2009 Chateau Canon La Gaffeliere Saint-Emilion 750 ml

Clark Gable and One of Robert Parker’s “Favorite St.-Emilions Since the Late 1980s”

Count Stephan von Neipperg can trace his family roots back to certain 12th-century Franconian Dukes, descendants of King Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire. At age 59, he is a man of spectacular refinement, wears impeccable double-breasted suits, and sports a well-groomed thin mustache — a dead ringer for Clark Gable.

Von Neipperg’s fame has been won not on the silver screen, but as owner and steward of exceptional estates including Clos de l’Oratoire, Château Peyreau, Château d’Aiguilhe in Castillon-Côtes de Bordeaux, and La Mondotte. The very best of the Count’s holdings must be the Premier Grand Cru Classé Château Canon-La-Gaffelière. A stone’s throw from Château Ausone on the Right Bank, these 48 acres at the foot of the slope in Saint-Émilion are comprised of complex sandy, clay, and limestone soils.

Von Neipperg has given Robert Parker good reason to call Château Canon-La-Gaffelière “one of my favorite St.-Emilions since the late 1980s.” The Count’s resurrection of the estate, beginning in the early 1980s, is one of a number of revitalization projects that Parker singles out as helping maintain Bordeaux’s reputation among collectors of the world’s best wines.

In 1985, Neipperg hired the revered flying winemaker, Stéphane Derenoncourt, whose work at Château Pavie Macquin and Clos Fourtet, among other estates, has earned a barrage of glowing Parker reviews. Canon-La-Gaffelière’s estate vineyards are planted to 55% Merlot, and unusually, 40% Cabernet Franc, with just 5% Cabernet Sauvignon from vines averaging 45 years of age. They harvest beautiful BB-sized berries that are fermented in oak, which helps integrate tannin and flavors and maximize ageability. Parker calls for a drinking window “over the next 15-20 years.”

At last year’s Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux Tasting in San Francisco, the Count helped us understand how the estate’s patchwork of clay topsoils explains the unusually high amount of Cabernet Franc planted. “The clay is warmer,” explained von Neipperg, “and the growing season for Cab Franc occurs earlier. What I love about it is the structure and beautiful complexity it adds to the Merlot — lots of aromatics, spice, and tobacco leaf, while lending an impressive length.”

The 2009 growing season brought “ideal conditions,” the Count told us. “The structure and texture is difficult to compare to other vintages. It really stands apart, with intensity and impeccable integration and balance. It’s drinking beautifully now, like the 2001 and 2004, but it still can cellar another two decades.”

The summer of 2009 was warm and dry, making for some of the most extravagantly opulent, ultra-concentrated Saint-Émilions in decades. The 2009 Bordeaux vintage was rated 96-99 points by Wine Spectator. Robert Parker came back with a lofty 98, comparing 2009 to historic vintages that also ended with nines — 1899, 1929, 1949, and 1959.

The 2009 Château Canon-La-Gaffelière is deep purple with ruby hues. Lavish aromas of black cherry, black plum, savory spice, and tobacco leaf. All power and elegance, silky on the palate with satiny, mouth-coating, sweet black cherry, plum, and licorice. Complex minerality lingers for well over 45 seconds through a remarkable finish.

“Dense, but beautifully polished and pure” is how Wine Spectator tried to capture 2009 Château Canon-La-Gaffelière’s magic, before awarding it 96 points. Parker was close behind at 95 points, calling it “full-bodied with silky tannins, luscious fruit, a hedonistic yet complex personality.”

One of the GREAT Grand Crus of Saint-Émilion’s 2009 outstanding vintage — drinking perfectly now and, as Spectator and Parker confirm, it has decades to go. $149 today on WineAccess. Only 90 bottles to go around. Delay hitting the “Buy” button and this allocation will be gone with the wind.