Château Ausone
98 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
96 points - The Wine Advocate
96 points - The Wine Advocate
99 points - The Wine Advocate
98 points - The Wine Advocate
93 points - The Wine Advocate
100 points - The Wine Advocate
94 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
99 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
91 points - The Wine Advocate
92 points - The Wine Advocate
91 points - The Wine Advocate
86 points - The Wine Advocate
Château Ausone
98 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
96 points - The Wine Advocate
96 points - The Wine Advocate
99 points - The Wine Advocate
98 points - The Wine Advocate
93 points - The Wine Advocate
100 points - The Wine Advocate
94 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
99 points - The Wine Advocate
95 points - The Wine Advocate
91 points - The Wine Advocate
92 points - The Wine Advocate
91 points - The Wine Advocate
86 points - The Wine Advocate
Regular price€912.00
€912.00
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The deep garnet-purple colored 2017 Ausone is a blend of 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot. It sashays out of the glass with gregarious scents of baked red and black plums, wild blueberries and boysenberries plus touches of violets, espresso, licorice and melted chocolate with wafts of iron ore and tilled soil. Medium-bodied, the palate is an exercise in poise, featuring beautifully ripe, silken tannins and bold freshness to support the fragrant multi-layers, finishing very long and very minerally.
The 2014 Ausone, a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc and 40% Merlot, was matured in barrel for 20 months with 85% new oak. Compared to the Chapelle d'Ausone, this Grand Vin demanded gentle coaxing from the glass. It eventually unfurls to reveal mineral-rich red berry fruit, oregano, orange blossom and later blackcurrant wine gums. It displays superb delineation. The palate is medium bodied with filigree tannin.
There is an almost sorbet-like freshness conferred upon this Saint Emilion by the growing season, very harmonious and poised with one of the most precise and tensile finishes that you will find this vintage. One of the stars of the vintage, this may merit a higher score with bottle age. This is a great success.
The 2012 Ausone took more time to settle in the glass than its peers, eventually deciding upon briary, violet and cassis scents—very floral and Margaux-like in style, not powerful but insistent. The palate is medium bodied with fine tannin, a crisp line of acidity, blackcurrant pastille mixed with cedar and a dash of spice, the wine finally revving up towards an intense and persistent finish that almost stains the mouth with its opulence. It is a gorgeous Saint Emilion from Pauline and Alain Vauthier.
Deep garnet in color, the 2010 Ausone opens with notes of sweaty leather, iron ore, Marmite toast and prunes with hints of dried herbs and charcuterie plus a medicinal waft. Full-bodied, the palate has a very racy line of acidity and well-played, chewy tannins supporting the maturing fruit, finishing with an herbal lift.
A masterpiece in the making, proprietor Alain Vauthier’s 2009 Ausone boasts a dense purple color along with notes of powdered chalk, crushed rocks and wild blue, red and black fruits. Extravagantly rich with great minerality, precision and freshness as well as a voluptuous texture (unusual for a baby Ausone), this is an extraordinary wine.
Possibly the “wine of the vintage,” the 2008 boasts an inky/blue/purple color as well as a glorious perfume of spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry liqueur, camphor, truffles and crushed rocks. With great fruit on the attack and mid-palate, a medium to full-bodied, multidimensional mouthfeel and a skyscraper-like finish, this prodigious effort over-delivers, even for this phenomenal terroir. Give it 5-8 years of cellaring and drink it over the following 40-50 years.
The 2006 Château Ausone has a fragrant bouquet compared to the 2006 Pavie, fomenting more secondary aromas such as smoke, cigar box, potpourri and a smear of Seville orange marmalade. The palate is very refined on the entry, rounded and supple in the mouth. It clearly does not have the density and weight of the Pavie, but it exerts an insistent grip in the mouth and the tannins have symmetry on the finish. It is a very fine Ausone, although Alain Vauthier has overseen better vintages in recent years.
The 2005 Ausone is a perfect wine of the vintage. It displays crushed rock, spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry fruit, a full-bodied mouthfeel, stunning purity and richness, and perfect harmony among all of its component parts (acidity, tannin, wood, alcohol and extract). Still youthful, but oh, so promising, this wine should be set aside for another decade and drunk over the following 50-75 years.
