“I make wine at Lafite and Latour, but my heart is at Calon.” – Marquis de Ségur

Apparently, he is… but are YOU ready for Valentine’s Day? Forget overpriced roses or strawberries dipped in chocolate. NOTHING says I love you like WINE!

And not just any wine, deep, dark, complex Grand Cru Classé red Bordeaux that HAS A HEART ON IT?! Like love, it’s not exactly perfect at 99 points, but is that not what love is? Imperfect and incomplete?

On a similar philosophical note, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate reports that “Calon-Ségur is in the midst of a renaissance. A true ‘clos,’ this walled 55-hectare vineyard, the first to be cultivated in Saint-Estèphe, was long planted at a low density of 6,000 vines per hectare. When the cahier des charges (appellation rules) for Saint-Estèphe changed in the recent past, mandating a higher minimum density, the Gasqueton family had already begun replanting at 8,000 vines per hectare. Now estate director Vincent Millet is replanting at 10,000 vines per hectare, and each individual vine has been geo-referenced so that treatments and amendments can be adapted on a vine-by-vine basis within each parcel: the latest in high-tech precision viticulture!”

And we all know what that means, right? The pursuit of perfection. Are 99 points close enough? In a half bottle, they are virtually there.

Wine Advocate concludes, “If all this sounds very detail-oriented, it’s because Millet, who boasts a PhD in wine microbiology and spent several years at Château Margaux, is an extremely serious, forward-thinking estate director, no doubt that he is going to unleash all of Calon-Ségur’s latent potential.”

Meanwhile, if you want to unleash all of your Valentine’s feelings, these splits will do just that.

Only a few cases…

99 Points – Jeb Dunnuck

“The 2020 Château Calon Ségur is pure gold and another masterpiece from this estate. Harvested all in September and pulled from their 48 hectares of vines, the blend is 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot that spent 20 months all in new French oak, and it hit 13.2% natural alcohol. My notes started and ended with “wow,” and this riveting Saint-Estèphe offers a heavenly bouquet of red and black currants, truffly earth, iron, espresso, and tobacco leaf. With incredible purity of fruit, full-bodied richness, and ultra-fine tannins, it’s a deep, pure, layered 2020 that deserves at least 7-8 years of bottle age and will cruise for 40-50 years in cold cellars. Hats off to the team at Calon Ségur. Drink 20303-2080.”