2024 Chateau Rauzan-Segla 2eme Cru Classe, Margaux

The 2024 Rauzan-Ségla is magnificent. One of the top wines of the Left Bank, Rauzan-Ségla possesses tremendous textural density and mind-blowing balance. Dark fruit, lavender, spice, licorice and new leather are all dialed up in a potent, layered Margaux that offers stunning harmony and incredible purity. At this stage, Rauzan-Ségla is one of the wines of the vintage in Bordeaux. Elegant yet powerful, the 2024 is simply magnificent. Tasted four times.

Deep garnet-purple colored. Strides confidently out of the glass with classic black currants and red currant scents, leading to a core of cedar chest, underbrush, and damp soils, plus a touch of red roses. The medium-bodied palate is vibrant with exquisitely ripe tannins and beautifully knit tension framing the red and black berry layers, finishing long and fragrant. This is a finished blend, completed 2 months ago.

Cherry stone on the nose, rose, violet, strawberry and red cherry. Chewy and well textured, filling but gentle, the tannins are exceptional and the freshness is so well balanced with the fruit. So sophisticated, confident, smooth and utterly compelling. I love it, round, soft with lifted acidity that gives the tang with some liquorice on the finish. Energy and focus with real succulence. Still not a big wine, but this has plenty of style and refinement and a feeling of happiness about it. 0.5% Cabernet Franc completes the blend. Ageing 50% new barrels for 18 months. 55% production. 3.7pH. Georgina Hindle.

With a good depth of color for the vintage, the initial aromatic profile serves up violets, rose petals, currants, black cherries, licorice, and an array of spices. On the palate, the fruits are sweet, supple, and aromatic, with vibrance, and lift, allowing for length, and some expansion, leaving you with bright, crunchy black cherries, and peppery mint notes that carry through. The wine blends 63.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot, .and 05% Cabernet Franc. 12% Press wine. 13% ABV, 3.7 pH, yields were 30 hectoliters per hectare. The harvest took place September 23 – October 11. Drink from 2029-2048.

Inky colour here, one of the deepest in the appellation, lovely precision, great quality, the cool spirit of the vintage comes through in the sappy fruit, blue rather than black in character if not in colour, with black tea, espresso, chalk, lots of finesse, and still delivers flesh through the mid palate, with a touch of bitter cocoa bean on the finish. 22% press wine, 50% new oak, 3.7ph. This is the first organic certified vintage. 30hl/h yield, 55% of production in the main estate wine.

The 2024 Rauzan Ségla, picked between September 23 and October 11, was aged for 18 months in 50% new oak barrels. It has a fuller bouquet than the Deuxième Vin, with pure black fruit, a hint of violet and a splash of India ink—refined rather than powerful. The palate is medium-bodied and tensile, with lighter tannins than the '20 or '22, poised and quite linear in style. A dash of black pepper and graphite emerges towards the liquorice-tinged finish. Clearly, this is a more approachable Rauzan-Ségla that should provide up to 20 years of drinking pleasure.

A blend of 63.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot and 0.5% Cabernet Franc, the 2024 Rauzan-Ségla offers up aromas of minty cassis, pencil shavings and cigar wrapper, followed by a medium-bodied, soft and pillowy palate that's supple and open-knit, concluding with a melting, discreetly herbal finish.

63.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot and 0.5% Cabernet Franc. Cask sample. Fresh and floral with juicy fruit on the palate. A little low key but mid-palate fruit, fine tannins and everything in balance. Elegance and drinkability. (JL)