Based on 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the balance Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, the 2023 Château Pape Clément has a deep purple hue as well as a sensational perfume of cassis, darker berries, crushed stone, graphite, violets, and subtle smoky tobacco. Medium to full-bodied, pure, and layered on the palate, it has polished tannins, beautiful overall balance, and a great finish. It’s a classic, seamless Pape Clément that already offers pleasure yet has the structure and depth to evolve for 30 years. Drink 2026-2056.

This is really classy with length and polish that shine brightly. Also, you see blackberry, bark, currant and mushroom character. Full-bodied with wonderfully polished tannins and a seamless finish.

The 2023 Pape Clément is one of the most exciting wines I have tasted here in a long time maybe ever. Intensely aromatic and layered the 2023 is simply stunning. Dried flowers mint licorice mocha cedar and tobacco soar out of the glass. The purity of the flavors is simply mind-blowing. Plum pomegranate blood orange and spice build in the glass adding notable textural richness and resonance. This is the first vintage vinified with indigenous yeasts. Aging takes place in a combination of concrete tanks ceramic eggs Clayvers 400-liter barrels and 225-liter barriques. For readers who want to taste the “new” Bordeaux this is it. What a wine! Tasted four times. 2030-2053

The 2023 Pape Clément evokes aromas of dark wild berries, spices, licorice and mulberries, followed by a medium to full-bodied, round and ample palate with structuring tannins and a firm, concentrated mid-palate that segues into a long, fruity finish. Less oaky than the previous years, this is a more contemporary expression of this great terroir. It's a blend of 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot.

The 2023 Pape Clément is the first vintage fully employing crème de levures using native yeasts in the vineyard to start the fermentation and improve balance together with two native yeasts regularly employed since 2012 (to maintain some consistency). It was picked from September 5 to October 3 and matured in 60% new oak including foudres. The 2023 is cut from a very different cloth compared to recent vintages. It’s much more classic in style almost reserved with tightly wound black fruit mixed with briar and light gravelly scents. The palate is medium-bodied with a light entry just a pinch of spice and moderate depth. The silky peppery finish is more tertiary than you would expect to find on what was once quite a bombastic Pessac-Léognan. One sample had a soupçon of herbaceousness whilst another at the château had none at all. Very fine. I like this new direction. though I would not regard this as a benchmark for future vintages. This will be interesting to revisit after bottling.

With aromas of blackberry, plum and crushed tobacco offering promise, I feel that the palate comes across a touch over extracted, with tannins coming to the fore. The good news is less new oak, so that the estate aims for balance, but perhaps the 2023 vintage here is not ideal? In any case, while I appreciate the intensity of the palate, I feel that one should be more conservative until after the bottling, to see the extent to which the barrel ageing will soften the palate.

Inky depths to the plum colour; as is often the case with Pape Clement even under the new regime of the past few vintages where new oak has been lowered. Delivers an exuberant, confident estate signature, supple texture, roasted black cherry and cherry pit, cocoa bean, espresso, a cushion of air helps give a lift on the finish to what is a fairly highly charged architecture. 35hl/ha yield.

50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. Cask sample. Round and perfumed on the nose. Palate aromatic again with floral, red-fruit notes. Fresh and reasonably full on the palate but less punchy than in the past. Some persistence and potential. (JL)