2022 Belair Monange

Another beautiful vintage for this cuvée, the 2022 Château Belair-Monange is 98% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc coming from a mix of terroirs on the upper plateau and hillside vineyard just outside of Saint-Emilion. This dense plum-hued effort offers up an incredible bouquet of black raspberries, chalky minerality, spring flowers, and graphite. Rich, full-bodied, and concentrated, it has an incredibly sense of minerality, a great mid-palate, and enough structure to warrant a solid 7-8 years of bottle age.

Dark in color, the wine pops with its notes of flowers, licorice, plums, espresso and chocolate-covered cherries in the perfume. But, it is on the palate which somehow remains perfectly balanced between all of the wines concentration, intensity, richness, and freshness. Nothing is out of place. On the palate, the wine is plush, soft, polished, fresh, vibrant, and long, finishing with crushed rocks, stones, chalk and bright, fresh, red fruits, with just a touch of spearmint on the backend. The wine blends 98% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc. Harvesting took place September 8 - September 20.

Aromas of blackberries, cherry preserve, black tea and licorice introduce the 2022 Belair Monange, a full-bodied, deep and powerful wine with a layered, somewhat liqueured core of fruit, powdery tannins and a long, expansive and slightly heady finish. Perhaps because the vines are younger, this is the cuvée in the Mouiex portfolio that shows the ripeness of the vintage the most this year.