Cuvée 1762 de Marquis de Terme, Margaux 2019

This is the second wine of the wonderful Marquis de Terme and we found it in February of this year: it is a serious wine and were it made by any other property you'd have to imagine they'd release it as its own Château. It's very, very accomplished.

Made in a generous medium-full bodied style, this vintage is now showing wonderfully well with its silky tannins, dark fruit flavours and supporting, fresh acidity, balanced by integrated spice flavours of mocha and tobacco. There's plenty of life yet as you'd expect with a whopping 77% Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend.

Château Marquis de Terme is one of the Margaux properties that has undergone a steady transformation over the last number of decades. A 4th-growth property it has been in the hands of the Sénéclauze family since 1935; the conversion to organic in the early years of the twenty-first-century have turned it into one of the most exciting, vibrant, value for money Grand Cru Classé properties today.

Set right in the heart of the appellation of Margaux, the property has 39 hectares of vines over 26 vineyard plots on a plateau of gravel - the classic Médoc terroir - with vineyards divided between 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot. The wines are aged for 12 months in French oak barrels, 33% of which are new.

As the history of Château Marquis de Termeʼs starts in 1762, their second wine had to be named after that date. Maybe something else, but they chose the date... when the property was included in the dowry of Mademoiselle Ledoulx dʼEmplet in her marriage to François de Peguilhan, who was of course the Marquis de Terme. 

The now assumed 'respect for the environment' that so many wineries talk about and the expected plot-management in the vineyards with site-specific vinification practices, actually carry weight here. The grapes produce a very sleek, densely-coloured wine famed for long ageing and elegance, and this second wine is a superb example from that mould.

Definitely requiring a decant before serving, we recommend about an hour and a half or more, in order to allow the perfume to really start singing: you'll thank yourself for it.