2000 Château Clos St. Martin- France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru (2/24/2018)
Dark garnet. Nose of blackberry, currant, cassis, graphite, cedar. Dense, smokey dark plum and blackberry on the palate cut with earth and grip, deepening with growing persistence through the evening. Juicy texture anchored in soil and stone. Moderate acidity and firm but submerged tannin, leading to a long finish of rolling dark currant and sweet cherry fruit with hints of moca. Quite open early in its drinking window. Wonderful with Tuscan beef. (93 pts.)
Thanks for sharing.
This is a tiny estate (2nd smallest among the classified growths, I believe) that has a fine reputation, but which I have tasted all too rarely.
I have one bottle in the cellar: the 2009.
Yes, I think a lot of the 2000s, especially from the Right Bank, if we can look beyond the hype, are quite enjoyable to drink as of now.
I’m not very TCA sensitive but one experience with this estate was a tainted 1998, which really bummed me out. They’re hard wines to find, and I’d saved that from release.
Huge fan of what little I’ve tried. I have some 05 stashed away, and I picked up the 99 for a song after RMP gave it a mid-80s review. Neal Martin had given it a much more favorable review a little later, and all I can say is that what I had was more like Neal’s experience. I would serve it blind to some of my more passionate Bordeaux friends and they were always surprised.
Thank you for your replies. I did not realize this was such a small estate; I am sure that is why it might be so hard to land a few bottles. I remember that I managed to acquire three bottles of the 2000 for a very reasonable tariff back in the day. No TCA on this particular bottle thank goodness. I wish I had additional vintages of the stuff. Have not tried any left bank Bordeaux from 2000 but the St Em’s and Pomerols seem to be open enough.
IIRC there is some relationship between Cote de Baleu, Grandes Murailles and Clos St Martin. I’m chewing through a stash of the 00 CdB which is also good, but does not have the reputation of CsM.
Arv I think that is correct, Ms Forcade did have a hand in all three properties. More recently I believe that Cote de Baleau and Les Grandes Murailles (plus a stake in Clos St Martin) were purchased by the Cuvelier family.
Just a little counterpoint: I had the 2010 Clos St. Martin last year and it wasn’t my style — too modern for me to get excited about. It was still a good wine and well made, and perhaps it was too young to get a good read on it.
I didn’t know this has Rolland’s sinister touch but that makes sense in retrospect.
Great writeups Jeff. I had not known all that backstory. Maybe you could offer to help the Wine Advocate out as they recently lost their Bordeaux and Rhone coverage.
Alfret and Pat, this is not a wine for you boys. I could have told you that.
Arv, Thanks for the nice words. You should be reading my site when you want info on a BDX wine. If you cannot member the site, a Google search for the wine name will probably bring it up most of the time.