2003 DeLille Cellars Chaleur Estate Blanc
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Tasting notes
Bright medium yellow color. Very Bordeaux blanc in style, offering aromas of pineapple, yellow stone fruits and butterscotch accented by clove. Wonderfully sweet, tactile and chewy, with its pineapple fruit enlivened by savory minerality and complicated by a sexy element of well-integrated vanillin oak. There's a touch of residual sugar here (possible three grams, notes Upchurch) but the wine has the acidity to give it lovely inner-mouth lift. Not hugely complex, but this classically structured, new-oaky, Haut-Brion Blanc-like wine finishes firmly tannic and long--and still full of life. (14.1% alcohol)
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
(a 67/33 blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon, fermented in all new oak) Aromas of citrus skin and spicy, resiny, charry oak, with a waxy lanolin quality from the semillon. Rich, broad and ripe, with unusual generosity of texture for this wine. Complex, fruit-driven flavors of lemon, orange, kiwi and spices. Very pliant and very long. Already attractive but capable of several years of development in bottle.