2023 Chateau Cos d'Estournel, Saint-Estephe, France 375ml

Arriving Fall of 2026

A contemporary classic in the making, the 2023 Cos d'Estournel has turned out beautifully, reflecting a lighter touch with extraction that has delivered more sensuality and harmony without the loss of any of the estate's signature power and authority. Wafting from the glass with deep aromas of cassis, wild berries, orange zest and exotic spices, framed by well-integrated new wood, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, with a concentrated core of fruit, beautifully suave tannins and a cool, seamless profile. It's a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot and the balance Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot that attained 12.9% alcohol and is being matured in 50% new oak.

Cos d'Estournel may neighbor Lafite-Rothschild, but its vineyards are very different, rising from the banks of the Jalle de Breuil—the small stream that divides Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe—to a height of fully 26 meters above sea level. Cos's clay-gravel vineyards occupy the plateau on top, as well as straddling the slopes, scrolling round the hillside from the east-facing holdings overlooking Lafite to fully south-facing holdings that look out over the Gironde. It's surely this variety of expositions—as well as an average vine age of 55 years—that lend the wine its completeness, power and plenitude. Soil studies, undertaken in 2003, inform parcel-by-parcel farming and winemaking, as well as replanting, where Cos's important percentage of Merlot is gradually tending to diminish.

The last two decades have witnessed considerable evolution: herbicides were banished, and experimentation with cover crops began in 2002; a new gravity-flow winery was built in 2008; and winemaking and picking dates have evolved. In the past, the wines sometimes flirted with extremes; but in pushing the boundaries, sometimes one exceeds them. Recent vintages have flitted between the more elegant profiles of 2016 (one of the most accomplished wines from this address in recent years), 2017 and 2019, to the chunkier, punchier style of 2020 and 2022. With the 2023 vintage, the team appears to have found their feet very assuredly: with four seeds per berry and tannins that weren't as ripe as in 2022, technical director Dominique Arangoïts took a prudent approach to extraction, with very little crushing, full use of Cos's gravity-flow winery and macerations that were both considerably cooler and somewhat shorter than had been the norm. The result is a very classy, unforced Cos, checking in at only 12.9% alcohol, that renders the power of which this terroir is inherently capable with new sensuality and refinement. (WK)