2017 Château Margaux 750 ml

Tasting a First Growth Bordeaux is an enlightening experience. It’s an encounter with some of the best, most luxurious, most universally celebrated wine in existence, and the kind of brilliance that estates worldwide aspire to reach.

Today’s 2017 Château Margaux is the best of the best: The highest-scoring First Growth of the vintage. 

Pour a glass, and the wine’s elegance and pure luxury will eclipse all the notes, reviews, and ongoing conversations. It’s a revelatory experience that is simply beyond words. 

Yet words are all we have, and the critics have gone into their arsenals to define the greatness of this 2017 Margaux. In his 99-point review, James Suckling called it “really brilliant” and “so classy.” It’s “beautiful!” added Wine Advocate, saying, “the elegance and finesse on the palate is simply bedazzling.” Vinous said the 2017 “exudes class from the very first taste.”

Jeb Dunnuck put this showpiece “unquestionably in the same league as the 2015.” That’s seriously high praise, considering the 2015 Margaux has collectors clamoring to pay $2,000 and more.  

The low-yielding 2017 vintage is a trove of investment value for smart Bordeaux collectors. Early frosts in some parts of the region turned consumers’ eyes toward the steadier 2016 vintage. Yet as Master of Wine Jancis Robinson noted, the grand vin plots were largely unaffected and, “Cabernet Sauvignon looks especially good.” 

Many estates crafted gorgeous wines, but perhaps none better than this Margaux, which outshines its First Growth peers and shows exceptional age-worthiness. It’s a wine we’ll likely look back on as one of the shrewdest Bordeaux investments of the decade.

Excellence has run in Margaux’s veins since the estate’s inception. Winemaking on the property dates back to the 16th century. In the 1700s, Thomas Jefferson said of the estate, “there couldn't be a better Bordeaux bottle,” and during the 1855 exhibition that initially named the First Growths, Margaux was the only one to earn a perfect 20-out-of-20 score. 

This 2017 continues that tradition with its staggering complexity. It opens with a rolling wave of aromas—black currant, plum, violet, clove, cedar, rose petal, roasted coffee, and herbs. The palate delivers flavors of black cherry, dark chocolate, cedar, and exotic spices, all supported by a refined tannic grip and quietly intense finish. It’s the definition of a cellar star, a bottle that will yield further rewards over the next three to four decades. 

The Margaux region contains the most gravelly soils in the Médoc, and it’s especially apparent at Château Margaux. The estate sits on a mound, literally rising above the region, that is rich with gravel and limestone deposits. They drain the soil and retain heat, stressing the vines into producing some of Bordeaux’s most concentrated and complex Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.  

Château Margaux recently completed a state-of-the-art renovation of their cellars and built new facilities for their cooperage. Plus, 2017 was the very first year that their grand vin was farmed 100% organically, showing their continued drive for perfection, even after all these years on top. 

This is an opportunity to experience one of the world’s great wines, while it lasts.