Chateau Cheval Blanc Collectors Series Bordeaux Tasting with Special Guest Pierre Lurton

Monday, April 3, 2023 - 07:30 PM

This Event has been read: 787 times.

"Never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine…and he always had some mighty fine wine." -- 3 Dog Night

 

And I know our “Wine Drinking People” have a lot of fine wines in their cellar – that is what our “Collector Series” wine tastings are all about…Sharing the wealth!!

 

We are big fans of Chateau Cheval Blanc so when I heard that Pierre Lurton was coming to town I said it’s time for a Collectors series tasting with one of the great Chateau of Bordeaux.  I knew that we had a lot of Chateau Cheval Blanc collectors out there that would love to bring a bottle out of their cellar to share with our group on Monday, April 3rd and before this e-mail went out we already have 8 vintages of Chateau Cheval Blanc on the table!

Our collector series tasting event is where we ask you “Wine Drinking People”, to come up with some wine from your wine collection to add to the party in exchange for your ticket to the event.  That’s correct the collector series tasting portion of the event is FREE, all it will cost you is one bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc from your cellar!!  Don’t sweat it if you don’t have one, we have a few bottles in our collection that are available to purchase for this event on this offering.

Let me explain this fantastic “Once in a Lifetime” event in more detail.

Cheval des Andes, Andes Grand Cru - Wines & Spirits - LVMHChateau Cheval Blanc 2018 | Wine.com

Chateau Cheval Blanc Collectors Series Bordeaux Wine Tasting
with Special Guest Pierre Lurton
Monday, April 3rd
7:30pm

 

Chateau Cheval Blanc Collectors Tasting Part 1
The first part of the evening begins at 7:30pm, this is where we will be tasting through a selection of new releases from the Chateau that are listed below.  This tasting will take place at the bar and we will serve a selection of cheese and charcuterie to accompany these wines as our guests arrive.

2020 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC 'LE PETIT CHEVAL BLANC' WHITE, BORDEAUX, FRANCE
Price: $232.50   Your Price: $204.60

2019 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC 'LE PETIT CHEVAL BLANC' WHITE, BORDEAUX, FRANCE
Price: $240.00   Your Price: $211.20

2018 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC 'LE PETIT CHEVAL', SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $411.00   Your Price: $361.68

Part Two: Dinner Featuring wines from your cellars
The price of admission is one bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc from your cellar, but here is the catch- we only need 1 bottle of each wine, so the longer you wait to respond the harder it will be to get a seat as you will have to go further back in time because the youngest vintages will be filled up by the first collectors who respond.

 

Here are the vintages that we have already:

1970 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

1972 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
1979 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

1982 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

1985 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

1990 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

1995 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

2000 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

2001 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion Magnum

2002 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

2004 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
2005 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
2006 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
2012 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion

2013 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
2014 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion
 

I will add the vintages as people respond with the vintage they are bringing.

**There are only 16 spaces available for this event.

 

The dinner starts at 8:00pm Toni Lampasone will be making a special menu to accompany the vertical selection of Chateau Cheval Blanc from your cellars.  The fee for the dinner is $195 + tax, to make reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

 

Menu
Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie
Crispy fried Sweetbreads with Currant Catsup
Hudson Valley Foie Gras Sauteed with Wild Mushrooms served over Brioche Toast
Bordeaux Braised Short Rib with Natural Sauce and honeyed Glazed Golden Beets
Caneles de Bordeaux with Pineapple Rum Sauce

The fee for this event which includes dinner is $195 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com. Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food allergies and chef Toni will be happy to accommodate you.

 

 

A bit about Chateau Cheval Blanc:

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As we celebrate our 40th B-day this year the Wine Watch we are happy to share a profile of Chateau Cheval Blanc penned by our founder Jim Turner. 

“If you were to ask any wine lover what the finest Saint-Emilion is today, he would be most likely to reply Cheval Blanc.  This was not always the case.  Once Château Ausone enjoyed a greater reputation, while Château Figeac was once considered the best wine among the properties of the Saint-Emilion Graves.  Cheval Blanc's reputation in England was certainly made by the 1921 vintage, and from that time onwards it was spoken of in the same terms as the first growths of the 1855 Classification.  However, it did not achieve equality of price with those wines until after the Second World War.  When the first official classification of Saint-Emilion was made by the INAO in 1955, Cheval Blanc and Ausone were set apart by themselves among the dozen Premiers Grands Crus of Saint-Emilion.

The property once formed part of Figeac until the nineteenth century - the Cheval Blanc portion was sold in 1852.  It has since been owned for many generations by the Fourcaud-Laussac family, who have made it more famous than the property from which it sprang.  The heiress of the family married Jacques Hébrard, the towering and obsessed administrator who brought Cheval Blanc to new heights in the 1980's.  Following Hébrard in 1989, Bernard Grandchamp was brought in to run the estate.  However, Grandchamp resigned his position a year later, fueling speculation of family in-fighting about the future of Cheval Blanc.  The château itself is a modest but charming house with small turrets and pleasing proportions which, together with its white palette, give the appearance of a summer villa.  But this is now completely overshadowed by the palatial new chai which more truly reflects the present prestige of Cheval Blanc.  For many years the wines had to be moved (during the second year in cask) to a cellar in Libourne where the bottling was allowed to take place -the former chai at Cheval Blanc was simply too small to accommodate all the wine.

