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Jeb Dunnuck: A serious, sexy wine that readers should seek out in just about every vintage, the 2025 Château Fontenil offers blacker fruits, roasted herbs, chocolate, and spicy nuances on the nose. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it's focused and balanced, with fine tannins, wonderful purity, and a great finish. Based on 100% Merlot that's being raised in 30% new French oak with the balance in amphora, due to tiny yields this vintage, the grapes that would normally go into the Delfi cuvée have been folded into this classic château release. This smoking good Fronsac will shine right out of the gate yet should have 20 years or more of prime drinking."
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The Wine Cellar Insider: The perfume opens with a bouquet of mixed flowers before moving to oceanic nuances, cherries, plums, and licorice. The palate is fresh, with crushed rocks, stones, red pit fruits, and a refreshing minty accent. Long and complex, this is a stellar vintage for Fontenil. The wine is produced from 100% Merlot. Drink from 2028-2045."
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James Suckling: Medium- to full-bodied with silky, delicate dark fruit and chalky tannins. Plush and reserved. Extremely well crafted."
93
Jane Anson: Intense plum colour, and this is an estate that knows how to find ripeness. Skilful extraction giving a firm tannic architecture, with lots of black cherry and cassis fruits. Intense, charged, espresso and cocoa, with estate signature. Harvest September 13 to 19. 25 hl/ha. 30% new oak, 40th vintage of the estate, and the last one of Michel Rolland."
93
Decanter: True to its style, this wine showcases polished aromas of both ripe fruit and oak-derived toast that introduce a rather rich yet dry and tonic palate of blackberry and juicy plum fruit. Over the years, the new oak percentage has come down, in this case 30%, and the wine has improved, showing more fruit, but fans of its oaky style will enjoy this just as much, as you get toasty notes throughout along with the ripe fruit and freshness on the finish."
92
Falstaff: Tiefdunkles Rubingranat, opaker Kern, violette Reflexe, zarte Randaufhellung. Zart nach Lakritze, schwarzen Waldbeeren, etwas Nougat, einladendes Bukett. Saftig, dunkle Kirschen, reife Tannine, schokoladiger Touch auch im Abgang, bleibt haften, braucht etwas Zeit."
