| Region | |
|---|---|
| Subregion | France > Bordeaux > Left Bank > St Estèphe |
| Colour | Red |
| Type | Still |
View all vintages of this wine | View all wines by Cos d'Estournel
If you want to know what St.-Estèphe smells like, this is it. Aromas of spices, black truffles, forest floor, dried strawberries and tar. It’s full-bodied yet pinpointed on the palate with fabulous density and richness. It’s opulent but in a reserved and checked way. This needs at least five or six years to come around, but it’s already fantastic. What harmony and structure. Try in 2022 if you can keep your hands off it!
Inky depths to this wine, from the first pour you are aware of the exceptional quality, really standing out in this horizontal tasting of the appellation. Inky in colour, heading to soft ruby around the edges, brushed velvet texture, and loaded up with graphite, turmeric, cassis, mint leaf, clove, chocolate and mandarin peel. Impactful and confident, just a shame that the bottle is so heavy. Michel Reybier owner, Aymeric de Gironde director.
Tasted blind. Very deep crimson. Clean, fresh attack. Very rich and smooth and worked. Intense and attention-grabbing. Sweeter and plummier than some – which is arguably not an attribute in a St-Estèphe.
Drink 2023-2038
The grand vin 2014 Cos D’Estournel is gorgeous, and I think a step up over the 2015. A blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc, this deep, inky-colored 2014 boasts a gorgeous perfume of ripe currants and cassis fruits, loads of chocolaty oak, cedar and scorched earth, full-bodied richness, and building, firm, yet ripe tannin. It’s certainly one of the gems in the vintage, as well as one of the more structured, opulent and age-worthy. Give bottles 4-5 years of bottle age and enjoy over the following two to three decades. 2022 - 2052
Intense, with a roiling core of luscious loganberry, blackberry and black currant fruit. Singed spice, apple wood and black tea accents emerge steadily on the finish. Has a rare combination of density and precision. Will cruise in the cellar. Best from 2020 through 2035. 14,000 cases made.
After a stylistic wobble in 2009, Cos has made a run of impressive wines in recent years. The 2014 is right up there with the very best of them: deftly oaked, spicy and green pepper scented with a core of sweetness framed by fine-grained tannins and underpinned by tangy acidity.
The 2014 Cos d'Estournel is destined to turn into a very lovely Saint Estèphe. This bottle was actually tasted over a period of a few hours. The word "cool" is one that reappeared in my vernacular now that the wine is in bottle. The estate is known for producing a more luxuriant and extravagant bouquet compared to its Saint Estèphe peers, yet this vintage is streamlined (to re-appropriate my original descriptor). It's unashamedly focused and delineated. It delivers intense blackberry and bilberry scents, again with a touch of iris. The palate is beautifully balanced with not a single hair out of place. The acidity is well judged and I noticed that after two or three hours, there was a faint vein of graphite that lends it a Pauillac-like personality, no surprise given that it lies just across the border. It will require several years in bottle for the tannins to mellow, but the result will be a very attractive, quite correct, fresh and precise Cos d'Estournel that will bestow two or three decades of drinking enjoyment. Tasted February 2017. Drink Date 2022-2045
The Château Cos d'Estournel 2014 is a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc picked between 25 September and 10 October at 33.7 hectoliters per hectare. The pH came in at 3.77 and an IPT of 87, quite high compared to some other properties in the northern Médoc. It has "cool" nose, by that I mean it is not a flamboyant set of aromatics like the 2009 or 2010, but rather "streamlined" and focused, very delineated with black fruit intermingling with incense and iris. It is very controlled. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, but "full" tannins in the mouth that lend this Cos d'Estournel impressive volume. There is an unerring purity here, a gradual crescendo of intensity towards a peppery finish that lingers long. This is an impressive Grand Vin - classic Cos d'Estournel. Tasted three times with consistent notes. Drink 2022-2045
I love the style of this Cos with so much Indian spices constituting the aromas and flavors here. Full body, fine tannins and an ultra-long finish. Excellent structure and length yet this maintains finesse.
Dense colour. Really very luscious indeed. A streak of St-Estèphe iron filings but surrounded by the more opulent fruit. Fine and refined. More fun than Lafite! Masses of tannins and density. Shorter than some vintages, such as 2005! 14.2%
Drink 2024-2045
