Chateau Valandraud

The local bad boy of Bordeaux, Jean-Luc Thunevin, continues to fashion truly brilliant wines. Based largely on Merlot with small amount of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, the Château Valandraud is a deep purple-hued beauty offering up a kaleidoscope-like bouquet of black and blue fruits, scorched earth, chocolate, gravelly earth, spicy oak, and sappy flowers.

Deep, rich, full-bodied, and wonderfully concentrated, it has insane purity of fruit, brilliant tannins, a stacked mid-palate, and just has everything in the right places. It's up with the top wines of the vintage and a tour de force that readers should snatch up. It needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will evolve for 2-3 decades. Best After 2026