Cola, liquorice and ripe blueberries on the nose - perfumed, heady and expressive. So delicious on the palate, smooth and driving with excellent energy - a youthful tension to the mid-palate. Sleek and stylish with a gorgeous texture, perfectly weighted to give a mouthfilling expression yet keeping a refined and focused delivery of black fruit, liquorice and floral flavours. Impressive and supremely pleasurable - this makes you want a glass immediately. Spicy, and perfumed because of the Cabernet Franc but all the better for it with 59% Cabernet Franc and 41% Merlot.

Sémillon was added to the blend of the Cheval Blanc white from 2018, and it was immediately clear that it added an extra layer of interest. This is a vintge that I've tried several times over the past few years, and it keeps getting better, showing white peaches riven with waxy lemon rind, sage and saffran that bring it in line with the complexity and finesse of the rest of the (red) Cheval stable. Aged for 18 months in larg-sized new oak barrels.

I wrote in my note on the 2020 Château Cheval Blanc Le Petit Cheval that this is "one hell of a second wine," and it has a kiss of the elegance and complexity found in the top cuvée. Black fruits, roasted herbs, graphite, and scorched earth notes all emerge from this ruby/purple-hued beauty, which has medium to full-bodied richness, ripe, polished tannins, and a great finish. It will drink nicely for 15+ years.

The 2020 Le Petit Cheval, which represents 12% of the total production this year, has a tightly wound bouquet of blackberry, raspberry, touches of wilted iris and just a dab of menthol. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit intermixed with sage and black pepper. Grippy and quite serious toward the finish, which feels a touch drier than usual. I feel this will need 5–7 years for the tannins to soften.

The 2020 Le Petit Cheval offers up aromas of minty cherries, plums, raw cocoa, mint and spices, followed by a medium to full-bodied, fleshy and voluptuous palate underpinned by a broad-shouldered chassis of tannin. A blend of 59% Cabernet Franc and 41% Merlot, it's a rather structured young Petit Cheval that will reward a bit of patience.

This second bottle seemed much fresher and in better condition (the first had seemed raisined and possibly oxidised). Tasted blind. Black core. Dark-fruited and oaky/charry on the nose. Smells dense and on the palate, it proves to be so. Savoury and charry, the fruit well hidden by the tannins and the oak. A savoury wine with a suggestion of greater elegance to come. (JH)