Château Mareil, Médoc Cru Bourgeois, 2019

This charming Bordeaux makes you think of old-fashioned Claret, yet it is far more complete than the memory of wimpy, light-coloured table wines; this is medium-full bodied, ripe and soft with a smooth texture and a complex array of red and black fruit flavours, integrated spice and a mineral freshness that allows it to air wonderfully with food.

This comes from what is really quite a broad sub-zone of Bordeaux, the Médoc, but because of the adherence of the winery's owners to excellence in methodology, skill and no small amount of quality in the winery and the vineyards, the wine has attained Cru Bourgeois status and that really is something to write home about. In fact, the quality level has given many consumers a steer over the past few decades as the climate in Bordeaux has seen warmer and wetter summers, meaning that the better Cru status wineries have an extra point of relevant differentiation.

The Médoc makes up most of the left hand side of the Bordeaux region and until the mid-17th Century was largely swamp. The Dutch merchants, perhaps idiosyncratically, drained the region and beneath lay gravelly soil with exceptional drainage that has given us an incredible wealth of complex and delicious wines over the centuries since. Divided in two, the Médoc and the Haut-Médoc (though you can call yourself Médoc if you are in the Haut-Médoc, but not vice-versa), the Haut is the zone to the south containing the famed villages of Saint Éstephe, Pauillac, Saint Julien, Margaux and Péssac Léognan. Typified by gravelly soils that are poor in fertility and uneven in ripening, the sort of mythic alchemy once thought to be the realm of only the finest inemakers in the region, the change in climate has really set the Chat amongst Les
Pigeons as many in the region have begun to find it remarkably easy to make gorgeous wines and sometimes very hard to make poor ones. This is somewhat under threat as the cycle of weather has led to some recent years with very wet summers, meaning that the drainage of the best sites really does have some qualitative purpose after all.

92 Points, Wine Spectator

"North of Saint-Estèphe and close to the Gironde estuary, this estate has produced a savory, mouthfilling wine. Ripe tannins, juicy black-fruit acidity and medium-term potential are all here."