Ratings & Tasting Notes:

No critic score or CellarTracker rating specific to this exact bottling and vintage was found at the time this listing was created.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Lalande-de-Pomerol sits directly north of Pomerol, separated from its famous neighbour only by the Barbanne, a stream narrow enough to step across. The soils carry over too: clay and gravel in the Néac sector much like Pomerol’s own, sandier ground toward the village of Lalande. Merlot dominates here as it does across the Barbanne, usually with Cabernet Franc alongside, and the appellation has long been where knowing buyers go for Pomerol character without Pomerol prices. Les Graves du Grand Bois is a small, traditional estate of exactly the kind that fills this corner of the Right Bank: bottled at the property, as the label attests, by S.C.E.A. Château de Bourgueneuf, and made in quantities small enough that the wine rarely travelled far beyond France. Bottles of this age from estates like this one are simply not kept, which is what makes finding an intact one worth noting.

1999 was a testing year on the Right Bank, with a wet, uneven summer that rewarded growers who picked carefully. What it produced was not a wine for the long cellar but a supple, medium-weight, Merlot-driven claret that gave pleasure early. Twenty-seven years on, the survivors have settled into something quietly lovely: garnet turning brick at the rim, the plum and black cherry of youth now dried and folded into leather, undergrowth, tobacco and warm earth, with the tannins entirely gone. Open it, decant off the sediment, and drink it the same evening.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

Outstanding condition.