2024 Chateau Pavie Premier Grand Cru Classe A, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru

Based on 51% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2024 Château Pavie is still aging in 65% new barrels. It's tight and focused at this stage, with medium-bodied aromas and flavors of black raspberries, juicy cassis, graphite, violets, and crushed stone. I love its overall purity. It has beautiful tannins, a layered, elegant mouthfeel, and a great finish. It plays in the fresher, more focused style of the vintage, yet still brings classic Pavie texture, depth, and richness.

A very precise Pavie, this has a compacted palate of blue fruit as well as raspberries and hints of sandalwood. Medium-bodied with a tight, linear finish. Racy and fresh at the end. A blend of 51% merlot, 32% cabernet franc and 17% cabernet sauvignon.

There is no better way to discover the power of the Pavie terroir than to see how it has peformed in 2024 - a naturally cooler and slimmer vintage, and yet you still have a wine here that has depth, energy, intensity and concentration, squid ink, fennel, oyster shell salinity. The fruit is sappy, for sure a brighter and slimmer version of Pavie compared to many vintages but this is still unmistakeable estate signature. 42ha in production, now including Pavie Decesse and Bellevue Mondotte (as of 2022). 24hl/h yield, September 27 to October 9, 3.69 pH. 65% new oak, with lower toast.

The 2024 Pavie is potent and explosive to the core. Blackberry, espresso, licorice, cloves and leather are dialed up to the maximum. The 2024 is an imposing, brawny Pavie that is likely to need a bit of time to be at its most expressive. Today, the 2024 is quite the bruiser, especially in terms of its tannin profile. Like so many wines in 2024, the balance here is on the razor's edge, suggesting that élevage will be critical, especially in terms of preserving the wine's fruit. Aging is 65% new oak and 35% once-used barrels, in other words, on the lower side in terms of new oak at this address. Tasted two times.

The 2024 Pavie was cropped at 24 hl/ha from September 27 to October 9, and 65% was matured in new barrels. This has an attractive bouquet of black cherries, bilberry, cassis and light violet scents—not as complex as some vintages of Pavie but, unlike the Monbousquet or Clos des Lunelles, its oak is proportionate to its fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins to frame its layered black fruit as graphite inflections emanate from the Cabernet components. The 2024 is fresh with pleasing linearity, even if it just lacks a bit of amplitude on the finish. Give this Saint-Émilion three or four years in bottle.

51% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc, 17% Cabernet Sauvignon – same blend as last year . 24.07 hl/ha. Cask sample. Purple-black hue. Lift and complexity on the nose with dark-fruit, spice and citrus notes. Firmly structured with present but well-honed tannins. Has the natural power of Pavie so potential. Slightly hard, chalky finish. (JL)

51% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc, 17% Cabernet Sauvignon – same blend as last year. 24.07 hl/ha. Cask sample.

Purple-black hue. Lift and complexity on the nose with dark-fruit, spice and citrus notes. Firmly structured with present but well-honed tannins. Has the natural power of Pavie so potential. Slightly hard, chalky finish. (JL)

13.7% Drink 2032 – 2050