2015 Chateau Laniote Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Bordeaux 750 ml

We couldn’t believe it either, but there it was, right on the page. In March 2020, Decanter conducted an expert blind tasting of 111 St.-Émilions and Pomerols from the 2015 vintage, a harvest they rated five out of five stars for the Right Bank.

The results were shocking: The Château Laniote Saint-Émilion Grand Cru—a traditionally styled underdog—scored 95 points, putting it above some of the most famous wines in St-Émilion: Châteaux Canon, Figeac, Angélus, and Cheval Blanc, Laniote outshined them all.

Along with years like 1998, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2010, 2015 was an EPIC Right Bank vintage. Decanter called it “one of the great vintages of the last 20 years,” and their Bordeaux authority, Jane Anson, said it was “Predominantly a victory for the Right Bank…for consistency of achievement you have to go to Saint-Émilion and Pomerol.”

When the de la Filolie family, who has owned this property for 200 years, describes 2015 as a “A dream year,” we take notice. They’ve been influential in the village for a long time—they own the 13th-century grotto once home to Saint Émilion himself—and they’ve seen it all, so the 2015 vintage played right into their hands. They said, “The grapes’ great sweetness and exceptional richness in polyphenols was readily evident to the taste” by late September, when they picked the perfectly ripe fruit at their leisure.

The resulting wine is aromatically intense, with notes of blueberry, cassis, crushed mint, black cherry, and mocha. Bold on the palate, its juicy acidity perfectly complements well-integrated oak, ripe tannins, and spicy dark fruit. Excellent now, it’ll only get deeper and more complex over the next decade.