finish. Layers of violets, spice, creamy oak, and gravelly Pauillac minerality build on the palate to a long and cohesive finish. Great value this year.

This year’s Beau-Séjour Bécot has real beauty and elegance. It really fills the palate with an effortless energy. A blend of 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc, the wine really shows its sense of place with notes of crushed rock, refreshingly vibrant cherry fruit with sinewy, sculpted tannins. Aromas of black tea, liquorice root, violets and subtle sandalwood spice lift towards the finish but everything is in its place here.

This is a brilliant Beychevlle that charts the right balance between flamboyant and focus. There is a fleshy and modern character with plenty of charm. A bright line of freshness and salinity underpins the rich cassis fruit, with hints of tobacco, iris, and cocoa on the finish.

A striking perfume here with notes of blue fruits, violets, and lavender. The tannins feel fine-grained, compact and polished. This Branaire has both flesh and density with a pure Cabernet character that comes forward. Sinewy a profile, this is a wine with excellent detail and definition.

A blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, and 1% Cabernet Franc and Carmenère. This is a standout wine from Brane this year. A wine of finesse and intensity it opens with sandalwood, incense, crushed rocks, and graphite. Dark cherry fruit floods the palate while the drive of Cabernet flashes through the palate. Confident, fluid, and very impressive this is an impeccable Brane that will develop into one of the most exciting releases of the campaign.

The earliest and fastest harvest at the estate, the 2025 Calon-Segur is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. Notes of graphite, iodine, and bright cassis fruit fill the palate. There are accents of cedar and sandalwood, and floral notes of violets and peony. There is gloss and richness here but plenty of tension and freshness too. A compelling Calon this year.

Quite dazzling this year, there is a seamless elegance to Canon this year. Opening with subtle cedar spice, there is a feeling of limestone tension underpinning the wine. Showing both verticality and breadth on the palate, there is amplitude of ripe hedgerow fruit counterbalanced with supple, fine-grained tannins imbued with violets and inky liquorice. Beautiful and enticing, this has an intensity that really captures attention.

Beautiful aromatics to this Cantenac Brown with violets, cherry blossom, very fine wild cherry notes. Really fluid, seamless and charming in style it also has a serious side, with a more savoury and mineral edge. There is a tension and intensity here with a lovely lift and freshness to the finish.

With yields at just 15 hl/ha, this is one of the smallest harvests at the estate in decades but it most definitely numbers among one of the wines of the vintage. With 46 of the 47 plots used in the final blend there will be no Petit Cheval this year. A blend of 51% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Franc and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon, this Cheval Blanc has stunning focus and intensity. There is almost an intellectual quality about the wine, with its restraint, persistence, and detail. A bright lift and drive with a superbly, fine-grained feel to the tannins. Impeccably poised, this will have a very long-life.

Quite a serious wine this year, there is a restrained power at the core of the wine. Cooler, dark fruited in style, there is both tension and drama that floods the palate. Sinewy and tension, there is a fine-grained feel to the tannin with a tinge of iodine, graphite and iris root. There is a quiet power that expands on the finish, with notes of cedar and violet.

This is a fabulous modern Clinet, rich and almost exotic with notes of incense and cocoa. Dark cherry and plum fruit clothes the firm, supple tannin. This year new oak is cut down to 60% and there is a fine sense of balance here with brilliant aromatic definition.

The 2025 Cos D’Estournel is a true success this year. Pin-sharp aromatics this open with spiced notes of incense and wild herbs. There is plenty of flesh and substance here but also a brightness and focus. There is a wonderful sense of tension that builds here coating the mouth with bright bramble fruit, hints of iris root and violets. There is intensity here yet also so much charm and finesse that carries through. One of the real standouts from the estate in recent years.

There is a brooding intensity here with accents of cocoa which gives to a lively and fleshy palate of dark fruit. Super intensity with notes of violets, gravel, graphite, and a very mineral core here behind the fruit. Power and concentration with deep bramble fruit showing wonderful depth and energy. It is quite bold and rounded yet with a fine, driven focus.