Château Canon 2023
Château Canon 2023 hails from the renowned limestone plateau of Saint-Émilion, a luminous, elevated terroir that defines the estate’s style: elegance, precision and a distinctive mineral freshness. It combines depth and delicacy, with limestone always serving as the guiding thread. The year was marked by extremes of dry and wet conditions, but the terroir responded with balance. The winter was dry and mild, the spring relatively wet but with good flowering, and the summer alternated between heat, humidity and dry spells. The result is a floral, subtle and long profile, with a particularly delicate expression that remains very true to the estate’s signature style.
Vinification: Harvesting took place between 6 September and 4 October for the Merlot and between 20 September and 3 October for the Cabernet Franc. Vinification was carried out by plot and within plots, in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats filled by gravity. Ageing lasted 16-18 months, with 50% new oak, including 3 foudres, refining the wine without masking the purity of the fruit and the terroir.
Tasting notes: Nose: flowers, raspberry, a touch of pepper and mint, in a very fine and airy profile. Palate: displays subtlety, length and a mineral tension that lingers into an almost salty finish. It is a Saint-Émilion of great elegance, with luminous fruit, precise texture and a serene energy that promises excellent development in the bottle.
Grape varieties: 71% Merlot and 29% Cabernet Franc
The 2023 Canon has turned out brilliantly, unfurling aromas of cassis, mulberries, rose petals, raspberries and violets. Medium- to full-bodied, it is layered and finely textured, built around a seamless, deep core of fruit framed by powdery, velvety tannins and concludes with a long, chalk-inflected, crystalline finish. Highly expressive of its terroir through its powdery tannins and limestone-driven finish, it is also very much of its vintage, combining vibrant acidity with an unusually approachable profile. This is a blend of 71% Merlot and 29% Cabernet Franc, all matured in 50% new oak.
Finesse and saline limestone character on full display, spiced plum, textural as ever, with finely boned architecture, in the line of great Canon vintages, with density to the black fruits and the mouthwateringly precise tannic grip and oyster shell salinity. 50% new oak for ageing, harvest September 6 through to October 4 (with Merlot going right through until the end, unlike many places, here they really waited). 45hl/ha yield, in organic conversion. Tasted twice.
Deep crimson. Lightly spicy and fragrant, almost floral, bright with red fruits. Layers of the finest tannins, like tissue paper. Beautifully fresh, lithe, mouth-watering and long.
This is so elegant and sophisticated already, with a really electric presence and length that goes on and on. It's medium- to full-bodied with an intensity of tannins. It remains weightless and energetic. The pH is 3.41, making this a vivid and lively wine. Currant, orange and stone. Sea salt, too. The limestone soils created a unique wine here in 2023. A blend of 71% merlot and 29% cabernet franc.
A blend of 71% Merlot and 29% Cabernet Franc, the 2023 Canon has a pH of 3.42 and it will age in barriques for 16-18 months, of which 50% are new. It is deep garnet-purple in color and sails out of the glass with bold notions of juicy blueberries, fresh plums, and Bing cherries, giving way to hints of black pepper, fragrant soil, and violets. The medium to full-bodied palate shimmers with energetic black and blue fruits, framed by super-satiny tannins and compelling tension, finishing long and fragrant. Absolutely ethereal!
Another excellent wine from the team at Canon benefitting from its position on the limestone plateau. Deep florals, violets, black fruits, some purple fruits too with cocoa powder and cool fresh blueberries. Smooth and so refined, this has a comfort in the mouth that few others have - a certain weight that defies the vintage - almost fleshy but more thick juice rather than lean, with a sweet core as well as biting acidity that provides a great contrast. This is a serious wine, it has structure and movement, supple tannins, so fine with a touch of chalk, strawberry, cranberry and red cherry fruit with liquorice spice on the finish. Assured winemaking, ripe fruit, great acidity and body, ending clean and pure with wet stones and graphite touches. Just delicious, a wine that tastes great now and feels like it’ll always be that way. Expansive in the best way. Ageing 16-18 months in 50% new oak as well as foudre.
The 2023 Canon was picked from around 6 September to 6 October at 45hL/ha and matured in 50% new oak. It has a perfumed bouquet with pure black cherries and touches of cassis and violet. The oak is beautifully integrated. Perhaps if I have to quibble, it is not quite as complex as the very best recent vintages, but that's a high bar nowadays. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black cherry fruit laced with iodine, and veins of blue fruit. There is a sorbet-like freshness embroidered throughout this Canon, and it delivers a lovely cracked black pepper note on the finish. Excellent. Again.
Bright, juicy damson plum and cherry compote notes lead the way, with flashes of rose hip and lightly singed vanilla. Subtle, tensile, chalky minerality skirts underneath, adding latent length. An understated style. Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2027 through 2037. 6,700 cases made, 725 cases imported.
