The wine of the month

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Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf, 2020

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5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP

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May 2024: Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf, 2020 (266 EUR/289 USD, the selling price to restaurants in Sweden) red dry blend wine, Saint Émilion, Libournais (Right Bank), Bordeaux, France, 5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) (17-05-2024 by Nenad Jelisic)

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Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf 2020 is an absolutely fabulous Saint Émilion-wine. It is complex, flavourful, austere and nuanced, and has a fabulous balance between tartaric acidity, sweetness, fruitiness and tannins. Complex, sophisticated and incredibly perfumed aroma of bay leaves, vanilla, Cuban tobacco of the highest quality, prunes, ripe dark cherries, cedar, crème de cassis and dark roasted coffee. Complex, nuanced and sophisticated flavour of cocoa-rich chocolate, tobacco, dark roasted coffee, ripe dark cherries, prunes, sweet spices, cedar and crème de cassis. The high alcohol content (15%) "hides" in the wine's complex, nuanced, concentrated and sophisticated aroma and flavour. The wine has silky tannins and a very long aftertaste of sweet spices and cocoa-rich chocolate that lingers forever in the mouth. Everything mentioned above contributes to the fact that Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf 2020 is a very ageable wine that can be aged for at least 15 years i.e. until at least 2039. But even now this absolutely fabulous wine is ready to be enjoyed with great pleasure.

 

This absolutely wonderful and fabulous Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf 2020 will go really well with grilled beef fillet/entrecôte with café de Paris sauce and potato gratin or with grilled duck breast with port- and cherry sauce and potato stoemp (roughly mashed potatoes with vegetables and cream) or with pasta carbonara (with fresh tagliatelle) or with slow-roasted porchetta with grilled vegetables and buttery garlic bread or with reindeer stew with buttery mashed potatoes or with grilled pork chops with grilled red peppers, yellow onions and tomatoes and Béarnaise sauce or with Boeuf Bourguignon with buttery mashed potatoes or with hard cheeses such as Cheddar, Svecia, Västerbotten, Parmesan and Grana Padano. The wine should be served at 18 to 19°C in Bordeaux glasses, if possible, from Orrefors, Kosta Boda, Spiegelau or Riedel. Another option is to serve it at 16°C (when room temperature or outdoor temperature is above 23°C) and then enjoy it as it starts to grow in the glass.

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Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf 2020 consists of 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc. The grapes for the wine come from a 5,7 hectare vineyard located on the southern slopes of Saint-Laurent-de-Combes. Merlot vines are 45 years old, while Cabernet Franc is five years older. The soil consists of clay, which is underlain by limestone. The grapes are harvested as late as possible, which results in raisin-like grapes. The yield is a very low (maximum) 36 hectolitres per hectare. The grapes are picked and sorted very carefully by hand in both the vineyard and the winery. Then they are destemmed and gently pressed. The grape mass, which consists of crushed grapes and grape juice, is macerated and fermented in open cement vats with two pumping overs (remontage) per day. What is unique about the wine is that it is both macerated and fermented at unusually high temperatures, 35°C. Then the grape mass is gently pressed, and the wine is moved to 100% new French 225 litre oak barrels (barrique) where it undergoes malolactic fermentation and a between 18 and 24 months long aging. What is also unique about the wine is that the winemaker intentionally heats the cellars to as high as 20°C during the aging process, which the winemaker believes allows for better and earlier integration between the new oak barrels and the wine. Wines from the various oak barrels are blended and bottled, and then aged for a few more months before the wine is released on the market. The wine is not filtered.

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The unique and cult-declared wines from Château Le Tertre Roteboeuf are imported to Sweden by Swedish Brand.