Château Cos d'Estournel 2012

Critic scores

• Vinous94
• Wine Enthusiast94
• Wine Advocate93
• Jeb Dunnuck93

The 2012 vintage in Saint-Estèphe

Vintage benchmark: 85/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A late cycle closing with rain gave an uneven vintage: the cabernets hold up, the merlots remain taut.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Saint-Estèphe. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Blend of the 2012 vintage

Figures from the 2012 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 31 hl/haYield
• 35 yrsVine age
• 225,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Winemaking in Cos adapts to the character of the harvest, thus favoring the expression of the Terroir and this thanks to our new cellar. A demanding sorting of the grapes, pump-over by pure gravity carried out using 4 elevator tanks as well as precise control of fermentation temperatures favor the selection of the softest tannins and the preservation of the fruit.

Ageing

70% new barrels

Terroir

The word 'Cos' means, in old Gascon, 'the hill of pebbles'. The hill of Cos indeed raises, on the banks of the Gironde, an impressive accumulation of Quaternary gravels, torn from the distant mountains of the Massif Central and the Pyrenees and deposited on the limestone bedrock of Saint-Estèphe by the retreat of the primordial river. Shaped by erosion into well-drained ridges, these exceptionally deep gravels constitute a genuine geological curiosity and one of the world's most precious terroirs: they oblige the mature vines planted on their crests to send their roots very deep into the arid soil.