2022 Domaine de Chevalier En Primeur
Released for sale en primeur this morning, 2022 Domaine de Chevalier Rouge is a powerhouse of a wine that garners some improbably-high scores for a wine offered at just £340 per six in bond. This is also notably one of the few Bordeaux estates as famous for its white as for its red and the 2022 Domaine de Chevalier Blanc at £488 per six is a great success this year, probably among the top few white wines of the vintage and definitely the one you should have in your cellar.
2023 marks the 40th vintage since Olivier Bernard took over the management of the domaine, marked by a special label for this release. Bernard was very young when his family bought the château and he has since made it his life's work to grow and improve the estate. Unusually for the region, the vineyards are surrounded by forests, with no neighbouring vines to transmit maladies, and have a rich biodiversity.
Despite being ahead of his time in terms of sustainability, Bernard is fairly traditional when it comes to approach to vinification and the wines have a reassuringly old-school backdrop of oak barrique-influence that marries well with their intense, headily aromatic character.
Neal Martin's tasting note is almost as dense with descriptiveness as the wine itself and it sums up why you should buy this wine: "It soars from the glass with take-no-prisoner aromatics: perfumed mineral-rich red berry fruit, incense and black truffle. Pessac-like earthiness with an opposing airiness defines many a great wine from this estate. (95-97 points)."
2022 Domaine de Chevalier Blanc is also made in a traditional white Bordeaux style with an intensity that matches the richness of the vintage, with ripe thiol aromas like nectarine and reductive, gunsmoke aromas: "I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up in the top handful of whites in the vintage. 95-97+ points" Jebdunnuck.com
Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to order.
Offered en primeur, on allocation. Landing spring 2025.
Magnums available with £15 ex-VAT bottling surcharge, please enquire for other formats.
All previous offers of 2022 Bordeaux can be found here.
Producer Profile
Domaine de Chevalier
ABOUT DOMAINE DE CHEVALIER
Domaine de Chevalier is a Grand Cru Classé de Graves estate in the communes of Pessac-Léognan. Winemaking was first recorded here in the 1600s, although the estate existed in the 12th century. The modern Domaine de Chevalier is very much the creation of one man, Olivier Bernard.
From a family of Bordeaux wine merchants, Bernard was given Domaine de Chevalier to manage as a young man in 1983 and has made it his life's work to build up the estate's vineyards. He has since had various prominent roles in the region, as president of the Union des Grands Crus Classés, Vice Chancellor of the Bordeaux Wine Academy and co-owner of Château Guiraud.
The 100-hectare estate is set in a forest in the Graves, with 45 hectares planted to vines, five of them with white varieties. The composition is 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot for the red wines and 70% Sauvignon Blanc and 30% Sémillon for the white wines.
With the vines in a single block, surrounded by forests, there is no spread of vine maladies and the vines benefit from a particularly rich eco-system and biodiversity, which the estate does its best to foster, using biodynamics viticulture.
