Clos Fourtet 2016 is blended from 90% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc and has a deep garnet color, with a touch of purple. The nose is shut down initially, soon unfurling to offer up notes of plum preserves, boysenberries and fruitcake, plus wafts of Indian spices, dusty soil, and garrigue. Full-bodied, the palate is super-rich, jam-packed with black fruits and exotic spice layers, supported by ripe, grainy tannins and bold freshness, finishing with epic length. 

Reviewed by: Lisa Perrotti-Brown

Review date: 2022-12-08

Source: 2016 Retrospective

This has started emerging from its youth and already offers a luscious expression of black, and red fruits, licorice, salt, and flowers. The wine is rich, deep, concentrated, long, and silky, with a finish that easily hits the 50-second mark. Drink from-2023-2050.

Tasted Sep 19, 2023

Huge depth of colour, this delivers aromatics to dive right into, packed with violet flowers and baked fruit. The tannic structure remains young and very much in control, with edges of austerity, cradling the fruit, but once you wade through the first few moments, things relax to show creamy raspberry, black cherry and damson, with cocoa bean, espresso, sandalwood, incense, tobacco leaf. Pretty closed down at the moment, great lift on the finish and the sappy saline character, with an eucaluyptus, from ripe Merlot on limestone, just a beautiful wine that you will want to share, but give it time. 60% new oak. Stephane Derenoncourt and Jean-Claude Berrouet consultants.

TASTED BY JANE ANSON - 20 APRIL 2023

The 2016 Clos Fourtet is vivid, explosive and simply captivating. Inky blue/purplish berry fruit, lavender, spice and white flowers are all vivid in the glass, but it is the wine's silky, seamless personality that elevates it into a place among the wines of the vintage. In 2016, Clos Fourtet is stunningly beautiful and utterly compelling. This is a tremendous showing from proprietor Matthieu Cuvelier and consulting winemaker Stéphane Derenoncourt. Tasted two times. - vinous.com, January 2019

One of the gems in the vintage that should be snatched up by readers is the 2016 Château Clos Fourtet. Coming from a magical 20-hectare vineyard located on the upper, limestone-driven plateau just outside Saint-Emilion and a blend of 90% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 3% Cabernet Franc from small yields of 38 hectoliters per hectare, it spent 16 months in 60% new French oak (and a small portion of the blend saw malo in barrel as well). Its saturated purple color is followed by a monster bouquet of ripe blackberries, cassis, graphite, and crushed rocks, and it picks up more blue fruits, truffle, and limestone minerality with time in the glass. This deep, full-bodied, powerful Saint-Emilion has some similarities to Canon yet is deeper and richer, with a more powerful yet still elegant style. It’s a brilliant bottle of wine to hide for 4-5 years and drink over the following 2-3 decades. - jebdunnuck.com, February 2019

Love the dark-berry and intense black-olive and chocolate aromas that follow through to a full body and firm and chewy tannins that deliver a rich and delicious finish. Such polish and, at the same time, finesse. But one of the cellar. A blend of 90 per cent merlot, seven per cent cabernet sauvignon and three per cent cabernet franc. Try from 2022.

Tasted January 2019

The 2016 Clos Fourtet fulfills the promise shown out of barrel. It bursts from the glass with extremely well-focused, copious blackberry, licorice and undergrowth aromas. Medium-bodied on the palate, displaying finer tannin than the 2015. Beautifully balanced, but – as is typical of this estate – there is real weight and grip toward the finish, which fans out with confidence. - vinous.com, Jan 2019

So amazingly nuanced, such elegance combined with ripeness, a vintage that many say is wonderful, as do I. Blackberry and dark cherry, cool blueberry and wet stone minerality delivered in a seamless palate, even more than the 2005 – at least at this tasting. Add to this the impressive concentration, and you get Yin and Yang. A bit of crushed tobacco lends freshness to a very long, cool and thoroughly classy finish. 3.45pH. 

Tasted by: Panos Kakaviatos (at Clos Fourtet, France, 19 Apr 2023)
Part of Decanter's top-scoring wines of 2023: 100-point wines
Drinking Window: 2023 - 2075