With a solid depth of color, initially you find flowers, espresso, licorice, black cherries, chocolate fudge and plum aromatics crowd into the nose. The sensations on the mid-palate, and finish mirror the aromatics as they flow over your palate. The ending is packed with waves of perfectly, ripe, elegant, black, red, and blue fruits that linger. The wine will require at least a few years of aging before it begins to really start to show its best. But, if you have patience, this is going to age for 2 - 3 decades. The wine blends 90% Merlot with 10% Cabernet Franc. 14.5% AB, 3.7 pH. Drink from 2027-2055. Tasted en primweur May 2023

A juicy and polished Le Gay with full body and tannins which are nicely melted into the wine. Dark berry, chocolate and spice character. Savory finish.

A step up over the 2020, the 2022 Château Le Gay brings more richness and depth and has a great nose of red and black fruits, flowery incense, baking spices, and scorched earth. Medium to full-bodied, nicely textured, and balanced, it shines for its purity of fruit as well its silky tannins. This should have some early accessibility yet still evolve for decades.

The 2022 Le Gay is wonderfully aromatic and nuanced from the first impression. Sweet tobacco, cedar, pipe tobacco and dried herbs open first as the Cabernet Franc makes itself felt. Medium in body and graceful, the Le Gay shows the radiance of the year, but is also impeccable in its balance. Sweet floral and spice top notes grace the exquisite finish. Tasted two times.

The 2022 Le Gay was picked 5-19 September and vinified in new oak barrels. This takes time to unfold on the nose: tertiary red berry fruit, smoke and truffle, moderate intensity with a light marine element. The palate is medium-bodied, with a slightly lactic texture on the entry, flecks of dark chocolate on the red fruit, gentle grip with quite a firm finish. It maybe just misses a bit of flair at the moment but I suspect it will come around with time. There is something sultry, atypically introspective about this Le Gay, hence my prudent score.

The 2022 Le Gay offers up aromas of rich cassis, menthol and toasty new oak, followed by a full-bodied, rich and rather muscular palate framed by sweet, liberally extracted tannins that assert themselves on the finish. While this remains quite a chunky, stylized wine, defined by its fermentation in new oak barriques, it is comparatively restrained for this estate in such an extreme vintage.

Tight tannins, intense spices, fig and baked plum fruits, this struggles to maintain balance.