Chateau Les Ormes de Pez 2016
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Suckling
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Dunnuck
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Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The dark berries, sandalwood and cedar aromas are certainly memorable. Full-bodied, dense and rich in the center palate with ripe, polished tannins and a long, flavorful finish. Dense and powerful. Try after 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
Under the same ownership as Lynch-Bages in Pauillac, this wine shows much of the same rich concentration as those bottlings. Its tannins are as present as the spicy flavors that come through the blackberry fruits. The aftertaste is dark and firm. Drink from 2024.
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Wine Spectator
This is nicely coiled up, with damson plum, raspberry and bitter cherry coulis flavors held in check for now by vivid savory, lilac and iron notes. Features length, cut and drive, so cellar to let this round into form. Displays a textbook St.-Estèphe profile, with pleasant austerity on full display. Best from 2022 through 2032.
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Decanter
A real standout wine. The gorgeous, fruit-driven nose is followed by a broad, focused palate, seamlessly integrating oak, fruit, acidity and alcohol, achieving veritable racy elegance that sets it apart. Bravo! Drinking Window 2020 - 2030
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Jeb Dunnuck
A terrific Saint-Estephe that delivers the goods, the 2016 Château Ormes de Pez is mostly Merlot blended with 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot, all brought up in 45% new French oak. This medium to full-bodied effort has impressive ripeness and concentration as well as tannic structure to go with notes of ripe black cherries, graphite, smoked earth, and background oak. Beautifully textured, it’s going to benefit from short-term cellaring and keep for two decades.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Ormes de Pez is deep garnet-purple in color with red and black currants, earth, sage and chargrill on the nose. The palate is medium-bodied, refreshing and chewy with an herbal lift.
Other Vintages
2022-
Dunnuck
Jeb - Vinous
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Dunnuck
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James
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Enthusiast
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Suckling
James -
Dunnuck
Jeb -
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Robert
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Dunnuck
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Wong
Wilfred - Decanter
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Dunnuck
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Robert
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Suckling
James -
Dunnuck
Jeb -
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Robert
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James -
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Suckling
James -
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Dunnuck
Jeb -
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James
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James -
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Suckling
James -
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Robert -
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Wine - Decanter
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Suckling
James -
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Robert
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Robert
Chateau Les Ormes des Pez has very homogenous soil (a clay gravel mixture typical of Saint-Estephe) and many of the vines are quite old. The grapes are hand-picked. After selecting the vats and blending, the wine is aged in oak barrels for 15 months in a magnificent cellar overlooking the courtyard.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.