2022 Clos Manou
Buying options
Tasting notes
A blend of 52% Merlot, 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3.5% Petit Verdot and 2.5% Cabernet Franc, the 2022 Clos Manou is, as always, a real success. Evoking aromas of dark wild berries, licorice, pencil lead and cigar wrap, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and concentrated with a seamless, fleshy core of fruit and velvety tannins that lead to a long, elegant and lead pencil-inflected tannins.
Critic scores
Average Score
Yohan Castaing, Wine Advocate
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
More reviews and scores
Darker black cherries, scorched earth, graphite, and some herbal, chocolaty notes all emerge from the 2022 Clos Manou, a medium-bodied, modern, yet still classically styled Médoc with solid mid-palate depth and ripe tannins. It's going to benefit from 3-4 years in the cellar (it's far from unapproachable today) and keep for at least a decade.
Vivid cherry red, sage and freshly cut herbs on the aromatics, so happy to come back to this wine and find it still delivering on all cylinders. Plump bilberry and blueberry fruits, cigar box and clove spices, leans in to the vintage without straying over the line, chalky tannins add lift. Was a buy En Primeur and remains a buy today.
The 2022 Clos Manou has a well-defined and succinct bouquet with blackberry, wild hedgerow, blue fruit and crushed stone aromas unfurling with aeration. This is heads above other Médoc wines that I tasted from this flight. The palate is medium-bodied, detailed and very harmonious, with seamlessly integrated oak, a fluidity that marks this out and exquisite mineralité on the finish. This is brilliant.
About the producer
Clos Manou is one of Bordeaux’s most under-rated addresses. The tiny estate is in the northern reaches of the Médoc, but produces wine that puts some Classed Growths to shame.