St Emilion

A Lay & Wheeler favourite for years, what's not to love about this St-Emilion, part of the Durantou family of wines. Silky and fine, with loads of savoury tannins, and long and pure finish. Buy this in bottles, and magnums, and make sure you've always got both to hand over the years to come.

Tasted April 2022. Delicious and aromatic, this 2021 is full of soft red and black berry fruits, kirsch, mulberry and damson. Cashmere texture, fine, ripe tannins and bright acidity. There's great concentration here and a savoury, mineral finish. Fantastic value as ever. 13.5%.

This St-Emilion is one of our go-to wines, for sheer quality and value for money. The final vintage overseen by Denis Durantou, this is a wine to buy by the case.

One can't help but be impressed by Château Ausone, set at the top of a tortuously twisted road, with its caves and chapelle dug into the limestone cliff. It is a fittingly romantic location for one of the world's greatest wines. A blend of 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot, this is dark and brooding in the glass. The nose is exceedingly rich and dense, with attractive black cherry and bramble fruit characters. The tannins are firm and structured, yet ripe and well integrated with the rich core of dark cherry, cassis and damson fruit. A stony minerality and a dart of refreshing acidity reflect the terroir and lend backbone to the rich succulent fruit.

Lovely intensity and power. There's so much depth and concentration here, spanning floral notes to deep dark fruits, bound up with lovely tension and elegance. This is beautiful. The finish is nicely balanced with a cool, saline finish and more spice and flowers. Quite brilliant.

Tasted April 2022. An unusual blend this year with 75% Cabernet Franc and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. This is medium-bodied, full of fresh red berry fruit and crushed stone, mineral notes, petals and mint. There's some spicy, richer notes developing, and plenty of fresh acidity.

Tasted April 2022. This is the first vintage for Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse and it's a stellar effort and one of our favourite wines of the vintage. It's ripe but incredibly elegant with loads of crushed rock, mineral, almost salty elements to it. Slight herbal notes at the start and end on the palate but in good balance with the other ripe flavours, coming across as an almost minty freshness. Tiny volumes made, this is really one to watch.

Tasted April 2022. Cascading fresh red and black berry fruit, with a distinct aroma of fresh raspberries. More lifted aromas of mint make this really delicious and fresh. There's a lovely soft fruit middle giving a velvet texture on the palate, and there's balanced fresh acidity and very fine tannins.

Berliquet, tucked away between the illustrious names of St-Emilion, really is one to watch. 2017 was the first vintage under the new owners, who also run Chateaux Rauzan Segla and Canon. It’s full of rich plum and blackberry fruit with a mineral complexity alongside woody herbs and licquorice spice. Elegant and silky with soft tannins.

Tasted April 2022. The best wine we've tasted from Berliquet, the 2021 is full of dark, brooding fruit. There's a powerful earthiness to the complexity in this wine, and plenty of chalky, cool freshness on the finish. Really well balanced, pure and concentrated.

The second wine of celebrated Chateau Canon, from a parcel sandwiched between Berliquet and Angelus. It offers fantastic value for money, with all the concentration and finesse so typical of the property. Full of rich blackcurrant and plum fruit so typical of the vintage, but complemented by just enough crunchier red fruits to create a wonderful refreshing elegance. This seriously over delivers for the price.

Tasted April 2022. Seamless and ethereal, the excellent terroir at Chateau Canon really shines in 2021. There's a fresh crushed rock, salty sensation running through the wine making it incredibly appetising, and precise, aromatic berry fruit in the core. A slow and steady fermentation this year has left the wine incredibly deep and complex, but weightless and elegant at the same time. 13.5%

This Cheval Blanc is deep and brooding, with notes of pencil lead and spice around the dark fruit. It's finessed and classical, with lots of refined, elegant tannins. Really balanced, and long too, with a nice savouriness to the finish.

The 2020 Château Figeac is one of the wines of the vintage. Incredibly refined and almost haunting in its aromatics, this is so mineral, focussed, and utterly beguiling. The finish lasts an age: this is one of the longest, purest, most complex wines we've tried this year. You have to have it.

Tasted April 2022. Frederic and the team at Figeac have created an incredible wine this year. Bold and perfectly ripe black fruits, there's a brooding quality to the fruit. Very fine and elegant, with all structural elements in good proportion. There's a lovely spiciness building and the tannins are firm now but tightly packed and ripe. Plenty of savoury and mineral notes on the long, textural finish.

Tasted April 2022. Good balance of ripe, dark fruit and sappier red fruits. Medium-bodied with fine tannins, it's a really charming, poised wine. There's a chalky texture and mineral flavours on the finish.