Château Ausone Premier Grand Cru Classé A Saint-Émilion Grand Cru 2017

Double 98 points and HUNDREDS off typical retail… this is an astounding and reverent Saint-Émilion that collectors should quickly pounce on. Perched on a steep limestone hillside just outside the village of Saint-Émilion, Château Ausone is one of Bordeaux's smallest and most standout estates. Its name honors the fourth-century Roman poet Ausonius, whose villa is said to have stood on these slopes. Wine has been produced here under the Ausone name for close to four centuries, and the tiny production from these pure clay-limestone terraces has long placed it among the most coveted and rarest wines in the world.

At the time of the 2017 vintage, Ausone held Saint-Émilion's highest rank, Premier Grand Cru Classé A, a distinction shared with only three other estates. The 2017 was born of a difficult and now-legendary growing season… a severe spring frost devastated crops across Bordeaux, but Ausone's elevated hillside aspect spared its vines, allowing Alain and Pauline Vauthier to craft what many critics named one of the wines of the vintage.

A blend of roughly 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot, the 2017 offers cool cassis and dark cherry giving way to wild blueberry and violet, interwoven with graphite, crushed limestone, and a curl of espresso and licorice – an unmistakable Ausone minerality rising from stone to nose. On the palate it is at once austere and generous, poised on silky, near-weightless tannins with a saline lift and a finish that seems to echo for minutes. This is an all-around captivating study in the elegance and power that define this hallowed hillside. Fewer than 2 cases available at a striking price… do not wait!