Les Cruzelles 2022

Cut from the same cloth as the La Chenade, the 2022 Château Les Cruzelles is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc raised in 50% new French oak. It's beautifully textured and medium to full-bodied on the palate, with a beautiful sense of freshness in its juicy black cherries, cassis, chocolaty herbs, and graphite driven-aromatics. This beautifully layered, pure, seamless 2022 will be a giant killer in a blind lineup.

The 2022 Les Cruzelles is ample, rich and explosive, just as it was en primeur. Dark-toned fruit, gravel, incense, crushed rocks, lavender and dried herbs soar out of the glass. The long, sustained finish suggests the 2022 will enjoy a long and rewarding life. A wine of substance and heft, Les Cruzelles is seriously impressive. Readers should expect a potent, brooding red.

A vintage that captures the spirit of this beautiful wine. Great lift and kick of sweet baking spice, chalky tannins that give texture alongside a kick of salinity and crushed rocks, soy and cocoa-dusted almonds, fennel, great stuff. 50% new oak, less vintage impact than its sibling estate La Chenade.

The 2022 Les Cruzelles has an exuberant, quite showy bouquet with mainly red fruit mixed with wild hedgerow, liquorice and allspice scents. The palate is medium-bodied with succulent ripe tannins, a keen line of acidity, more linear on the finish than expected, especially after the aromatics. I think this will come good after three to five years in bottle. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.