Château Ormes de Pez 2021 en Primeur

Medium-bodied with a firm tannin frame and pretty notes of pencil lead, blackberries and some walnuts. Hints of chocolate orange, too. Structured and a little chewy, with perfumed character. Juicy. 49% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon, 6% cabernet franc and 5% petit verdot.

Managed by the team at Lynch-Bages, the 2021 Château Ormes De Pez comes from a 40-hectare vineyard in Saint-Estèphe. Medium to full-bodied, it has ripe tannins, good depth of fruit, and classic notes of darker fruits, loamy earth, tobacco leaf, and chalky minerality.

Sweet strawberry, orange, grapefruit, plums and blackcurrants, but the sweet jammy kind. This is fruit forward and expressive out the gate, round and so appealing. Spiced aspects from the Petit Verdot with a sturdy backbone in terms of structure and frame. Tannins are more on the austere side, fine and detailed, extremely mouthfilling but you can almost taste each one with the minerality coming through strongly leaving that clean wet stone taste in the mouth. Ripe and juicy dark fruit also. This is medium bodied with lots of precision in terms of detail. Lovely potential here. 5% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 3.68pH. Drinking Window 2024 - 2040. 

The 2021 Ormes de Pez exhibits aromas of cassis, licorice, warm spices and toasty new oak, followed by a medium-bodied, lively and nicely concentrated palate built around rich, powdery tannins that will round out with further maturation in barrel. Produced by the Cazes family of Château Lynch-Bages, it shows promise.