Château Ripeau: Tasting & Drinking
In my experience of the wines of Château Ripeau the style seems to be firmly in the modernist camp. In some vintages this style can seem to work, and certainly in 2018, in what was a great vintage across the region as a whole, the wine (as a primeurs sample) tasted very well, showing smoky black fruit with an appealing menthol twist reflecting a 33% contribution from the Cabernet varieties, mostly Cabernet Franc but with a soupçon of Cabernet Sauvignon as well. It was not a style that worked in the frosted 2017 vintage, where the concentration and extraction led to a smudged and poorly defined character on the palate, and carrying green bell pepper, mint, sage and celery seed notes which surely reflect the difficulties of the vintage.
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