2023 Carillon d'Angélus, St-Emilion

The 2023 Carillon d’Angélus is juicy, supple and quite inviting. Soft contours wrap around a core of plum, red cherry, cedar, new leather, licorice and pipe tobacco. The blend is 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. Bright, saline notes from the Franc add freshness to complement the forward Merlot fruit.

The 2023 Le Carillon d'Angélus matured in around 50% new oak. This is quite taut and linear on the nose—a more streamlined Carillon perhaps, with touches of crushed stone infusing the red berry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with a hint of blood orange on the entry, vivacious red berry fruit and a generous white pepper note toward the finish. There’s something almost Burgundian about this Carillon in terms of the tannin structure. Give it three or four years in bottle.

There’s depth and beauty to this wine. It offers crunchy fruit, a chalky undertone and a hint of raw coffee bean. Medium body. Fine tannins. Bright and transparent. 90% merlot and 10% cabernet franc.

The 2023 Le Carillon d'Angélus, as usual a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, exhibits attractive aromas of cherries, raspberries and blackberries mingled with hints of exotic spices, vine smoke and violets. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and polished, it's layered and enveloping, with a charming, seamless profile and a long, mouthwatering finish. As readers will by now remember, this bottling is no longer a "second wine" per se but rather draws on some 25 hectares of dedicated vineyards, emphasizing Merlot from the cool terroirs of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, complemented by holdings in the gravelly Figeac sector and on clay soils near Angélus itself—with anything that doesn't make the cut relegated to the No. 3 d'Angélus.