Château Grand Corbin 2022

The 2022 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 97/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: The extreme drought was absorbed by the clays: a sun-driven concentration, but without the expected harshness.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Saint-Émilion. 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.

The vintage

Grand Corbin is comfortable with this style of vintage. The estate’s northern exposure is a great asset in particularly hot and dry summers. The blue clay vein that runs through the vineyard at between 90 cm and 150 cm maintained the water supply throughout the ripening cycle. The variable depth of this vein is also responsible for the mosaic of terroirs at Grand Corbin.

2022 is a blend of this diversity, with the small berries picked at the bottom of the hillside bringing concentration and colour, and the larger Merlot and Cabernet Franc berries from the top of the plateau giving the wine a beautiful aromatic radiance and smooth texture.

The work put in place with Axel Marchal, increasingly precise plot selection in particular, has resulted in one of the finest vintages of Grand Corbin. The clean, bright fruit is carried far by the soft structure of the tannins. The round and flavourful palate gives the wine lots of generosity. The balance is perfectly judged and precise. This exceptional vintage reveals all the personality of the Grand Corbin terroir.

Vine cycle: budding on 29 March, mid-flowering on 27 May, fruit set on 3 June, mid-veraison on 31 July.

Blend of the 2022 vintage

Figures from the 2022 sheet

• 40 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Hand harvest, from 12 to 27 September, with berry sorting after destemming.

Ageing

12 months in French oak barrels: 40% new, 40% one-fill and 20% two-fill.

Terroir

Silica on a bed of blue clay. The estate’s northern exposure is a great asset in particularly hot and dry summers. The blue clay vein that runs through the vineyard at between 90 cm and 150 cm maintains the water supply throughout the ripening cycle; its variable depth is responsible for the mosaic of terroirs at Grand Corbin.