2010 Château Léoville Las Cases, St Julien, Bordeaux
Description
82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc.
Léoville-Las Cases is often referred to as the sixth First Growth, and Jean-Hubert Delon has once again demonstrated that, if the 1855 classification were to be redrawn, he would most probably be in the top league. 2010 is dark in colour, with a lovely concentration on the nose, lots of fresh cassis and blackberries, good focus in the mid-palate, and fine tannins throughout. It is a bit lighter and fresher in style than the 2009, but with amazing purity and a never-ending finish. This is a keeper!
Berry Bros. & Rudd
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Colour
Red -
Sweetness
Dry -
Vintage
2010 -
Alcohol
13.5% -
Grape
Cabernet Sauvignon,Merlot,Cabernet Franc -
Body
Full Bodied -
Producer
Château Léoville Las Cases
Critics reviews
The aromas to this wine have a beautiful purity of raspberries, blueberries, currants, and flowers that follow to a full body, with super integrated tannins that are like the finest silk in texture. It shows elegant and pretty fruit character and a reserve and finesse of such great years as 1989 and 1995. The bright strong acidity gives a crunchy and creamy texture. This has a tiny bit more Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend than 2009. Give it at least six to eight years of bottle age.
Rather surprisingly low alcohol cited for this wine.
Unusually for Las Cases I am smelling a little sweet oak. It’s lighter and less concentrated than I would have expected though there is no shortage of stoniness. Lively on the end – in fact one of the few 2010s in which I am really conscious of the acidity. Was it relatively early picked? A slightly lean 2010.
Drink 2025 - 2050
Layered, textured, deep, cigar box, cassis and earth, managing to simultaneously stretch out, and burrow down. The edges open slowly but surely and seductively. Still inky in colour, this has all the powerful texture and tannic architecture that you expect from Leoville, and unlike the 2009 at its ten year point it is still keeping plenty of secrets close to its chest. But you are going to want to be around when it fully opens.
Drink 2022 - 2050
The 2010 Léoville Las Cases has a clean and precise bouquet, beautifully focused with blackberry, melted tar, cigar humidor and crushed stone aromas. It gains intensity with aeration without ever losing its precision. The palate is medium-bodied with lithe tannins, a fine bead of acidity, a sense of abiding symmetry and detail as it fans out on the mineral-driven finish. This is an absolutely awesome Saint-Julien with a long life ahead. Tasted from an ex-château bottle at the BI Wines & Spirits 10-Year On tasting.
Drink 2026 - 2060
The most powerful wine in this vertical is the 2010 Léoville Las Cases, a full-bodied, deep and multidimensional behemoth redolent of rich berries, cassis, burning embers, pencil shavings and loamy soil. Broad-shouldered, layered and muscular, with huge reserves of concentration and sweet, powdery tannin, it concludes with a broad, resonant finish. This is a prodigious, somewhat imposing Las Cases that is still an infant a decade after bottling.
Drink 2025 - 2065