2016 Chateau Rouget Pomerol 750 ml

There are deep, luxurious reds, and then there’s this. “Impossibly bold” and “tantalizing” are as close as we can get to describing the grandeur of the 96-point Château Rouget. Antonio Galloni simply called it “a total turn on.” 

Back in late 2019 we had lunch at Napa’s Kitchen Door with d Château Rouget’s extraordinary winemaker and owner Edouard Labruyère. We were already fans of his other labels, which represent many of the greatest terroirs in France. His ethereal grower Champagne, the JM Labruyère Prologue, as well as several of his Grand Cru Burgundies from Domaine Jacques Prieur graced the table cloth at Kitchen Door, drawing stares even from the Napa cognoscenti. 

But it was the Rouget that stole the show. Spice-tinged, dark-fruit lusciousness transported us to the blue clay soils of Pomerol, with violet, lilac, cedar, and crushed stone leaving us in awe. As Galloni wrote, “A rush of red cherry/raspberry jam, sweet spice, chocolate and tobacco builds as this exotic Pomerol shows off its racy, opulent personality. The full throttle-style works beautifully.”

The pedigree is clear as day, but the price remains a bargain compared to Rouget’s Pomerol neighbors—Le Pin and Trotanoy border one estate vineyard, while Clinet and Le Gay surround the other. At $65, it’s an unmistakable steal. 

In our experience there are two ways to find value in Bordeaux. 1. Go to the satellite appellations, where excellent sub-$20 wines abound—clearly not the case here. 2. Get lucky and catch a historic château on the rebound, right before a return to prominence leads to a spike in price. 

Today’s 96-point Château Rouget Pomerol falls into the latter category, tracing its lineage back to the 1700s, when Rouget was first mentioned in Bordeaux’s land register. Rouget soared to a top-five ranking in the appellation following an official Pomerol classification at the end of the 19th century, but eventually fell dormant. 

When Edouard Labruyère’s  father Jean-Pierre, first laid eyes on the estate in the 1990s, he immediately fell in love with it, both for its incredible blue clay soils, and as Labruyère put it, “for the challenge of waking up a sleeping beauty.” Over the last 20 years Edouard and his father have done just that. 

The only Burgundy winegrowers to own an estate in Bordeaux, Labruyère and his father before him used a Burgundian approach to restore the estate to its former glory. The health and quality of the vineyards were placed at the center of the project, and included a transition to biodynamic viticulture. “I was committed to cultivating my 40 acres as a gardener,” Labruyère told us at lunch. 

In the cellar, Labruyère carefully uses whole-cluster fermentation, a technique almost never seen in Bordeaux but common in Burgundy, to add complexity and muscle to the luscious blend of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc. 

In 2016 the 20-year restoration project came to fruition, yielding the incredible 96-point Rouget. as James Suckling wrote, “This could be the best wine ever from here.” It’s a masterpiece on the level of the greatest Pomerols, and for now, priced at half their normal cost.