x
  • Country ranking ?

    894
  • Producer ranking ?

    19
  • Decanting time

    2h
  • When to drink

    now to 2025
  • Food Pairing

    Skirt Steak with Pomegranate Sauce

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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The Story

The call of faraway lands. As mysterious and intriguing as a lone adventurer returning from a solitary sail, Cos d’Estournel is slow to reveal itself. Little by little, it evokes stories of distant places, market stalls brimming with unfamiliar fruits, spices and wares, village festivities warmed by the joy of revelers and the setting sun, and sumptuous visions of ladies and their voluptuous curves. A myriad of scents, colors and tastes appeals to the senses. The Grand Vin of Cos d’Estournel is both demure and deliberately sensuous, a fascinating and elegant nectar.

The vineyard of Cos spreads around the château on 91 hectares.The Cabernet Sauvignon vines (60% of the vineyard) find the soil of their choice in the thin layers of gravely soil situated on the top and on the southern slopes of the hill. On the other hand, the Merlot vines (40% of the vineyard) excel on the eastern slopes and on the slopes where the Saint-Estephe limestone bed shows on the surface.

The percentage of Cabernet and Merlot varies from one vintage to another according to the year weather conditions, benefiting successively to the one or the other. Plantation is extremely dense (8000 to 10000 vines per hectare) and the average age of the vineyard is high (35 years old on the average) in order to enable the roots to extend excessively and to obtain a very slender yield per vine that will create the « Grand Goût »

Each vine grower is in charge of 45 000 vines on which they have got to undertake various labours every year. These cultural tasks are for most of them done manually. The harvest is of course manually picked too. And it is by hand that the grapes, once collected in special wooden baskets, will be strictly selected.

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Wine Information

No vintage in the post-World War era has a reputation as great as 1945. Its legendary status is well deserved based solely on the quality of the wines, but the fact that it is the “victory” vintage following World War II only adds to its luster. 1945 was a remarkably good vintage for virtually every wine region in the world, but it was especially great for Claret. Interestingly, the harvest in Bordeaux got underway on September 13th, the same date as the 1982 harvest began exactly 37 years later. 

The top reds of Bordeaux started out with massive levels of tannin and took decades to develop. Due to the high concentration of fruit and tannin levels, many of the wines still show beautifully today.

 

 

 

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Vintage 1945

The best vintage in the world – 1947 or 1945? Tastingbook has tasted all the best wines from these two great vintages.

If wine producers from different regions were asked to name the best vintages in their wine history, most would name 1947 or 1945 as one of the greats. If we then compared them, there would probably only be one vintage that most, if not all, producers had named on the list – 1947.

We wanted to test this theory and we tasted them against each other and the winner was 1947 – by a long shot.

The 1947 vintage was a magical vintage. It goes down in history as one of the only vintages that all the well-established quality wine regions in the world were blessed with superb weather conditions. Heatwaves have been experienced all over the world and, for example, all of Europe was blazing under the blazing sun and experiencing a heatwave during the summer. This resulted in very concentrated and very ripe grapes. Growers found it difficult to handle very ripe grapes with high sugar levels because there was a constant risk of bacterial contamination in less hygienic wineries that did not have artificial cooling systems. Since there was no technology to use, many relied on huge blocks of ice to cool the room temperature and even put ice in their fermentation tanks.

This vintage has proven to produce very long-lasting wines from around the world. The wines are marked by a sweet, ripe fruit character and warming alcohol. Due to unhygienic winemaking facilities, many wines exhibit volatile characters. Some might find this a flaw, but for many mature wine lovers, this feature is even a favorite character. However, when purchasing wines from this vintage one should be aware that there is a high level of bottle variation and the risk of having highly volatile wines is remarkably high.

1945 was an exceptional year throughout France, from Côte-Rôtie to Bordeaux. Due to the hot and dry conditions, the grapes were very concentrated and produced an extraordinary, but unfortunately low, yield. The 1945 harvest was an early harvest, beginning on the same date as 1982, September 13. The wines started life with massive levels of tannin and took several decades to develop. Due to the high levels of tannins, many wines still show well today.

 

 

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Tasting note

color

Medium

ending

Medium and Spicy

nose

Intense

recommend

Yes

taste

Multi-dimensional, Rich, Ripe and Elegant

Written Notes

The 1945 Cos d’Estournel set the evening on the right course with a fabulous nose full of smoke, cedar, charcoal and nut. This was a clean and smooth wine. Its palate was satiny, balanced and creamy. While delicate, it was still charming, with delectable cherry flavors and a nice, dry finish. The Fink found it ‘more interesting’ than some of the warmups (94).
  • 94p

The 1945 Cos d'Estournel is a vintage that I have tasted before. This example was acquired from the cellars of Berry Brothers & Rudd but château-bottled. It is actually quite similar to the previous example that I encountered back in 2003: deep in color, presenting a fresh, eucalyptus-tinged bouquet that seems to expand with time. Likewise, the palate bears similarities, with its succulent ripe tannins. It is elegant despite a modicum of dryness on the finish. Perhaps the one difference is that this bottle shows less precision than the one before, though it remains a thoroughly pleasurable Saint-Estèphe. Tasted at Koala's 1945 dinner.

  • 93p
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Information

Origin

St-Estèphe, Bordeaux

Vintage Quality

Excellent

Value For Money

Good

Investment potential

No Potential

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