On the open plateau of the Graves Saint-Emilion, the properties tend to be larger than those that crowd the cramped hillsides around the ramparts of Saint-Emilion, and Cheval Blanc is no exception to this.  The large vineyard of 82 acres produces as much as 14,000 cases annually.  It is one of the curiosities of Cheval Blanc that the soil and sub-soil contain almost every variation to be found in the region; and this, no doubt, contributes to the unique style of the wine.  With Figeac, Cheval Blanc has the lion's share of the gravelly outcrops that give this district its name.  In addition, a proportion of ungrafted vines have been maintained in the vineyard, and the proprietors believe this to be an important factor in preserving quality.

Cheval Blanc is undoubtedly one of Bordeaux's greatest and unique wines.  For most of this century it has sat alone at the top of Saint-Emilion's hierarchy - representing the finest wine this appellation can produce.  (This situation has been altered slightly by the renaissance began at nearby Château Ausone in the mid 1970's - now Cheval Blanc has had to share the limelight.)  Sitting on the Pomerol border in the Saint-Emilion Graves sector with only a ditch separating its vineyards from those of the great Pomerol châteaux of L'Evangile and La Conseillante, Cheval Blanc has often been characterized as making a wine that is as much a Pomerol as it is a Saint-Emilion.  The distinctive choice of grape varieties used at Cheval Blanc, two-thirds Cabernet Franc and one-third Merlot, with a tiny parcel of old vines of Malbec, is highly unusual.  No other major chateau uses this much Cabernet Franc.  Cabernet Franc reaches its zenith in Cheval Blanc's gravelly, sandy, and clay soil that is underpinned by a bed of iron rock, producing an extremely rich, ripe, intense, viscous wine.

Among the "Big Eight" of Bordeaux, Cheval Blanc probably has the broadest window of drinkability.  It is usually delicious when first bottled, and yet it has the ability in the top years to last and last.  None of the Médoc first-growths nor Haut-Brion, Ausone, or Pétrus can claim to have such flexibility.  According to Robert Parker, the world's foremost authority on Bordeaux wines, "only Haut-Brion comes closest to matching Cheval Blanc's early drinkability and precociousness along with the stuffing and overall balance and intensity to age for 20-30 years."  The style of wine produced at Cheval Blanc has no doubt contributed to its immense popularity.  Parker describes it thusly: "Dark ruby in color in the very good vintages, it is an opulently rich and fruity wine, full bodied, voluptuous, lush, and deceptively easy to drink when young.  The bouquet is especially distinctive.  At its best, Cheval Blanc is an even more fragrant wine than Margaux.  Scents of minerals, menthol, exotic spices, tobacco, and intense, as well as superripe, black fruits can overwhelm the taster.  Many tasters, fooled by its cunning show of precocious charm, falsely assume that it will not age well.  In the big, rich vintages, Cheval Blanc evolves exceptionally well...Cheval Blanc can produce a decadently exotic wine of unbelievable depth and richness."  David Peppercorn, one of England's foremost authorities on Bordeaux, has written: "It is indeed a stunning wine, not subtle, but winning admiration with its sheer beauty and animal vigor; it assails the palate in the way some of the French Impressionists assail the eye with the brilliance of their colors.  It is a quality only matched in Bordeaux by Pétrus."

The great age of Cheval Blanc came after the war.  It began badly, because half the 1945 crop, already much reduced in size, had to be pasteurized, due to volatile acidity.  But then came a wonderful run of vintages: 1947, one of the most celebrated Bordeaux made since the war, soon commanded record prices because everyone wanted to have it in their cellars.  To this day, the 1947 remains the greatest Bordeaux we have ever drunk - it has been very impressive on two recent occasions (once in 1993 and again in 1994). The 1948, overshadowed by its immediate predecessor, was robust and fine; 1949 was only a little behind the 1947, a great wine instead of a masterpiece. In a once in a lifetime vertical tasting of Cheval Blanc conducted in 1994 by the Hollywood Wine Society in Miami, Florida, we had an opportunity to sample 15 top vintages of Cheval Blanc from 1947 to 1990.  We were awestruck by the amazing 1950 (an unheralded vintage) and the awesome 1955 - both were fat, rich, and concentrated with plenty of life still ahead of them.  The 1964 and 1966 were also very impressive. Cheval Blanc was not a strong performer during the seventies - the 1970 and 1975 were disappointments considering the reputation of the vintage.  However, with the increasing attention to quality and detail provided by administrator Jacques Hébrard, the quality of this wine - beginning with the 1979 vintage - became more consistent.  Some critics feel that the three consecutive vintages of the early eighties - 1981, 1982, and 1983 - were the finest Cheval Blanc trilogy since the splendid wines of 1947, 1948, and 1949.  Recent vintages - 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 are all outstanding.  However, great wines like Chateau Cheval Blanc are always exciting to experience and as I always say the vintage is only an indication of when to drink a wine like Cheval Blanc but the biggest surprise can be a so called “off vintage” of any great wine.”  Jim Turner - Edited by Andrew Lampasone

All the Château Cheval Blanc Available at Wine Watch

 

2016 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $1491.00               Your Price: $1312.08

2014 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $950.0                   Your Price: $836.00

2012 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $987.00                 Your Price: $868.56

2009 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, ST EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $1795.00               Your Price: $1579.60

2006 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC ST. EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $950.00                 Your Price: $836.00

2004 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC ST EMILION, FRANCE MAGNUM
Price: $1690.00               Your Price: $1487.20

2004 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $905.00                 Your Price: $796.40

2003 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $979.00                 Your Price: $861.52

2000 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $1821.00               Your Price: $1602.48

1982 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $2350.00               Sale Price: $1750.00              Quantity in Stock: 11

1972 CHATEAU CHEVAL BLANC, SAINT-EMILION, FRANCE
Price: $995.00                 Sale Price: $750.00              Quantity in Stock: 1

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