2009 Château Lassègue

Bright ruby-red. Blackberry, kirsch , cassis, tropical dark chocolate and minerals on the nose. Smooth on entry, then juicy and penetrating, with strong acidity and mineral verve keeping the dark fruit flavors quite bound-up today. Finishes with strong, toothcoating tannins and impressive vinosity. This slightly inky, chewy wine needs seven or eight years of patience, but is there enough flesh and fruit to support a harmonious devolopment in bottle?

Its ferocious tannins still need some resolution, and the wine is definitely what the French call a “vin de garde,” needing probably 8-10 years of cellaring. It is certainly concentrated, dense purple in color, with notes of iron, crushed rocks, black currants, kirsch and toasty oak. This is a chancy wine given the history that tannins always outlast the fruit, but there is a lot here and I wouldn’t want to dismiss it, considering all the good stuff it appears to possess. From the St.-Emilion home of the late Jess Jackson’s ambitious wine program, this wine was made by his brilliant superstar winemaker Pierre Seillan, who actually is Bordelais. The question here is if he has built this wine up too much with extraction and power.

Silly heavy bottle. Very dark purple. Sorry but this is really most unpleasant on the nose. SO overripe! So sweet and over the top. Really I can’t see the point of coming to Bordeaux to make this sort of wine (Jess Jackson’s Bordeaux outpost). So sweet and overblown it may as well be a Russian relic. Sorry, I know this sounds harsh and I have no axe to grind but this is one of the most unpleasant bordeaux I have ever tasted. (JR)