2024 Cheval Blanc
Buying options
Tasting Notes
Cheval Blanc has produced one of the vintage's most serious wines. It’s remarkably deep and dense in the glass, inky and impenetrable. The nose, however, is expressive, with perfumed notes of parma violets and bright, lifted fruit – bursting with just-ripe blackcurrant. There’s juicy finesse to the palate, which is all about its structure. It’s intense with saline, savoury and mineral, with a long, earthy finish. Taut acidity provides the line of the wine, with fine but strict tannins, giving the wine surprising breadth. It’s a beautifully put-together 2024, a wine that stands to attention, suited and booted – but will need time in bottle, best approached from 2032. Aged in 100% new oak, likely to be bottled after 15-16 months. 12.8% alcohol and pH around 3.6. Blend: 48% Cabernet Franc, 46% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon
Critic Scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
More reviews and scores
A blend of 48% Cabernet Franc, 48% Merlot and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2024 Château Cheval Blanc is one of the stars of the vintage. Unwinding in the glass with notes of minty berries and plums mingled with violets, cigar wrapper and rose petals, it's medium-bodied, suave and complete, with a cool, layered core of fruit, beautifully integrated tannins and a long, aromatic finish. Pierre-Olivier Clouet and his team conducted an aggressive green harvest and also, exceptionally, used densimetric sorting to mitigate heterogenous maturity between and within bunches (a consequence of a protracted flowering), accepting losses to rot in pursuit of full maturity. Yields were 39 hectoliters per hectare at harvest, but some 34% of that was eliminated between sorting and press wine (which is never retained at Cheval Blanc). Of what fermented, however, 70% ended up in the grand vin.
Lilac, peony flowers, same family of aromatics as the Petit Cheval, same feeling of finesse and precision, but here everything has been taken up a notch, more density, more slate and pumice stone texture. Expect subtle complexity, a wine that steals up on you, impresses in its precision and clarity. July and August just 20mm of rain each month, well below 30 year average, 140mm rain in September, highest since 2006, harvest September 18 to October 3, 3.62ph (3.9ph in 2022), 37 plots out of the 56 in the vineyard are in here. 100% new oak for ageing. Looking forward to seeing after ageing, it has all the elements and bones in place for a totally delicious Cheval.
The 2024 Cheval Blanc was picked from September 18 until October 3 and aged entirely in new oak with a little dabbling in concrete tanks and amphorae. The purity on the nose is the first facet that you notice with perfumed black cherry, blackcurrant, wild strawberry and touches of potpourri and crushed stone There is certainly some mineralité here. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly brittle tannins. Very well balanced, this is clearly a Cheval Blanc built in a more elegant, sapid, linear style with a residual pepperiness that lingers in the mouth. It will need just 2 or 3 years in bottle and should drink well for 20 to 25 years. The 2024 is charming and refined.
About the producer
Ch. Cheval Blanc is one the finest producers in Bordeaux. The Saint-Emilion estate’s Cabernet Franc-dominant wines are consistently among the top wines of the vintage.