2017 - Leoville Las Cases, Saint-Julien

The 2017 Leoville Las Cases is a blend of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Merlot and has a deep garnet-purple color. It needs a lot of coaxing to uncover notes of crushed black cherries, warm cassis, and mulberries, plus touches of underbrush, pencil shavings, and dried lavender, with a hint of crushed rocks. Light to medium-bodied, the palate is exquisitely fine-knit, with wonderfully nuanced, delicate black fruit and mineral layers, supported by ripe, plush tannins, finishing with a lingering quiet intensity.

The 2017 Léoville Las Cases captures all the best the vintage has to offer. Rich, unctuous and stunning in its beauty, the 2017 possesses tremendous richness and textural intensity that carry through to the very long finish, all with the regal, statuesque feel that is the quintessential signature of Las Cases. Just as it was from barrel, Las Cases is wonderfully polished. Tasted two times. What a wine!

One of the finest wines of the vintage in Bordeaux, the 2017 Léoville Las Cases is a beautiful Saint-Julien that bursts from the glass with expressive aromas of cassis, wild berries, pencil shavings, violets and a subtle hint of cigar box. Medium to full-bodied, supple and enveloping, its unusually charming, sensual profile largely conceals a considerable endowment of tannin and a bright spine of acidity. Largely spared by the frost due to its optimal location on the bank of the Gironde, and subject to a draconian selection, the 2017's giving style reflects not only the vintage but also more restrained use of press wine chez Las Cases, seeing only 7% in the blend as opposed to the 10% to 12% that was typical not too long ago. It's a masterpiece.

This is a vintage that, like 1997, just might give you a chance of enjoying a bottle of Las Cases before the 20 year mark, and shows the hint of smoked caramel on the nose that you get in the lighter years. A kick of oyster shell salinity runs through the palate, helping to lift the wine out of the glass, alive with orange zest, mandarin peel, safffron, and crayon alongside the cassis and lighter redcurrant fruits. Atypical for Las Cases, but retaining clear St Julien signature.

Full bottle 1,339 g.Tasted blind. Solid but not especially evolved purplish crimson. The densest colour in this blind tasting of top Cabernets and Chinese equivalents. Some ripe and interesting aromas can be coaxed out of this intense liquid. Strong Cabernet aromas. Not especially opulent. Just a little pinched on the end at the moment but this has a future! Las Cases? (JR)