2018 Chateau Guillon Graves Bordeaux 750 ml

It’s not every day that we find ourselves reaching for comparisons to marble-hewn 18th-century artworks to help us describe a wine’s character.

But there's no other way to convey just how impressively sculptural the 2018 Château Guillon Graves is. It’s genuinely amazing to find this kind of fabulously molded tannic structure and graphite-rich minerality in Bordeaux for this price. It's a rare opportunity to pay vin de table prices for exquisite Bordelais craftsmanship.

This Left Bank wonder is chiseled, graceful, and grand—words we’d typically associate with a Louvre exhibit, or perhaps Château Guillon’s illustrious appellation neighbor, the First Growth Château Haut-Brion. Yet it ranks alongside some of Bordeaux’s most affordable buys, even as the Merlot-forward effort took a stunning 95-point victory run at the 2020 Decanter World Wine Awards, putting it up there with the best wines in the collector-worthy 2018 vintage.

“Extremely elegant and well put together, this is an accomplished and hugely satisfying wine,” applauded the Decanter judges, who drink and score bottles totally blind, with no regard given to reputation, prestige, or labels.

The gravitas and earthy depth of this stellar Bordeaux are tied to its place of origin: Graves, where the sandy-gravel soils of this 19th-century estate lend this blend an instantly recognizable mineral typicity, as well as freshness, spring-loaded tension, and energy on the midpalate. It's a hugely overperforming bottle that could not come from any other appellation in Bordeaux.

Sculptures were top of mind when we discovered the 2018 Château Guillon—we had just finished a day touring both a portion of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay during a weekend in Paris. The sun was setting ochre-red on the Seine, our legs were aching, and we were famished. Our tour guide and friend, a chef on a rare day off, took us to the last stop of the day: a Rue Saint-Martin bistro famed for its cassoulet.

But the elegant, precise, lifted, and harmonious wine dominated our attention. Suggested by the waiter, the Guillon opened to a beautifully integrated pattern of red roses and bramble, studded with spice and cassis. On the palate, the layers of raspberry and wild strawberry were structured so smoothly and elegantly, we couldn’t help but think of the sculptural masterpieces we’d just seen in the echoing museum halls.

“It’s like Denis Foyatier’s Spartacus,” we offered. “Bold, muscular, resolute.”

“No, no,” our friend said, with an all-too-familiar head-shaking motion. “Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss is more like it. Elegance, pinpoint precision, lifted and harmonious. This is without doubt a neoclassical wine.”

The Castel family brings an artist’s touch to vineyard management—their vineyards are some of the most pristinely manicured we’ve seen in Graves, and it shows in the wine. We knew we had to have this wine, and at this bargain price—complete with outstanding critical praise—you should feel the same way.