Chateau Sociando Mallet Haut Medoc 2016

Chateau Sociando Mallet Haut produces full-bodied wines with a deep, dark colour. Their complex bouquet is usually dominated by black fruit aromas with a touch of minerality and well-integrated, elegant oak. Often somewhat “virile” when young, the wines gain in balance and complexity with age.

Dark-berry and currant aromas with hints of spice. Medium body, firm and chewy tannins and a fresh and clean finish. Shows focus and seriousness for the appellation, as is usual from this producer. Better after 2022.

They are fresh, straightforward, and have a wonderful length. Château Sociando-Mallet has always been a wine with great aging potential. A wine to be enjoyed even after 30 years in great vintages.

The 2016 Chateau Sociando Mallet Haut has a refulgent purple/black color. It has a very intense and rich, you might say “ambitious” bouquet with layers of small black cherries, blueberry and a touch of sloes, less tertiary than previous vintages and certainly more opulent.

The 2016 Chateau Sociando Mallet Haut is endowed with remarkable density and pure power, but it will be a number of years before the 2016 is ready to show all it’s got. Today, the wine’s sheer luxuriousness is remarkable. Black cherry, plum, chocolate, spice and leather are all pushed forward.

This is an especially concentrated, powerful vintage for Sociando, perhaps too much, but the wine’s exotic beauty is, in my view, irresistible.