2000 Château Sociando-Mallet
Estimated value
Buying options
Tasting notes
The colour is vivid ruby, young, with a gentle welcoming open to the palate, deepened by grilled cedar smoke, capsicum and brambled blackberry. Not quite the same depth through the mid palate as many 2000s, but it is balanced out by mouthwatering acidites on the finish. 90ha in production at this point, 45hl/h yield, unfined and just light filtration before bottling, 100% new oak for 12 months then 6 months in vat, 18 months in total, 65hl/h yield. Michel-Bernard Couasnon consultant. Harvest September 29 to October 11.
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Robert Parker
More reviews and scores
The 2000 Sociando-Mallet has long been a controversial wine, and a couple of recent encounters explain why it was omitted from the vertical at the château. It is simply underripe and vegetal on the nose, a simple case of picking too early. That vegetal element translates across onto the palate and mars what ought to have been a great Sociando-Mallet. Caveat emptor. Tasted from a bottle from my own personal cellar.
This is a beautiful wine and certainly one of the great sleepers of the vintage. I originally predicted that this wine would be at full maturity between 2007 and 2028, but I would push that back by a good 4-5 years. Still inky/purple, with notes of acacia flowers intermixed with wet rocks, black currants, and blueberries, the wine is full-bodied, displays no real evidence of any oak, and offers up terrific concentration, texture, and length. For those who bought this beauty at $30-35 when it was available, this was a terrific buy, and it should continue to evolve for 20+ years.