One of the vintage’s most compelling wines (what’s new about that?), Alain Vauthier’s beloved 2004 Ausone has closed down considerably since I tasted it out of barrel, but it remains among the most concentrated wines of the vintage. Furthermore, along with Petrus, it will probably be the longest-lived. A dense purple color is accompanied by a celestial perfume of blue and black fruits, wet stones, flowers, and incense. On the palate, the wine exhibits exceptional power and concentration, but this historic terroir has also provided a surreal lightness to the wine’s impression. Beautiful flavors, sensational depth, and abundant structure suggest this 2004 will not be close to full maturity for 8-10 years. It should last for four decades.
In many respects, the 2002 may be even more impressive than the 2003. A far more challenging vintage to get everything right, and especially in St.-Emilion, where many disappointments have been produced, this is one of the wines of the vintage and (along with Pavie) among the finest wines from the Right Bank. It possesses a deep purple color as well as a gorgeous nose of creme de cassis, blackberries, wet stones, and wonderfully perfumed floral notes. When the wine hits the palate, it exhibits impressive purity, medium to full body, a multi-layered texture, and extraordinary precision and intensity with a finish just short of 50 seconds.
This wine displays wonderful, sweet tannin and a big, sweet kiss of truffle, crushed rock, blueberry, blackberry, and liquorice. Extremely rich, full-bodied, with astonishing power, precision, and delicacy, this is a sumptuous wine that should age well for 50-60 years.
Is the 1999 Ausone the wine of the vintage? Dense purple color, a compelling bouquet of licorice, minerals, black and blueberry liqueur, extraordinary delineation, high tannin, superb extract, and phenomenal richness all are the stuff of a legend. This wine seems impossible to have emerged from a vintage like 1999. Proprietor Alain Vauthier produced only 20,000 bottles because he eliminated one-fourth of the tiny crop. The result is out-and-out fabulous, but the wine needs 12-15 years of cellaring.
A fine wine, this dark purple-colored effort reveals black raspberry, blackberry, mineral, and floral aromas in its complex, multidimensional bouquet. In the mouth, it is medium-bodied, with sweet, ripe fruit, firm tannin, good acidity, and a long, well-endowed, moderately tannic finish. Moreover, it will be a long-lived wine.
the 1996 Ausone is an impressive wine, but one that I feel does not reach the heights that Alain Vauthier and latterly his daughter Pauline have reached more recently. Deep and more youthful in colour than previous bottles, it delivered a minty, floral, almost Margaux-like bouquet whose intensity has remained undimmed in all the years I have been tasting it.
The palate is medium bodied with a heady attack on the entry, a little warmth here that slightly smudged the delineation, Merlot in the driving seat for the first half and the Cabernet Franc component imparting blueberry and cassis notes on the finish. There is something a little showy about this Ausone -- certainly a very fine Saint Emilion and very respectable considering that this was not a propitious Right Bank vintage.
Then again, in retrospect one can view it as a steppingstone to the successes of the 21st century.
A very successful vintage for Ausone, this wine seems to be close to full maturity, but knowing the history of this chateau, it is not unforeseen that it can last another 50 or more years. The wine shows a dark garnet color with considerable amber at the edge. Sweet notes of fruitcake, spice box, underbrush, licorice, and jammy red and black fruits tumble from the glass. The wine is medium-bodied, round, nearly opulent by the standards of this chateau, with a spicy, somewhat pinched finish.
One of the vintage's comparative disappointments, the 1982 Ausone exhibits somewhat evolved aromas of sweet, dried berries and currants mingled with notions of forest floor, kirsch, and grilled game meats. Medium-bodied, with firm, astringent tannins and somewhat desiccated fruit flavours, this bottle, purchased on release and stored impeccably, left much to be desired.
Type: |
Red |
Country: |
France |
Region: |
Bordeaux |
Appellation: |
Saint-Emilion |
Producer: |
Château Ausone |
Grapes/Blend: |
Merlot, Cabernet Franc |
Serving temp: |
16° - 18° C |
ABV: |
12.5% |
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