Chateau Meyney Bordeaux Offering back to the 1982 Vintage
“Friday 10th April 1663… Here we drank a sort of French wine, called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with”.
Samuel Pepys - The first wine critic (February 1633 – May 1703)
We have some incredible Bordeaux Tastings coming up this month including an encore performance from the 1990 vintage on the 29th of June and the 1982 vintage on June 22nd. Two of the greatest vintages from Bordeaux that are drinking at their peak today. I’m trying to drink as many bottles of these before they are gone.
Château Meyney was one of the first sites in the Médoc to be planted with vines. In 1662, it was a convent mentioned in records under the names Couvent des Feuillants or Prieuré des Couleys. It belonged to the Feuillants monks. Today, the estate stretches over some of the best hilltops above the Gironde Estuary. The river lying alongside the first rows of vines makes for a majestic, serene landscape. The estate belonged to the Luetkens family for several generations, and was then acquired by Mr Désiré Cordier in 1919.
In 2004, CA Grands Crus, a subsidiary of the Groupe Crédit Agricole, acquired Château Meyney, with a determination to strengthen the potential of this outstanding cru.
Meyney benefits from an exceptional site, a unique terroir, a rich and long history dating back to the 16th century, making it an outstanding Medoc estate.
We have an impressive collection of older vintages of this Chateau back to the epic 1982 vintage. All of these wines came from a collection we recently acquired and all of them were purchased on release and aged in an underground cellar until we brought them back to Wine Watch just over a year ago and we have drank every vintage brought in and for me the 1989 is drinking the best and we have 92 bottles in stock!
Chateau Meyney Offering Back to the 1982 Vintage
1982 CHATEAU MEYNEY ST ESTEPHE
Price: $295.00 Sale Price: $235.00 Quantity in Stock: 7
(92 points) Drunk from magnum, the 1982 Meyney is showing very well, bursting with aromas of sweet red berries and plums mingled with notions of truffle, loamy soil and smoked meats. Medium to full-bodied, rich and fleshy, it's a broad, textural wine with good concentration and a long, lusty finish. (WK) (12/2022) Wine Advocate
1983 CHATEAU MEYNEY SAINT-ESTEPHE, FRANCE
Price: $195.00 Sale Price: $150.00 Quantity in Stock: 10
The Château Meyney vineyard is planted on perfectly drained siliceous gravel terroir, ideal conditions for the maturity of the grapes. The blend is made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and supplemented by 10% to 20% Petit Verdot depending on the vintage, from mass selection vines. These very old vines planted in the 1950s give the wine a very deep black color, spicy notes and a racy style. The castle teams watch over this rare and historic genetic heritage of the property.
1986 CHATEAU MEYNEY ST. ESTEPHE
Price: $175.00 Sale Price: $125.00 Quantity in Stock: 10
(91 points) The 1986 Château Meyney has been one of the great values of the vintage since its release and it has fulfilled all of its early promise and continues to cruise along very well indeed. To give younger readers some idea of just how good a value this wine was on release, I sold it for $11.99 a bottle and one received ten percent off if they bought a case. Needless to say, I sold a ton of cases of this wine. Today, it is drinking very nicely, offering up a complex bouquet of cassis, dark berries, a nice touch of new leather, tobacco leaf, gravelly soil tones and a topnote of cigar smoke. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and still gently chewy, with nicely buried, suave tannins and fine focus and grip on the long and well-balanced finish. This really is a very good example of the vintage. (9/2020) John Gilman
1989 CHATEAU MEYNEY SAINT-ESTEPHE
Price: $179.00 Sale Price: $135.00 Quantity in Stock: 92
(93 points) Dark-colored, sporting loads of minty, berry and chocolate aromas and flavors. Full-bodied, with plenty of velvety tannins and a long, rich finish. Built for aging. *Highly Recommended, Top 100 Wines of 1992* (5/1999) Wine Spectator
2008 CHATEAU MEYNEY ST. ESTEPHE
Price: $67.50 Your Price: $59.40
The Château Meyney vineyard is planted on perfectly drained siliceous gravel terroir, ideal conditions for the maturity of the grapes. The blend is made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and supplemented by 10% to 20% Petit Verdot depending on the vintage, from mass selection vines. These very old vines planted in the 1950s give the wine a very deep black color, spicy notes and a racy style. The castle teams watch over this rare and historic genetic heritage of the property.
