Bellefont Belcier (750ML)
From Saint-Emilion
| Vintage: | 2020 |
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| Description: | 98 Jd / 97 JS / 95 De / 95 Wci / 94+ Wa / 94 Ja / 94 Vm / 94 Wi / 94 De / 94 Fs / 16.5 Jr. #17 Jeb Dunnuck's Top 100 2023. #42 James Suckling's Top 100 Wines of France 2023. The finest wine I've tasted from this estate, the 2020 Château Bellefont-Belcier is an incredibly gorgeous blend of 70% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep ruby/purple-hued, it offers a great nose of cassis, ripe black cherries, camphor, dried flowers, cedar, and forest floor. Bringing gorgeous richness, it nevertheless stays flawlessly balanced, with ultra-fine tannins and a great finish. The purity of fruit here is just about off the charts. While it already offers pleasure, it's going to benefit from short-term cellaring and have 20-25 years of prime drinking. This estate uses a five-day cold soak and fermentation, all in concrete, spanning 25 days. Malolactic fermentation occurs in barrel (four months on lees), and the wine spends 18 months in 30% new French oak, with the balance in once- and twice-used barrels. Yields in 2020 were also reasonable at 34 hectoliters per hectare. - Jeb Dunnuck. Fascinating aromas of plums, peaches, lavender, violets, and other flowers. Hints of fresh herbs, too. So complex. Full-bodied yet so elegant and polished with a curated and focused palate. Hints of chocolate at the end. It's so subtle and complex. Weightless on the palate. About 30% was aged in 30 hectoliter casks. 72% merlot, 18% cabernet franc and 10% cabernet sauvignon. - James Suckling. Crushed herb and tobacco leaf along with red berry fruit enchant. Very pure and fresh, indeed gaining in coolness, with more cool blue fruit than either the 2018 or 2019, even if the alcohol level is the same. 30% new oak for ageing, plus 20% in ovoid wooden vats of 40-hectolitres, accentuating fruit purity. 'Our most precise vintage so far,' winemaking director, Jean-Christophe Meyrou, told me two years ago when tasting from barrel. It shines from bottle, but needs a few more years to enter a proper drinking window. The pH is always around 3.62.-- Panos Kakaviatos, Decanter The oceanic influences are what you initially find before moving on to all the flowers, smoke, and red fruits The wine is fresh, vibrant, elegant and refined. The red fruits show purity with a salty edge on the palate. There is length and precision here that builds and lingers. Drink from 2025-2050.-Jeff Leve, Wine Cellar Insider |
| Price: | $ 51.99 |
| Price in original currency: | None |
Available from Grand Vin Wine Merchants
| Address: |
1003 4th Avenue East Olympia, WA 98506 United States |
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| Telephone (regular): | 360-350-4896 |
First added to 1000 Corks on May 5, 2021.
