2023 Clos Fourtet, St Emilion, Bordeaux

87% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 6% Cabernet Sauvignon. Cask sample.

Aromatically complex and enticing. Layered fruit on the palate with a firm but refined tannic frame. Juicy and fresh with a marked chalky character. Some potential. A success for the vintage. 

Drink 2030 - 2048

The 2023 Clos Fourtet was picked from September 14 to October 3 and aged in 40% new oak. 

The nose is very attractive and quite sensual in style with red cherries, crushed strawberries and incense. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, fresh, focused, pure and quite linear on the finish. This is much more classically styled than the 2022, and it conveys tenderness and persistence. Superb.

Drink 2027 - 2047

Ageing 20% new oak, and after one and two-year barrels.

Ripe and sweet damsons on the nose, dark fruit and some floral reflections - quite an expressive nose. Supple and agile, a nice energy to this and lovely succulence of cool blue fruit with some ripe red cherries. Really juicy but not lean or too high in acidity. Easy to enjoy. lifted, fresh, no rough edges. No harshness, all balanced and harmonious. A light but enjoyable glass. 15% of the massale selection Cabernet Franc went into this blend, with some grapes on the limestone plateau making their wine into this second wine for the first time.

Drink 2026 - 2036

Tasted two times

The 2023 Clos Fourtet is pure class. Elegant and soaring, it offers an exciting mélange of dark-toned fruit, leather, incense, dried herbs, pencil shavings, and crushed rocks. Beams of supporting limestone-infused tannin and acid give Clos Fourtet a super-distinctive feel. The long, enduring finish is a thing of beauty. Clos Fourtet remains a benchmark example of wines from Saint-Émilion’s famed limestone plateau.

Drink 2030 - 2063

Checking in as 87% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, raised in 50-60% new oak, the 2023 Clos Fourtet has a beautiful limestone-driven style in its red and blue fruits as well as floral and chalky nuances that emerge with time in the glass. Medium-bodied, incredibly well-balanced, and elegant on the palate, it has fine tannins and outstanding length, as well as a gorgeous limestone character. It’s a beautiful wine from this family estate that readers will love to have in their cellars.

The 2023 Clos Fourtet is especially suave and refined this year, wafting from the glass with deep aromas of red berries, liquorice, violets and pencil shavings, framed by a nicely integrated patina of new oak. Medium to full-bodied, supple and layered, with a velvety attack that segues into a bright, precise mid-palate, it's pure and lively, concluding with a mineral finish.

Aged in 2% amphora, 45% new oak, with berries destemmed but uncrushed before fermenting. Stephane Derenoncourt consultant.

It starts right out of the gate with fragrant white flowers, lime zest freshness, scraping pumice stone limestone feel, strong Clos Fourtet character coming through, with cassis and black cherry fruits, a whirl of peony and iris flowers, inching forward step by step through the palate. 

Drink 2030 - 2045

This is so full of energy. It’s full-bodied with electrified tannins and a long, long finish. So polish and focus here with exquisite balance and length.