Aromas of dark berries and plums mingled with violets and lilac introduce the 2021 Le Marquis de Calon-S?gur, a medium-bodied, layered wine that's deep and complete, with powdery structuring tannins that lend this a decidedly serious, age-worthy profile for a second wine in this vintage. Don't be afraid to cellar it for a few years.

Offering up notions of blackcurrants, spices and cigar box, the 2021 Le Marquis de Calon-S?gur is medium to full-bodied, layered and lively, with powdery tannins and an impressively penetrating finish. It's a blend of 58% Merlot with 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, the latter mainly from young vines. Director Vincent Millet explains that he doesn't want the gap in quality between his second wine and the grand vin to be too flagrant and that he'll take lots from the Calon-S?gur blend to improve the Marquis if necessary―as it was in 2021. Calon-S?gur is in the midst of a renaissance. A true "clos," this walled 55-hectare vineyard, the first to be cultivated in Saint-Est?phe, was long planted at a low density of 6,000 vines per hectare. When the cahier des charges (appellation rules) for Saint-Est?phe changed in the recent past, mandating a higher minimum density, the Gasqueton family had already begun replanting at 8,000 vines per hectare. Now estate director Vincent Millet is replanting at 10,000 vines per hectare, and each individual vine has been geo-referenced so that treatments and amendments can be adapted on a vine-by-vine basis within each parcel: the latest in high-tech precision viticulture! The varietal breakdown is changing too, with Cabernet Sauvignon on the increase, currently amounting to around 60% of the estate's holdings and with a target of around 75%. In addition to clones, a massal selection, from parcels near the small chapel just to the east of the ch?teau, is underway. Winemaking, too, has been revolutionized: in an entirely new cellar and winery, the grapes are rapidly chilled by passage through a cold tunnel and undergo a three-day cold soak, before a co-inoculated 18- to 21-day maceration with micro-oxygenation. Maturation follows, in new barrels, for 20 months with a traditional racking every three. If all this sounds very detail-oriented, it's because Millet, who boasts a PhD in wine microbiology and spent several years at Ch?teau Margaux, is an extremely serious, forward-thinking estate director, and I have no doubt that he is going to unleash all of Calon-S?gur's latent potential.