Chateau Belair-Monange Premier Grand Cru Classe B, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2019

The flagship 2019 Château Belair-Monange checks in as 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc from 25-year-old vines and raised in 50% new French oak. It's a magical wine in the vintage and offers more depth and richness than just about every other Saint-Emilion out there, all while holding onto a gorgeous sense of finesse and elegance, which would almost have me guessing Pomerol in a blind tasting. Deep red and black fruits, truffly earth, tobacco, and spring flower notes all emerge on the nose, and this puppy is full-bodied, has a layered, seamless mouthfeel, gorgeous tannins, and one heck of a great finish. It's stunning, and while it offers incredible pleasure today given its purity and flawless balance, it deserves 7-8 years of bottle age and will evolve for 30 years or more.

Such a lesson in limestone terroir with its precision, knife-spliced and restrained violet flowers, raspberry and redcurrant fruits. You need to chisel through the austerity to get to the creamy, fleshy side of these fruits but it is very definitely there. So good, enjoy, take your time, give 6 to 8 years to fully let that creamy raspberry puree and deeper black cherry side come out to join saffron, sage and slate minerality. Love it. Harvest September 19 to October 3. 50% new oak.

Tight and minerally with tar, currant, and wet-earth aromas and flavors. Medium-to full-bodied. Some salt and white pepper to the black fruit. Black olives, too.

Like Trotanoy, though of course not to the same extent, the 2019 Belair Monange is another of the richer, more powerful wines in the Mouiex portfolio this year. Offering up aromas of sweet cherries, wild berries, vanilla pod, plum preserve, warm spices and cedary new oak, it's full-bodied, broad and muscular, with a deep and layered core of ripe, sun-kissed fruit that's framed by lively acids and ripe, powdery tannins.

The 2019 Bélair-Monange opens with an attractive burst of fruit. Some of that initial intensity tapers off rather quickly, leaving the 2019 feeling a bit one-dimensional. This showed much better from barrel. The jury is still out for me on Bélair-Monange. I don't see the same quality as is found in neighboring estates nor in the other top properties in the Moueix family's stable of châteaux. I admit I expected a bit more here.

The 2019 Bélair-Monange has a more tertiary nose, backward and broody, almost Left Bank in style. This demands much more coaxing from the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly chocolaty opening. The oak a little too thick maybe? Plenty of fruit behind it, quite plush on the finish, but missing the intellect that previous bottles have displayed. Maybe entering an awkward adolescence? Tasted blind at the Southwold annual tasting.