Château Cos d'Estournel, 2025
Château Cos d'Estournel, 2025
- 75cl
- 13.3%
- Red Still
- Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot
- Organic
- Biodynamic
Please note, en primeur wines are not available for delivery until they arrive in the UK
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Est. delivery in 2028.
Château Cos d'Estournel stands apart in Saint-Estèphe with its exotic pagodas and equally distinctive wines. This is Left Bank classicism with a twist of oriental spice, built from prime gravelly soils that sit almost opposite Lafite across the Gironde.
The vineyards sit on deep gravel beds mixed with clay and limestone, positioned on a slight rise that offers excellent drainage and sun exposure. This terroir sits almost directly across the Gironde estuary from Lafite, sharing similar geological foundations but with the cooler climate influence of Saint-Estèphe. The proximity to the estuary moderates temperatures while the gravel soils retain heat, creating ideal conditions for slow, even ripening that builds both power and elegance into the wines.
Saint-Estèphe is the northernmost and traditionally the most austere of the Médoc's great communes, known for producing structured, age-worthy wines. The appellation's cooler climate and higher proportion of clay soils typically yield wines with more obvious tannins and acidity than Pauillac or Saint-Julien. However, estates like Cos d'Estournel, positioned on the finest gravelly sites closest to the Gironde, can achieve remarkable elegance while retaining Saint-Estèphe's characteristic power and longevity.
The 2025 Bordeaux vintage emerged from one of the most demanding growing seasons in recent memory — the earliest budbreak since 1989, June temperatures second only to 2003 since records began, and an unusually early harvest beginning in August for the whites. Conditions that should have produced heavy, overripe wines. They didn't. Decanter's Georgie Hindle, who tasted close to 200 wines ahead of the formal campaign, describes "exceptional concentration, aromatic purity and a freshness that contradicts the record-breaking heat.
The early critical consensus places 2025 stylistically between the precision of 2020 and the structure of 2016, with the brightness of 2023 — a combination that suggests a very serious vintage indeed. Yields are dramatically low, the smallest crop since 1991, with production across the Gironde running around 15% below the five-year average. The quality is here. There simply isn't very much of it.
What the critics say:
"Ethereal in its purity and very beautiful. Cos is a little intimate, drawing you in with that dark graphite, a hint of cedar, a little pencil-shaving, copious dark berry fruits and a little cherry; but there's also, crucially, that heathy, wild herb and – here – floral note, the signature of this northern Médoc appellation. I find this incredibly pure texturally, cool at the core and spherical in form, with great density and a sensation of viscosity that is rare in the vintage. I'm almost in tears. This has that slightly sombre, haunting elegance that I think we will associate with the greatest wines of this vintage over the years to come. Incense and myrrh replace the sweet spices of old. Energetic and dynamic in its freshness. Beautiful. Sublime."
"Intense and fruity wine, deep and dark with peppery fruits and Asian spices. This is a very crispy and pleasant wine, with a strong and powerful structure and a massive tannic though well integrated backbone. It would need considerable cellar time , 7-9 years before being approachable. It is a very successful wine both for the chateau and for the vintage."
"The 2025 Cos d'Estournel is shaping up to be one of the wines of the vintage. Grand, dramatic and sweeping, with notable textural intensity, the 2025 hits all the right notes. Even in the very early going, the 2025 is magical. Dark red/purplish fruit, spice, new leather, tobacco, lavender and mocha build effortlessly in the glass. More than anything else, I am blown away by the wine's magnificent balance. A masterpiece."
"A density to this, yet it remains balanced and complex, with well-integrated tannins and a juicy finish. It seems to be a wine with lots of fruit, but then it diffuses and shows open-grained, velvety tannins. Intense yet subtle blackberries, lead pencil and hazelnuts. Some flint. Persistent and reserved at the end. Great potential. A blend of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 39% merlot and 1% petit verdot."
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Château Cos d'Estournel
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