2014 Château Sociando-Mallet Haut-Médoc is sold out.

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The 95-point Bordeaux that the Critics Buy

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  • 95 pts James Suckling
    95 pts JS
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2014 Château Sociando-Mallet Haut-Médoc 750 ml

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  • Curated by unrivaled experts
  • Choose your delivery date
  • Temperature controlled shipping options
  • Get credited back if a wine fails to impress

Sociando Mal-igners Need Not Apply

Take it from Robert Parker, Sociando-Mallet’s most ardent champion: “Consistently performing above its pedigree, in most vintages, Sociando Mallet is one of the longest-lived and finest wines of Bordeaux.”

Perhaps more than any other wine in its category, Château Sociando-Mallet is a Bordeaux lover’s Bordeaux, especially in vintages like 2014, when it received 95 points and was heralded as akin to the Big Bang in terms of its expansiveness. Still, somehow Sociando-Mallet remains under $50.

A classic, old-school Bordeaux, the 2014 Sociando-Mallet is built to last, with the tightly-wound structure that has become the estate’s trademark. Reticent at first, a brief decant yields textbook Left Bank black fruit laced with savory leather, cedar, and tobacco. Intense yet pure, with grippy tannins on a finish that will ensure its cellar longevity for 20+ years. How many Napa Cabernets—even under $50—can you say that about?

Sociando-Mallet somehow slipped through the net in the 1855 classification, and thus remains an unclassified Haut-Médoc wine—this alone is why it doesn’t cost $150+. Directly north of St-Estèphe’s lauded Château Montrose, the estate shares much of its neighbor’s aspect and superb gravelly, clay-limestone soils. The brilliant Jean Gautreau—who presided over the estate starting in 1969 and passed away on November 1st of last year—always refused to seek Cru Bourgeois status, because he (justifiably) thought Sociando-Mallet deserved to be classified a level above.

We do too, but we are not going to argue with today’s price. It remains the kind of steal that critics themselves stock up on.

To put it simply, to love Sociando-Mallet is to love Bordeaux. A strong foundation for building a cellar (or for impressing Robert Parker should he happen by for dinner), the 2014 remains the “best in years” and one of the greatest Bordeaux values around. Like a classic leather jacket, a good gin martini, or a Graham Greene novel, Sociando-Mallet is often overlooked by the masses, yet never goes out of style.