Jan 27, 2012

1999 Chateau Phelan Segur (Saint Estephe)


Phelan Segur 1999 at 13 years old was nicely matured and intensive. When opening the bottle, the room was immediately filled with the sweet and spicy aromas of plum, rasperry, cigarbox, mint, leather spices and musk.

Intensive ruby colour. The mouthfeel does not have the same sweet & spicy feeling, it is in a sense much "drier" than what the nose indicated, starting as soft and round, however developing into a dense one with significant structure and backbone, leading to a very long aftertaste. This is dense, matured, with pencil, ink and pure black fruit dominating. Really full-bodied, there are plenty of tannins however they are integrated. Some green/vegetal notes on the palate in the aftertaste, from Cabernet Franc (which also gives body) and not-so-ripe Cabernet Sauvignon presumably. For the long storage, at 13 years old it could still be kept for 10+ years. The beautiful nose with plenty of aromas gave large promise however the mouthfeel was more one-dimensional.

It was made of 48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 44.5% Merlot, 7.5% Cabernet Franc. The larger than usual Merlot content certainly attributes to the plum feeling - it seems that Merlot was more ripe than cabernet in 1999 and thus it's share in the Grand Vin is higher, while during other years 1997-2001 Cabernet Sauvignon dominated representing 55-62% share of the Grand Vin.

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