2021 - Ausone, Saint-Emilion

A blend of 65% Cabernet Franc and 35% Merlot, the 2021 Ausone has a deep garnet-purple color. It storms out of the glass with an initial burst of juicy black plums, blackberries, and Bing cherries, leading to an undercurrent of fragrant soil, wet slate, lilacs, and tar, with a touch of bay leaves. The light-bodied palate has impressive intensity and tension, featuring a frame of beautifully ripe, rounded tannins to support the tightly stacked black and red berry layers, finishing long and mineral-laced. Around 16,000 bottles were made.

The last year that Ausone will be recorded as a Premier Grand Cru Classé A, and it delivers fragrant tomato leaf and peony aromatics, studded with fennel and white pepper, cold ash, saffran, oyster shell, pomegranate and brambled loganberry frruit. Medium bodied plum colour, plenty of depth through the mid palate. This is right up there with the very best of 2021, and manages to convey the signature of the limestone soils at Ausone, with their grip and understated sense of playfulness. Clear winemaking skill on display, not trying to outrun the vintage, while still bearing the fingerprints of a cooler year. Harvest September 30 to October 6, 90% new oak (down from the usual 100%), 2nd year conversion to organic, Philippe Baillarguet cellar master. Average vine age 55 years. A tough year for this stable of wines - with no release of Simard, Haut Simard, Fonbel nor Moulin St Georges (final decision has been taken over ageing, although a few bottles will be kept at the estate for library purposes). 23hl/h yield.

The 2021 Ausone is a gorgeous wine, but it is also quite reticent and in need of time to come around. The operative word here is balance, as all the elements are so well put together. Soft, gentle contours wrap around a core of succulent red/purplish fruit, blood orange, spice, lavender, rose petal and dried herbs. The 2021 is compelling.

The 2021 Ausone was the fruit of a challenging growing season, the estate's second year in organic conversion coinciding with notable diseases pressure, but the resulting blend of 65% Cabernet Franc and 35% Merlot (featuring a touch more Cabernet Franc than normal) was one of the most seductive wines of the en primeur campaign, its exotic perfume and crystalline purity evoking the great Ausone vintages of yesteryear and offering an unvarnished representation of this superb limestone terroir. In bottle, the 2021 remains an excellent wine, but at least out of the gates, its élevage (in 90% new oak, predominantly from Demptos and Taransaud, with four rackings) has taken the lead, intermingling aromas of vanilla, spices and toast with discreet notes of minty dark berries, cherries, petals and pencil shavings. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and fleshy, with an ample and enveloping core of fruit that retains its energy and purity but which gives way to a finish marked by somewhat assertive barrel tannins. Given the inherent quality of the wine and the terroir, I'm sure time will be kind to it, but I'm not quite sure it will ever realize the magical potential it showed in April 2022.

Tasted blind. Deep crimson. Still looks very youthful. Extremely rich, opulent nose. Some Cabernet influence? The palate certainly isn’t opulent. Dry finish. (JR)