Connétable de Talbot 2016

The second wine of a Fourth Growth, from one of the great Left Bank vintages of the century.

Château Talbot has been Saint-Julien aristocracy since the 1855 classification, and in the Cordier family's hands since 1917. Named for Constable John Talbot, the English commander who fell at Castillon in 1453, the estate farms 105 hectares of classic Médoc gravel with vines averaging 35 years.

Connétable is drawn from that same vineyard — one of the very first second wines in the Médoc, made since the 1960s with increasingly severe selection. The 2016 is a 60% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon blend from a vintage the château itself called a triumph of deep-rooted vines, harvested October 3–17.

James Suckling scored it 92: big cassis fruit, toasty vanilla oak, a full and almost silky palate. Translation: classified-growth Saint-Julien character, drinking in its prime window right now, without the grand vin price. Seventy-four bottles in stock.