2018 Chateau Cantenac Brown Margaux Grand Cru Classé 750 ml

If you’re a serious Bordeaux lover, there’s no way you can have too much 2018 Margaux stowed in your cellar. Napa Cab lovers, that goes for you too. 2018 is a landmark vintage that Wine Advocate places as one of Margaux’s greatest of the last 50 years, and since the Euro is historically weak, there are some STRONG buys out there for Bordeaux collectors.

The wine was guided to bottle by winemaker José Sanfins and rockstar consultant Eric Boissenot, named “arguably one of the most influential figures in Bordeaux” by Decanter. The duo ensured that the wine would live up to its Third Growth standing, ranked the same as Château Palmer and above 28 other Left Bank estates.

It’s one of the most impressive Margaux you can get for a two-digit price tag, thanks to old vines and incredible selectivity: Only 56% of this harvest made the cut for this Grand Vin, which Antonio Galloni called “Fabulous…rich and expansive…with stunning depth.” Wine Enthusiast also branded this wine a Cellar Selection!

Blessed with fruit from old vines whose roots dig deep into the unique mixture of gravel, sand, and clay that’s a signature of the famous Margaux hamlet of Cantenac, the 2018 finished as a blend of 69% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc. 

Because of the superb ripeness it allowed the grapes to achieve, 2018 in Bordeaux could also be considered the Napa Cab lover’s vintage par excellence. The hottest, driest summer in half a century yielded the sort of rich, pliant, extravagantly sumptuous wines you’d associate with St. Helena. In other words, thanks to a steady uptick in temperatures, this is not your grandfather’s claret.