2021 Fonroque
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Tasting notes
The first vintage made in the new cellar, the 2021 Château Fonroque is an outstanding effort in a challenging vintage. Giving up ripe blackberry and darker cherry fruits as well as notes of roasted herbs, violets, and a kiss of background oak, it's nicely balanced, has medium-bodied richness, and terrific purity of fruit. Give it just a few years and enjoy over the following decade.
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Average Score
Alistair Cooper MW, jancisrobinson.com
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
The 2021 Fonroque has a ripe nose with black cherries, blueberry, licorice and just a touch of mint. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannins, rather hard and unyielding with a brittle, austere finish. One other sample seemed to have a weird, rather ersatz residual sweetness on the finish.
The 2021 Fonroque is an exotic, beguiling wine. Deep and intensely savory, the 2021 offers a striking mix of Merlot fruit and Cabernet Franc aromatics. Crushed flowers, mint, spice, rose petal and bright red-toned fruit all run through this silky super-expressive Saint-Émilion.
The 2021 Fonroque is generous, bursting with aromas of cherries, mulberries and licorice, followed by a medium to full-bodied, ample and charming palate that's fleshy but vibrant, with a gourmand core of fruit framed by sweet, powdery tannins. It's the first vintage produced in the estate's new winery, and that shows in greater harmony and precision.