2015 Lascombes
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Tasting notes
This is one to look out for, with softly extracted brambled fruits, traces of crème de cassis heat from the vintage conditions balanced by mandarin peel, pomegranate, lemongrass even, slate texture, very impressive 2015, with the joyful character that you expect from Lascombes. Maceration heads up to 40 days at this point, and the tannins and grilled sandalwood swamp the fruit a little, but there is plenty to enjoy here. 70% new oak, 42hl/h yield, havest September 17 to October 15.
Critic scores
Average Score
Wine Spectator
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2015 Lascombes was out of sorts when I re-tasted the wine after bottling, but a year later, it has settled down and is one of the best wines from the estate in recent vintages. It offers delightfully pure, beautifully defined black cherry and blueberry fruit; pressed violet aromas gradually unfurl with aeration. The palate is very well balanced with crisp tannin, which is perhaps still a little rigid but provides a symmetrical framework upon which the pure, graphite-tinged black fruit rests. One to watch. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.
Tasted blind. Second bottle: Sweet and round and utterly pleasing. Easy minerality. Chewy end. (JR)
Powerful, deep and flamboyant, the 2015 Lascombes is one of the most overt, concentrated wines readers will find in Margaux. Inky blue/purplish fruit, chocolate, spice, lavender and new leather are all super-concentrated. Even with all of its obvious fruit intensity, the 2015 has a good bit of supporting structure as well. There is no question Lascombes is a technically well-made wine. But I always fine myself wondering if this site has more to say than what comes through in this delicious, but somewhat anonymous, Margaux. Tasted two times.
About the producer
With vines spread across 40 different parcels throughout the appellation, Ch. Lascombes is one of the most fragmented but also largest Médoc estates, with 120 hectares of vines, now owned by the MACSF insurance company.