Chateau Giscours 3eme Cru Classe, Margaux 2022

Stunning aromas of blackcurrants, dark mushrooms and black cherries with forest-floor notes. Full body that fills your mouth with fine, caressing tannins and dark, flavorful fruit. The tannins are very intense and structural, spreading across the palate in layers and giving intensity and energy. Plenty of energy and verve here. This has gravity, too. 64% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot, 3% petit verdot and 3% cabernet franc. Best after 2029.

The deeply colored and glass-staining 2022 Château Giscours is packed with cassis, black cherries, violets, and graphite-like aromatics. Medium to full-bodied, it’s concentrated and intense, with beautifully ripe tannins, a pure, graceful mouthfeel, and a long, structured finish. There’s serious depth here, and while it already shows remarkable balance, I suspect it will shut down for a period before emerging as a classic Margaux a decade or so after the vintage. This beauty is going to be long-lived, and you can expect at least 30-40 years of prime drinking. Based on 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and equal parts Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, it’s a serious, age-worthy Giscours. Tasted multiple times with consistent results.

The 2022 Giscours has realized all the potential it showed en primeur, wafting from the glass with a deep bouquet of sweet berries, mint, rose petals and pencil shavings. Medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, it's textural and enveloping, built around lively acids and sweet powdery tannins, concluding with a long, resonant finish. As I pondered two years ago, why is the 2022 so good? There are many reasons, but one is the high proportion of old vines—almost 60% of the blend derives from vines that are over 50 years old—in a vintage that favored vines with deep, well-established root systems. Another is the increasing precision of harvesting at this address: Giscours's old vines are frequently co-planted with younger replacements that have filled any gaps in the ranks over the years; so, blocks are now picked in two or three passages instead of all at once, with the younger vines picked first. The team also adapted hedging practices to limit hydric stress, which helps to explain the sweetness of the tannins.

Richly aromatic on the nose - scents of fresh flowers, bramble fruit and cherry stones. Smooth and succulent, a gorgeous texture - silky and glossy with crunchy and juicy fruit and fine but powdery tannins that fill the mouth. It's still quite upfront, not totally settled, but utterly charming in its presentation of flavours and textures. Clean and crystalline, feels sophisticated and complex expanding vertically rather than being too streamlined and straight. Plump, ripe, round and well worked. Feels very precise and purposeful and I love the minty lift on the finish that just makes you want to take another sip. It has taken the best from the vintage and delivered a really engaging wine.

The 2022 from Alexander van Beek and the team at Giscours is a blend of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 3% each Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. I find a real sense of fragrant harmony but also bright energy here, with creamed red cherry and red plum fruits on the nose, with a red rose, peony and vanilla overlay, laced with darker veins of blackcurrant, blackberry and toast. The palate shows a greater sense of cohesion and integration than many, with deliciously dark fruits, wrapped and polished, with hints of black olive, charcoal and toast notes, all set in a seamless and highly polished palate, yet underpinned with brilliant structure. A super Giscours here, from a property which has really moved up a notch in recent vintages. One for the cellar, preferably mine. Tasted twice. The alcohol on the label is a mere 13.5%, modest for Margaux in this vintage.

Has energy and lift, brambled hedgerow, good tension and controlled power, slate, crayon, sage, liquorice, crushed rocks, highly successful Giscours. Axel Marchal consultant, Alexander Van Beek director, 50% new oak for ageing.