54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc

Neal Martin: 92, James Suckling: 94

Neal Martin: The 2016 Reserve de la Comtesse has a delightful bouquet of black fruit infused with sous-bois and pencil shavings - classic Claret through and through. The medium-bodied palate delivers crunchy black fruit laced with tobacco and cedar. This is a correct, quite "linear" wine, but one that I find well balanced, with a welcome pepperiness that emerges toward the grippy finish. It might not warrant superlatives, but it is clearly well crafted and endowed with understated nobility. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting.