2020 Château Pavie

This opens up on your palate like a butterfly. It takes your breath away. Purity of blackberry, raspberry and black cherry. Lavender. Very, very impressive. Full and chewy with tight and polished tannins that go on and on. Energetic and structured. Crisp and vivid. Superb finish. Better after 2029 but a joy to taste. (11/2023)

Pure perfection in red wine, the 2020 Château Pavie checks in as 50% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Franc and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon, all raised in 75% new French oak. Absolutely incredible in every way, it has a sensational bouquet of crème de cassis, smoked tobacco, chocolaty oak, graphite, white truffle, and hints of flowers. Pure, full-bodied, and concentrated, with perfect integration of its fruit, oak, and tannins, it's one of those wines that needs to be tasted to be believed. Hats off to the Perse team for not following trends and for continuing to make a truly Grand Vin that offers a rare mix of power and elegance. Give bottles just 4-5 years and enjoy over the following three decades. (03/2023)

This impressive version offers stunning fruit, with loganberry, blackberry and boysenberry compote notes moving through steadily, carried by a deeply embedded chalk spine that provides form, while flashes of violet, iris, Earl Grey tea, warm earth and dark tobacco slowly emerge throughout. The long finish shows nice underlying tension. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2027 through 2045.

- J.M.

Composed of 50% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Franc and 16% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2020 Pavie weighs in with an alcohol of 14.82% and a pH of 3.61. It is aging in French oak barriques, 75% new. Opaque purple-black colored, notes of plum pudding, blueberry pie and dark chocolate-covered cherries charge out of the gate, followed closely by hints of eucalyptus, star anise, unsmoked cigars and fertile loam with a hint of cedar chest. The full-bodied palate is built like a brick house, offering very firm yet wonderfully ripe, velvety tannins and seamless freshness to support the densely laden, muscular black and blue fruits, finishing very long and with loads of mineral-laced layers. As hedonic as it is cerebral this year, it is a beautiful paradox.

- Lisa Perrotti-Brown (05/2021)