CHATEAU LANESSAN 2015 - Haut Medoc - Cru Bourgeois - France - Red Wine

               

Country : France
Region : Bordeaux - Haut-Medoc
Type : Red
Year : 2017
Volume : 75 cl

WINE CRITICS

93 points James Suckling
Outer quote mark Impressive ripe blackberry and darker plum fruits with notes of earth and warm stones. The palate has a supple, even-paced and fresh fruited heart of red cherry and plum fruits. Smooth tannins flow long. Try from 2021. Inner quote mark (2/2018)

91-93 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Outer quote mark Medium garnet-purple in color, the 2015 Lanessan has a crushed cherries and warm plums-scented nose with an earthy undercurrent. It's medium-bodied with pleasant chew to the structure and an earthy finish. (LPB) Inner quote mark (2/2018) GOEDHUIS, APRIL 2016, SCORE: 91-93

This striking château sits on the horizon as you enter St Julien and always makes a very rewarding style of wine. This has volume and body, with stacks of aromatic dark berry fruit flavours. Sweet, long and luscious on the finish. The 2015 Lanessan has quite a punchy, fruit-driven bouquet with well-integrated oak, a Lanessan with more sense of purpose than I have found in recent vintages. The palate is medium-bodied with fine blackberry and raspberry fruit, fine tannin, leading to a smooth and harmonious finish, which lingers nicely in the mouth. 

THE VINES – a mix of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 35% merlot, 4% petit verdot and just 1% cabernet franc – now cover 45 hectares and have an average age of 30 years. Once harvested, the grapes are fermented in temperature-controlled concrete tanks, before being aged in oak barrels for 12 months (around 30% of the barrels are new in each vintage.) As old vintages have shown, Lanessan is capable of making excellent claret, although there is some vintage variation. The Society tends only to buy from this château in its best vintages – in these instances the wine can age for between six and 15 years.

ABOUT THE WINERY One of the oldest estates in the Médoc dating from the 14th century, Lanessan was not classified in 1855 as they failed to submit a sample. Had they done so, some specialists believe that it would have been listed as a Fifth Growth. Not particularly great news for the château owners, but for its consumers on the other hand... This cru bourgeois property is very well placed. It lies just across the stream which divides the Haut-Médoc from Saint-Julien, on a ridge of Bordeaux’s famous Garonne gravel, and is in sight of both Beychevelle and Branaire-Ducru. Technically it has been in the same family since 1793, when it was purchased by Jean Delbos. In 1907, his granddaughter married into the Bouteiller family in 1907, who continues to own the property to this day. Since 2009 it has been run by the energetic young winemaker Paz Espejo.

ABOUT CHATEAU LANESSAN