Tasting Notes and Scores
The 2012 Cheval Blanc boasts stunning power and a vertical, imposing sense of structure that is quite rare in this vintage. Dark and almost brooding in style, the Cheval is a rare 2012 that absolutely demands cellaring. Smoke, tobacco, incense and dark spices open up with time, but the 2012 is a reticent, tannic wine that is only showing the barest hints of its ultimate potential. This is a magnificent showing and one of the clear highlights of the year.
Antonio Galloni
A step up over the 2011, the 2012 Cheval Blanc offers a similar medium to full-bodied, elegant style yet has slightly more freshness and purity. Smoked black fruits, cassis, tobacco leaf, and sappy flower notes all emerge from this thrillingly textured, balanced, focused 2012. It opens up with time in the glass, has ripe, sweet tannins, and it’s another one of those wines that offers pleasure today yet will cruise for decades. The final blend is the usual 54% Merlot and 46% Cabernet Franc. Readers should be happy to have bottles in their cellars.
Jeb Dunnuck
Quality 959 | Brand 995 | Economics 894 |
buzz brand
Quality: Predicted life of 18 years, one of the longest drinking windows in its peer group for the 2012 vintage, which averages 12 years
Brand: Strong restaurant presence, featuring on 40 of the world's top wine lists, including Garibaldi
Economics: More traded at auction than its peers, its top 5 vintages having seen 2,982 75cl equivalent bottles traded in the past year
Production: Lower yields than its peer group average of 33 hl/ha
- www.wine-lister.com June 2017
Wine Lister
Medium to deep garnet colored, the 2012 Cheval Blanc reveals lovely cassis, warm black cherries and redcurrant jelly notions with underlying hints of cedar chest, garrigue, Indian spices and damp soil. Medium to full-bodied, it possesses wonderful energy and freshness on the palate with a beautifully poised ethereal nature and long mineral-tinged finish. This elegantly crafted beauty should enter its drinking window in a couple of years and cellar gracefully for another 20+ years.
Wine Advocate
This wine is gorgeous in all facets, offering a simultaneously loamy and creamy mouthfeel, seamless layers of red and black currant, cherry, raspberry and blackberry fruit, and a long, tobacco-fueled finish that features alluring hints of black tea and incense. The fruit and terroir shine in this broad, deep and defined style. Best from 2018 through 2030.
— James Molesworth (WineSpectator.com, March 2015)
Wine Spectator
Fresh and particularly fragrant to smell; rich, elegant, velvety; what a balance, all the elements in a wonderful harmony; succulent, juicily ripe, graceful, effortless wine, racy, long to taste, both sweet and mineraly, creamy textured, with a beautiful fragrance of aftertaste. A lovely, lovely Cheval, a wonderful wine. Not particularly ‘big’ but, like the Margaux, a great harmony, splendid fragrance, a wonderfully thoroughbred, classy feel. Drink 2020-2040+. [54CF/46M]
– Bordeaux Mar/Apr 2013
Michael Schuster
A Cheval Blanc with an impressive center palate of blueberries, chocolate, almonds and spices. Full body, a solid core of fruit and a long, long finish. Goes on for minutes. Beautiful wine. Seamless tannins. Needs a few years of bottle age. Better in 2017.
– jamessuckling.com, Feb 2015
James Suckling
71% of the vintage went into the Cheval this year. Tight but exciting nose. Lifted, sherbert character over ripe red and black fruit. 13.9% alc. beautifully elegant, ripe but subtle fruit, chocolate, mocha and great texture. Layers on the finish. (54% Merlot/46% Cabernet Franc)
Bordeaux Index
Tasted blind at the 2012 Southwold tasting, the 2012 Cheval Blanc has a perfumed, outgoing, almost "glossy" bouquet that wants to be noticed, lavished with damson, wild strawberry, fig jam and crème de cassis scents that are totally seductive. The palate is medium-bodied with ripe, succulent, sensual red cherries and wild strawberry fruit, though perhaps the finish showed some superfluous hubris that just erased some of the potential delineation and focus. On this occasion it was pipped to the post by Ausone, but let us see how it matures, because the white horse always repays those that are patient. Tasted January 2016.
– eRobertParker.com, Oct 2016
Neal Martin
53% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Franc, 2% Cabernet Sauvignon. The vintage was divided in two: the first part was very rainy and then they were saved by an Indian summer. Very accessible. Charming. Very fragrant. Light and ballerina-like and very charming. Racy and very recognisably old-style Cheval Blanc. Drink 2020-2035.
- JancisRobinson.com, July 2015
Jancis Robinson
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