Our bold claim from several months back rings even louder with today’s 2016 Grand Cru blockbuster: Vieux Taillefer isn’t some obscure gem in a sea of luxury labels—it ranks at the top of my expansive Bordeaux list and is THE producer to know in 2020. Trust me when I say the hype is genuine. Having tasted most of the Bordeaux spectrum, this titanic rarity quietly demolishes many elite chateaux costing hundreds more, and does so with absolute ease.
If you can recall, the 2015 release from Vieux Taillefer caused us to lose our minds, and my colleague Mark labeled it his favorite red, from any region, this year. He even felt compelled to take it to his Bordeaux blind-tasting group, where a 1978 Pichon Lalande, 2002 Haut Brion, and 2009 Lynch Bages were in attendance. He said everyone’s nose was glued to the glass during Vieux Taillefer’s turn, and when it came time for the big reveal, it wasn’t $400+ First Growth Château Haut Brion in the lead, but Vieux Taillefer—unanimously. That’s right: An obscure, 200-case production Saint-Émilion Grand Cru stole the entire show. I remind you of all this because today’s just-landed 2016 is all that and multiples more. It’s bolder, more luxurious, and immensely more powerful; a monumental tour de force that rattles the doors of hyper-elite Bordeaux. Forget asking, I implore you to add this to your collection. It’s unarguably among our rarest, most exciting blue-chip Bordeaux offerings to date. Plus, you needn’t be a Bordeaux junkie to appreciate this indomitable Right Bank Grand Cru—anyone who enjoys fine French reds will have their breath stolen away, guaranteed! If further deliberation is needed, just know this: the 2015 sold out in 38 minutes.
We imagine Vieux Taillefer has flown so stealthily under the radar because they max out at 300 cases on the absolute best years, with the average more along the lines of 200 (only a quarter of that hits American soils). Or, it could be that owners/couple Catherine and Philippe Cohen purchased the property just 14 years ago. Perhaps a combination of both. But, once you consider the significant star power associated with this bottle, their obscurity makes absolutely zero sense: Catherine Cohen learned under legendary Pétrus winemaker Jean-Claude Berrouet and went on to produce a string of vintages for La Fleur-Pétrus in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
As the story goes, it was Jean-Claude Berrouet who pointed the Cohens in the direction of Vieux Taillefer. While she was in her second year studying enology, Catherine landed an internship with Berrouet at Château Pétrus. That impressive stint eventually led to her being named winemaker at nearby La Fleur Pétrus, where she made the wines from 1995-2001. When Berrouet learned that the previous owner of Vieux Taillefer was retiring, he saw an opportunity for his talented protégé, and she and Philippe ran with it. With their minuscule 4.8 hectares, they’ve brought what’s been described as a “Burgundian” sensibility to Bordeaux, devoting most of their energy to organic farming and to bottling their wines by soil type, rather than using the traditional “first” and “second” wine model.
As Bordeaux lovers are aware, the Saint-Émilion appellation has one of the region’s greatest concentrations of limestone soils, and within the five hectares of vines at Vieux Taillefer, which sits right on the bank of the Dordogne River a few kilometers southeast of Libourne, the Cohens see pockets of nearly pure limestone interspersed with a more typical Bordeaux gravel/clay mixture. The property, blessed with carefully tended old vines, is planted predominantly to Merlot, with some Cabernet Franc and an interesting assortment of white varieties (the Vieux Taillefer Blanc is well-worth seeking out). Working 100% organically, the Cohens produce two reds, which they view as discrete expressions of their terroir rather than as two tiers in a hierarchy: Today’s wine hails from a single, 90-year-old Merlot vineyard planted on pure limestone, while their Pavillon de Taillefer is a cuvée sourced from four different plots rooted in clay and gravel.
They take pride in doing everything naturally and by hand, employing very little new oak in their cuvées—this wine spent 24 months in roughly 20% new barrels—and striving to make what they call “terroir wines” with a brilliant level of polish. Like the previous vintage, today’s 2016 is an impossibly pure, highly aromatic wine that contains some of the most alluringly youthful Bordeaux aromas in recent memory. It shows the more perfumed, plush side of Merlot as well as a more linear, tensile structure than some of the showier styles found elsewhere in Saint-Émilion (and especially neighboring Pomerol). Like Pétrus, this 2016 is 100% Merlot, but one would have an extremely hard time making that call due to its formidable structure. Compared to the 2015, this current release raises everything a few degrees. It’s full-bodied, deeper, darker, more brooding, yet its tannins are still soft as cashmere. The wine pours a vibrant dark ruby with intense purple-black hues that fire out crushed graphite, smoke, boysenberry pie, ripe blackberry, violets, licorice, black cherry liqueur, red plums, cigar box, turned earth, and cinnamon. On the palate, this Grand Cru is propelled by elegance, but there’s immense depth and polish to be had, too. It’s bursting with a silky, dark-fruited core that’s lifted by crushed stone minerality and an understated savoriness. Enjoy a bottle now, after a minimum two-hour decant, and savor all your others over the next 10-15 years—it’ll last even more with proper storage. Cheers!
