Domaine de Chevalier 2025

The 2025 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 94/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry, bright summer, tempered by cool nights, gave pure, balanced wines, more classic than sun-drenched.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pessac-Léognan. 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.

Tasting

Domaine de Chevalier 2025 stands out as one of the great vintages of the last decade. Combining freshness, refinement and great class, it reveals a style of remarkable elegance.

The grape varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot) reached perfect ripeness, without excess, thanks to ideal climatic conditions and precisely controlled harvest dates. The precise, well-adapted vinifications underline the purity of the fruit.

On the nose, aromas of fresh red and black fruits mingle with subtle spicy and empyreumatic notes.

The palate, velvety and fleshy, offers a fine and silky tannic frame of superb ripeness, already giving rare pleasure.

Long, racy finish. A grand vin.

The vintage

One of the great vintages of recent years. Pulpy, fruity richness, freshness, precision and aromatic complexity mark the 2025 vintage. In red as in white, modernity and intensity express themselves with finesse, energy and great class, highlighting the legendary elegance of the wines of Chevalier. Winter rains ensured good water reserves. Spring was mild and dry, without frost, and the vines grew very well. Early May was warm and humid; from 20 May, an early, even and compact flowering suggested good qualitative potential. From mid-June a hot and dry summer set in, continuing through July and August with temperatures comfortably exceeding 30°C. The soils were dry at the surface; the deep roots of the old vines were able to draw on the reserves needed for the quality of the bunches. The ripening period was excellent: early, warm and luminous, with a high thermal amplitude. The bunches evolved rapidly while keeping their freshness, and a few refreshing showers at the end of August limited stress.

Red harvest: 11 to 26 September. The reds took over on 11 September with the Merlots; the end of the Cabernet Sauvignons closed the harvest on 26 September. These excellent harvesting conditions were punctuated by small, beneficial showers after the hot, dry summer. Yields are satisfactory.

Blend of the 2025 vintage

Figures from the 2025 sheet

• 12.5 % vol.Alcohol
• 34 hl/haYield

Winemaking

Four vat rooms (steel, stainless steel, tulip-shaped concrete and wooden vats) to optimise plot selection, perfect extraction and refine the blend.

Ageing

Aged in barrels (grand vin), one third new oak, for 16 to 18 months

Terroir

The overall structure of the Chevalier soils takes the form of a layer of black gravelly sand with an average thickness of 60 to 90 cm. Variations in the thickness and depth of the gravel vein create a mosaic of soils that calls for very fine plot-by-plot management, even though the whole shows an evident homogeneity. Overall, these soils are acidic, poor and very free-draining. The very rich subsoil is made up of a clay-gravel base mixed with alios (iron pan), into which the vine roots deeply, thus overcoming the water variations caused by the climate. Vine growth and grape ripening therefore proceed in a remarkably regular manner.