Extremely complex with cinnamon, dried fruits and dried flowers. Full body, super-integrated tannins and a silky, polished finish. Very impressive. Better in 2018 but very beautiful already.

The 2012 Domaine de Chevalier has more fruit concentration than its peers: red cherries, raspberry and loamy aromas, sous-bois emerging with time. The palate is fresh on the entry with a fine bead of acidity, cohesive and pure with a brisk finish. Whilst not the best wine that Olivier Bernard has overseen, this is giving a lot of pleasure.

Very floral and elegant with raspberry and blackcurrant fruit mixed with toasty oak/vanillin, followed by a medium to full-bodied, stylish, polished wine that is the quintessentially refined style of Pessac-Leognan. Nevertheless, the complexity and nuance has yet to fully emerge. This medium to full-bodied Domaine de Chevalier is poised for a bright future. It is tight and backward now, as well as restrained aromatically, but everything is there for the future.

This structured wine with big, bold red fruits offers ripe acidity, a dense texture and considerable concentration. It also has the hallmark freshness of the vintage that balances the strong aging potential.

This sports lovely, enticing plum sauce, melted black licorice, blackberry pâte de fruit and cherry compote notes, along with fruitcake and graphite accents that fill in the background. The solid structure is fully absorbed into the fruit, and this should cellar well. A solid effort for the vintage.