2010 CHATEAU MEYNEY ST. ESTEPHE
Price: $62.00 Your Price: $54.56 Quantity in Stock: 1
(92 Points) A wine with a pretty balance of spices, blackberry, mint, and ripe fruit follow through to a full body, fine tannins and a spicy, chocolate and walnut character. Pretty balance of fruit and tannins. James Suckling
2016 CHATEAU MEYNEY SAINT ESTEPHE MAGNUM
Price: $195.00 Your Price: $171.60
94 Points) Rich and full, this is very St-Estèphe: round through the mid-palate, with an amazingly tasty balance of richness and freshness leading to salinity and minerality on the finish. It will need another five to eight years before being ready to drink, but it has to be one of the value picks of the vintage. Decanter
2019 CHATEAU MEYNEY ST. ESTEPHE
Price: $52.50 Your Price: $46.20
(95 Points) The 2019 Meyney has a divine bouquet, so pure and winsome with floral red berry scents, beautifully integrated new oak and superb precision. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins, fleshy to the point where you can almost overlook the backbone of this Saint-Estephe. It could have been blowsy, yet it retains superb balance and feels luxuriant and long on the finish. This is a stellar showing easily eclipsing its performances either in barrel or just after bottling. Vinous
2018 CHATEAU MEYNEY PRIEUR DE MEYNEY, SAINT-ESTEPHE MAGNUM
Price: $72.00 Your Price: $63.36
2018 CHATEAU MEYNEY PRIEUR DE MEYNEY, SAINT-ESTEPHE
Price: $36.00 Your Price: $31.68
The palate is fruity, mineral, juicy, well-balanced and offers an acidulous frame, a fine freshness as well as a very fine tension. On the palate this wine expresses notes of fleshy blackberry, fleshy cassis and more slightly small red berries associated with a hint of cherry as well as fine hints of toasted, chocolate, licorice as well as a discreet hint of tea. Good length. There is a very discreet hint of almond, coffee and licorice on the persistence.
A bit about Chateau Meyney:
St.-Estephe is cru bourgeois country. It is the northern-most of the four elite Haut-Medoc communes. Practically all of the sixty chateaux classified in the 1855 Grand Cru Classification come from either St. Julien, Margaux, Pauillac, or St.-Estephe. However, a close look at the classification reveals that only five of the sixty-two call St.-Estephe home. The best chateau of the commune was and still is Cos d'Estournel; today it is regarded as one of the great properties of the Medoc. Because the other grand cru chateaux of St.-Estephe have not kept pace and lived up to their elevated status and because there were so few of them classified in 1855, St.-Estephe has the least prestige of all the well-known Medoc appellations. However, below the elite classification of grand cru chateaux, there are some 117 "middle class" chateaux known as the "Cru Bourgeois" (established in 1932 and revised in 1966 and 1978). Some of the great secrets in Bordeaux lie with the cru bourgeois, for here are the wines that offer considerable value to the shrewd consumer who is looking for quality rather than prestige. St.-Estephe has an abundance of excellent chateaux in this category - thus it is called cru bourgeois country. In fact there are at least four chateaux which recently have been making wines of grand cru quality: Haut-Marbuzet (a fabulous 1982 was made at this chateaux); De Pez; Les-Ormes-de-Pez; and Meyney. Chateau Meyney has not always been so well-regarded. David Peppercorn in his benchmark work, BORDEAUX, is quite critical of Meyney saying that it lacks breed and finesse and that the wines tend to dry up as they age (he cites the 1961 as an example). However, since 1975, the wines of Meyney have been some of the best values in Bordeaux. Robert Parker in his quintessential book, BORDEAUX, states that Meyney should now be upgraded to the fifth cru of the grand cru classification.
In the seventeenth century Meyney was known as the Prieure des Couleys; the large courtyard of the chateau gives a monastic impression which harkens back to that era. Just after the First World War the chateau passed into the hands of the Cordier family. In addition to being one of Bordeaux's most reputable shipping firms, Cordier owned two renowned and up-and-coming St. Julien properties, Chateau Gruaud-Larose and Chateau Talbot. Quality and value have been the hallmarks of this family; and after making tremendous improvements in their two St. Julien chateaux, it seems that they have now concentrated on upgrading Chateau Meyney. Most of the wines of St.-Estephe have had the reputation of being rather hard and tannic in their youth and of taking the longest to reach maturity of any of the Medoc communes. However, all that seems to be changing as more and more St.-Estephe chateaux increase their plantings of Merlot- a grape which softens the harsh effects of the Cabernet Sauvignon. Chateau Meyney's blend is about 70% Cabernet, 26% Merlot, and 4% Cabernet Franc; its wines tend to be notably robust and flavorful and very accessible in their youth. We have been among the chorus of critics who have been singing the praises of the 1982 vintage - a year which produced more great wines than any in the recent history of Bordeaux. Although 1961 is considered a benchmark vintage in the eyes of some, the truth is that few wines hit extremely high peaks in that year while as many as twenty to thirty achieved greatness in 1982. In addition, the overall quality of all the wines produced was remarkably above average; a great majority of the chateau owners stated that they thought their 1982 was the best ever or comparable to the best two or three years in their memory. Certainly this is the case with Meyney. In 1982 Meyney has produced a winner - a wine that would rival many of the 2nd cru in good vintages like 1979.
The new wines from the last decade are very impressive and the second wine from this property is also a great value.
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