Domaine de Chevalier 2020

The purity of fruit is really something here, with blackcurrants and blackberries, together with orange, stone and granite character. Mind-boggling in many ways. Full-bodied with very fine tannins that are polished and pure. Such a fine texture. Lots of primary fruit. Like picking wonderfully ripe grapes. Great length. One for the cellar.

From an estate that’s been on fire over the past decade, the 2020 Domaine De Chevalier is another brilliant wine in the making and checks in as 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, and 3% Cabernet Franc. Offering impressive cassis and darker berry fruits, it has complex notes of crushed flowers, violets, and damp earth-like nuances. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with ultra-fine tannins and a silky, layered, seamless texture, it shines for both its richness and its balance. It also shuts down quite quickly, so if you’re going to drink bottles, try one in its youth. Otherwise, be sure to give bottles 7-8 years in a cold cellar. It should have 30-40 years of overall longevity.
Barrel Sample: 95-97+

97 Points - Wine Enthusiast

This impressively rich wine is centered on great swathes of black fruits. The tannins, with their stylish swagger, are a fine complement to the fruit, giving the wine structure and the potential for elegant aging. Barrel Sample: 95-97

96 Points - Decanter

Blueberry and blackcurrant fruit on the nose, touches of ripeness and freshness. juicy and lively, but straight and tense too, with such liquorice and tobacco and chocolate bitter spices. It's quite constricted and focused right now. Generous but not necessarily charming on the palate. Precision and clarity is there no doubt, this has been well made and it has that mature ripe fruit aspect that gives a wide mouthfeel with lots of tension and direction. Super young but super promising. Rich, heady, a touch high alcohol on the finish though. 5% Petit Verdot completes the blend.

95 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2020 Domaine de Chevalier is a touch more tightly wound than the brilliant 2019 out of the gates, but it seems likely to equal that vintage with a bit of time. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of minty blackberries and cassis mingled with notions of burning embers, spices, rose petals and orange rind, it's medium to full-bodied, fleshy and concentrated, with a deep core of fruit, powdery structuring tannins and a long, saline finish. As I wrote last year, this estate in recent vintages has arrived at a sort of stylistic contemporary classicism that evokes the great wines of yesteryear from this address, and the 2020 continues that trend. Best After 2028 Rating : 95+

95 Points - Wine Spectator

Well-built, pulling ample and weighty waves of cassis, plum reduction and blackberry preserves along, atop a broad spine of warm loam, smoldering tobacco and singed alder. Long and deep through the fine-grained finish, with a warm paving stone note that won't quit, thanks to well-buried acidity—not an easy feat in this vintage. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc.