Château Lagrange St Julien 1855 3ième Cru 2015

The fruit flavours from the first moments are plump, rich, round, and clearly successful, majoring on blackberry and loganberry, if a little soft through the mid palate. Fine tannins, attractive mint leaf finish. The lowest percentage of Merlot to date, this is good quality and will be approachable soon. Overall a great vintage, despite the excellent summer being threatened by a huge September rainstorm where 97mm of rain fell in St Julien (compared to 120mm in St Estèphe and 180mm in the most northerly stretches of the Médoc). It meant that the team at Lagrange brought in 85ha of grapes in 5 days, the quickest time on record (although in total the harvest stretched from September 21 to October 12). 35% of production in the 1st wine, 60% new oak. Eric Boissenot consultant.