2015 Les Ormes de Pez
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Tasting notes
Tasted blind. Rather tired nose. Tough and austere. Very tart. (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
Wine Spectator
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2015 Ormes de Pez has a very austere nose. The fruit here seems to have ebbed more than its peers. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly grainy tannins. This is a relatively lightweight Ormes de Pez with a strict and conservative finish.
Here the fruit on the opening matches the bright red cherry colour, crunchy and fresh, with textured added by slate-scrape tannins and deeper brambled hedgerow blackberry and bilberry. A little short on the finish, I would look to 2016 vintage of this exceptionally enjoyable wine - but this is juicy and ready to go, with the unfussy earthy edge of St Estèphe. 45% new oak for ageing.
The 2015 Les Ormes de Pez has a refined bouquet of wild strawberry and cranberry notes, touches of oyster shell, a subtle estuarine influence that becomes accentuated with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grained tannin, fresh and quite linear in style with "correct" finish that just lacks the flesh that would render this more enjoyable. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.
About the producer
The Cazes family – owners of Lynch-Bages – added this Saint-Estèphe Cru Bourgeois estate to their portfolio in 1940, just one year after they purchased Lynch-Bages. The property comprises 32 hectares of vines in the north of the appellation, close to the village of Pez.