Calon Segur, Estate Release

Tasted two or three times before, the 1998 Calon Segur is a wine that showed well from barrel but became rather curmudgeonly in bottle. This bottle replicated the one shown at BI Wine & Spirit’s Calon Segur dinner early in 2016. It is a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Cabernet Franc, 35% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot. It has a rather aloof and distant bouquet that takes to open in the glass, eventually offering scents of blackberry, menthol and sage. It feels less rustic and stemmy than the bottle encountered two years earlier. The palate is medium-bodied with blackberry, cedar, mint and a touch of graphite, more Pauillac-like than previous bottles. There is commendable length in the mouth although it does not touch the complexity of more recent vintages under talented winemaker Vincent Millet. Tasted at the château.