Château La Tour Carnet 2014

Château La Tour Carnet is one of the older properties in the Haut Médoc.  This Fourth Growth estate is one of the few that has a working moat and drawbridge.  Visiting the Château La Tour Carnet feels a bit like traveling back in time - to the middle ages to be exact. Château La Tour Carnet is without a doubt a stunning property, and the wines from this estate are no slouch either.  The quality here has improved over the decades, yet prices still remain low due to the large quanity produced.  As the largest property in size in Médoc, Château La Tour Carnet presents great value examples of the Haut Médoc terroir. 
 
Château La Tour Carnet has been around for around 800 years.  Records of this property date all the way back to the 11th Century.  The property was inhabited by the English and used as a military outpost during the 12th Century.  It was originally named Château de St. Laurent, and the land was eventually annexed by the French.  After the 100 Years War, Château La Tour Carnet was nearly ruined, before it was obtained by Charles de Leutken who revitalized the estate.  Château La Tour Carnet was classified as a Fourth Growth during the 1855 Classification.  It stayed in the Leutken family for generations until it was acquired by a titan in the wine industry, Bernard Magrez in 1999.  Bernard Magrez owns numerous estates in Bordeaux, one of which is the legendary Château Pape Clement in the Pessac-Leognan appellation.
 
The terroir of Château La Tour Carnet is some of the most unique in the Haut Médoc appellation.  The estate sits on a giant clay and limestone plateau, with a very unique type of Garonne and Pyrenean gravel.  Merlot flourishes in these types of gravel, which is why the majority of the vineyard is planted with Merlot – something very unique in the normally Cabernet-centric appellation of the Haut Médoc.  In addition to the vines of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, Château La Tour Carnet also produces some white wines.  The property has plantings of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Sauvignon Gris – a favorite of Bernard Magrez – and Muscadelle.  Technically white grapes are against the law in the Haut Médoc AOC, so the white wine produced by Château La Tour Carnet is labeled as a generic AOC Bordeaux Blanc.
 
Château La Tour Carnet also has a very interesting winemaking process.  The grapes are whole berry fermented, after being cooled to 8 degrees Celcius in a cryogenic tunnel by using liquid Azote – a form of Nitrogen gas.  The wines are then vinified in a range of wood vats and stainless-steel tanks.  A small portion of the wine is aged in large, clay amphorae to provide a freshness to the wine.   It is recommended that the wines spend a little bit of time aging in bottle before they are enjoyed.  The wine of Château La Tour Carnet typically shows best after approximately 5-7 years of bottle aging.  Younger vintages can be decanted for a couple hours for the wine to express its delicate aromas.

"The 2014 La Tour Carnet was a wine that I tasted last year from bottle, so why not give it another whirl to remind readers of its quality. There is a lot going on aromatically with plenty of boisterous black cherry and raspberry fruit, maintaining that floral element that I discerned last year. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, perhaps the oak on this bottle a little more conspicuous than before, but that will be subsumed with two or three years in bottle." Neal Martin, Interim End of March 2017, (03/31/2017) Rating: 91, Drink: 2019-2030