Chateau Palmer Alter Ego de Palmer 2024

Rose petals and raspberries, floral and aromatic, evocative and sensual. Something a tiny bit sweet and concentrated about the nose. Juicy and soft straight away, tannins are powdery, supporting the fruit and not overwhelming it. It's clean and focussed, relatively tight and tense, all in one line but there’s lovely expression of wild fruit flavours and aromas that continues. Salty liquorice, slate and tobacco. Well framed. No drop in the mid palate, really finessed and a light touch. Crunchy and crisp, not super plush, but there’s layers. With mint and graphite. Very drinkable. So much energy. 55% production. 12% press. Ageing 20% new oak for the first year, then foudre 3,000l casks. 3.7pH.

• Drinking Window: 2029 - 2040
• Reviewer Name: Georgina Hindle

The 2024 Alter Ego de Palmer is a lovely wine, bursting with aromas of blackcurrants, plums, rose petals and violets. Medium to full-bodied, supple and lively, with a sweet core of fruit, ripe tannins and impressive richness for the vintage, it's a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot and 6% Petit Verdot.

• Drinking Window: 2029 - 2040
• Reviewer Name: William Kelley

The 2024 Alter Ego is first aged in barrel with 20% new oak and then transferred into 3,000-liter foudres. It has a very pure bouquet, focused and more concentrated than expected with blackcurrant, raspberry, incense and light violet scents. The palate is medium-bodied and fresh with crisp tannins and hints of black olive and fennel. This Alter Ego is leaner and more linear than in warmer seasons. Crisp and taut on the finish, the 2024 will deserve a couple of years in bottle. Very fine.

• Drinking Window: 2030 - 2048
• Reviewer Name: Neal Martin

Finessed aromatics, clear stone fruits, cherry pit, even touch of sage and juicy nectarine among the more classical cassis and blackberry fruits, this is sappy, slate, gunsmoke, good balance with salinity on the finish, enjoyable. 22hl/h yield, mainly from poor fruit set on the old Merlots, so both wines have majority Cabernet Sauvignon. Harvest 25 September to 10 October, 3.7ph. One to look out for, and no need to wait too long.

• Drinking Window: 2030 - 2048
• Reviewer Name: Jane Anson

The second wine of Palmer, the 2024 Château Palmer Alter Ego is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, and 6% Petit Verdot. Juicy cassis, black cherries, sappy herbs, and floral violet notes all shine in the aromatics. It's medium-bodied on the palate, with juicy acidity, solid tannins, and a good finish. It shows the more mid-weight style of the vintage and shines for its purity. In some vintages, I'd be nervous identifying the Grand Vin and Alter Ego blind, as they can be that close. That's not the case in 2024, where it plays the role of a true second wine.

• Reviewer Name: Jeb Dunnuck

Deep garnet-purple colored. Opens with evocative scents of wild strawberries, fresh, juicy raspberries, and red currant jelly, leading to hints of cinnamon stick and lavender oil with a waft of anise. The light to medium-bodied palate is bright and breezy with a lively line and fine-grained tannins supporting the red berry flavors, finishing with a mineral lift.

• Reviewer Name: Lisa Perrotti-Brown