Chateau Canon Premier Grand Cru Classe B, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2018

The 2018 Canon is every bit as magnificent from bottle as it was from barrel. Maybe more so. Vertical and explosive in the glass, Canon sizzles with tension and vibrancy. Readers will find a majestic, soaring Grand Cru Classé that captures all the magic of Saint-Émilion's limestone plateau. Canon exudes mind-blowing precision and deliciousness. It is another magnificent effort from Technical Director Nicolas Audebert and his team.

Blackberries and tar with wet-earth and dark-bark aromas. Dark-chocolate and brownie notes, too. It’s full-bodied with creamy tannins and a round, caressing finish. Lovely focus and intensity, though dense and layered. Extremely creamy and polished. Really precise and bespoke. It already opens beautifully on the palate. Drink after 2025.

The Grand Vin is the 2018 Château Canon, which is based on 72% Merlot and 28% Cabernet Franc brought up in 52% new French oak. Its incredible bouquet delivers richness paired with amazing freshness and precision, offering loads of crème de cassis and darker berry fruits intermixed with classic Saint-Emilion chalky minerality, graphite, scorched earth, and spring flowers. Gorgeous on the palate as well, with medium to full-bodied richness, ultra-fine tannins, flawless balance, and again, this wonderful sense of freshness paired with ample richness, it needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will evolve for 30+ years. The 2009 and 2015 are still my favorite vintages of this wine, but this is up there with the best of them.

Pretty closed up right now, this is full of latent energy. It's extremely powerful and precise, with poise and tension but also with generosity and density, yet it errs on the side of not giving much away rather than giving too much. You have to give it time in the glass for those cool blueberry, bilberry and tightly spiced notes to come to the fore. The stunning texture is clear but the aromatics take their time. This is a wine that carries its finesse with great skill, and they have done a brilliant job of allowing this aspect to shine amongst the heat of the vintage, allowing the density to inch deeper with every minute in the glass. This wine just gets better and better, Harvest ran from 7 September to 9 October, the longest ever here, with no pressure of rot. 42hl/ha yield.

A blend of 72% Merlot and 28% Cabernet Franc, the 2018 Canon has a pH of 3.69 and 14% alcohol. Deep garnet-purple in color, it tumbles effortlessly out of the glass with a gorgeous perfume of candied violets, preserved plums, black cherry compote and Ceylon tea with hints of kirsch, powdered cinnamon, chocolate box and fertile loam. The medium to full-bodied palate is packed with juicy black fruit layers, supported by plush, oh-so-soft tannins and well-knit freshness, finishing long and fragrant.

The 2018 Canon was picked starting on September 7 and finishing on October 9. Given a two-hour decant, it reveals a surprisingly precocious bouquet, more exuberant than I recall from barrel, offering predominantly black fruit, though the floral element is now amplified and masks the crushed limestone I observed previously (for how long?) The palate delivers multilayered black cherry and blueberry fruit, wrapped up in supple tannins and such a cashmere texture that it feels deceptively approachable when in truth, it has the substance and persistence to merit long-term aging. I wagered that it is the best Canon since the watershed 2015.