Rauzan-Gassis 2011
Deep ruby with a tight rim. Lively and fresh with attractive flavours and velvety tannins. Well made, with a bit of extraction with good balance. This bottle is an early-drinking wine but will offer much early-term drinking pleasure—full-bodied wine with an array of alluring flavours ranging from plums and blackberries to cedar. The tamed tannins are still dominating at the moment—moderately long length. She starts drinking fine.
Contrasting scores. RP has yet to score with quite some awards at the 88 to 90 level. Hence it is cheap as a Second Growth of Margaux. However, two insiderd give a relatively high score, for example:
94 Gilbert Gaillard
2011 Vintage Tasted: May 2012
EN PRIMEUR - Deep garnet-red. The profound nose of ripe red fruits with delicate oak and graphite. Rich, full and warm palate intermixing red fruit and oak. Closely integrated, warm, fat and long across the palate. Edited.
94 VertdeVin
2011 Vintage Tasted: Sep 2022
The nose is powerful and precise and offers a friendly power and finesse of grain. There are notes of ripe blackcurrant, crunchy Morello cherry and more slightly violet combined with touches of lily and bergamot, as well as fine points of camphor, spices and a subtle hint of pepper. The palate is fruity and balanced and offers a nice minerality, lovely fruit juiciness, precision, fine chewiness, and a specific purity. On the palate, this wine expresses morello cherry, pulpy/juicy blackcurrant and more slightly crunchy strawberry notes combined with hints of violet, crushed currants, hints liquorice, bergamot, subtle hints of sweet blond tobacco as well as a slight hint of liquorice, a very discreet hint of colas and a subtle hint of a sense of place and saline/grave minerality. The tannins are precise and racy. Good length. A very pretty, fresh and crunchy wine. Edited.
Château Rauzan-Gassies was classified as a second growth in the 1855 Classification of the Médoc and Graves, and like many wines in the appellation. The 28-hectare (70-acre) vineyard is located on gravelly soils, which are typical of the area. Cabernet Sauvignon makes up around two-thirds of plantings, with Merlot and a tiny amount of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot making up the rest. Wines are vinified in modern stainless steel vats, with alcoholic and malolactic fermentations happening simultaneously. Château Rauzan-Gassies typically spends a year in oak barrels, around a quarter of which are new. In the 18th Century, the estate was a part of the vast Rauzan estate, which by 1855 split into châteaux Rauzan-Gassies, Rauzan-Ségla, Desmirail and Marquis de Terme. Since 1945, Rauzan-Gassies has been owned by the Quié family, who also own Bel Orme and Croizet-Bages.
