2010 Château Clerc Milon, Pauillac, Bordeaux

Tasted 17 Feb: Lighter on nose than Armailhac. Tea-leaves freshness – more attenuated than Armailhac. Very crude and raw. Very, very young! The last vat finished its malolactic only very recently apparently. Will settle down. Tasted 8 Apr: Mid purplish crimson. Serious dry tobacco/leather spectrum notes on the nose. And then ripe black fruits. Really quite sweet and opulent on the palate. Those Cabernets seem just a tiny bit struggling up the hill to full ripeness... Bone-dry finish.

Tasted blind 8 Apr: Mid crimson. Pale rim. Very ripe nose. Very thick, ripe and dramatic. Loose and a bit formless with a dry finish. There’s a little tart note in there which some people might find a bit much. Drying finish. Fades rather fast. But overall there is succulence. It is clear that a lot of work has gone into this.

The 2010 Clerc Milon has long been a favorite wine of mine. It has a gorgeous bouquet, with black cherries, raspberry preserve and a touch of Italian cured meat all beautifully defined. The palate is medium-bodied, with supple tannin, very good weight and grip and a keen line of acidity. It is still very backward, with hints of black truffle in a very persistent aftertaste. This is simply one of the finest wines from Clerc Milon in recent years. Tasted April 2017.

One the finest Clerc Milons I have ever tasted, and showing better from bottle than from barrel, this blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and the rest a tiny bit of Carmenere and Petit Verdot has a complex nose of cedar wood, red and black fruits, white chocolate and creme de cassis. A very powerful wine at 14.5% natural alcohol quite high for a Medoc), this wine has impressive purity and texture, a full-bodied mouthfeel, relatively sweet tannin, but an already endearing complexity, length and richness that are hard to ignore. This is a superb effort and one of the wines that is usually reasonably priced among the classified growths.

The powerful 2010 is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Cabernet Franc and the balance mostly Merlot except for dollops of Petit Verdot and Carmenere that achieved 14.5% natural alcohol – a record at Clerc Milon. An intense purple color is followed by notes of incense, creme de cassis and flowers and a broad, rich wine with superb purity, concentration and depth. This layered, expansive effort could turn out to be one of the finest this estate has ever made. Give it 3-5 years of cellaring and drink it over the following two decades.