First time trying Cheval Blanc was…disappointing

The 2015 was completely shut down and not giving anything on the nose or palate. The 2011 was showing a bit more aromas and fruit but not much. Although I’ve often disagreed with the “Bordeaux needs age to be enjoyable” crowd, I fully agree here. I would love to try an example of a Cheval with 30+ years of age. I knew going into the tasting that these wines need lots of age to show their best, but I have had young Bordeaux from top estates that still showed a lot of aroma and fruit. I guess these wines were both firmly in their “shut down” stage.

Luckily I only paid a $50 ticket price to try these wines (plus the Cheval des Andes and the Petit Cheval which were both showing better than the grand vin), but I can only imagine the disappointment upon opening one of these wines too young if you paid full price. The 2015 goes for $1k per WineSearcher!