Chateau Lascombes 2024

The 2024 Lascombes represents another important step for Lascombes under its current leadership. Silky and elegant, with notable depth, the Grand Vin impresses with its textural resonance and persistence. New leather, licorice, lavender and incense weave through a core of dark-toned fruit. Lascombes is shaping up to be one of the sleepers of 2024. I can't wait to taste it from bottle. Impressive. Tasted three times.

• Reviewer Name: Antonio Galloni

Based largely on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with smaller amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, and aging in 60% new oak, the 2024 Château De Lascombes is deeper hued than the Chevalier de Lascombes and offers more cassis, graphite, classy oak, and scorched earth. Medium-bodied, it has remarkable purity, ripe, building tannins, solid mid-palate depth, balance, and length. It's another brilliant effort by technical director Axel Heinz at this château that's up there with the crème de la crème of the vintage.

• Reviewer Name: Jeb Dunnuck

Blackcurrant, dark cherries, lovely bramble fruit - crystalline purity on the nose. Clean and silky, sleek and svelte, definitely light footed but with clarity and bright, zingy acidity giving a touch of austerity and salty, minerality on the finish. Complex and layered with structure and lots of elegance and nuance. Axel Heinz director. A yield of 38hl/ha. 5% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 3.64pH. Ageing 60% new oak. 5% press. Julien Viaud consultant.

• Reviewer Name: Georgina Hindle

This has elegance, fine tannins, a clear expression of how Cabernet Sauvignon can perform in the vintage, rosebud, peony, slim, savoury, with fine and attractive aromatics, lovely salinity on the finish, nuanced and mouthwatering. Rises above the reputation of the vintage. Axel Heinz director. As of this vintage, only the original 1855 plots are in the wine Harvest 23 September to 9 October. 38 hl/ha yield, Julien Viaud consultant. Tasted twice. 60% new oak for ageing, 38 hl/ha, harvest 23 September to 9 October.

• Reviewer Name: Jane Anson

Deep garnet-purple in color. Features scents of black cherries, fresh strawberries, and charcoal with touches of bay leaves and crushed rocks. The light to medium-bodied palate is bright and breezy with plush tannins and a red berry lift on the finish.

• Reviewer Name: Lisa Perrotti-Brown

The 2024 Lascombes was picked between September 23 and October 9 according to ripeness levels in parcels at 38 hl/ha. This vintage is aged in barrels with less heavy toasting (60% new), 80hl foudres and amphora. The wine is usually finished in the last two or three months in those foudres, though Axel Heinz said that might be omitted this year. It has an elegant and pure bouquet with bright black cherry and cassis fruit. There is remarkable underlying mineralité in this wine. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, quite crisp and linear like many other Margaux wines. Light on its feet and very fresh with impressive precision on the finish, the 2024 is a "nimble" Lascombes that you would never have seen in the 1990s or 2000s. This is a very commendable, classically-styled wine that will give pleasure after three or four years.

• Reviewer Name: Neal Martin