This wine has a tightness and linear energy, with red currants, herbs, plums and hints of dark chocolate. Medium-bodied with beautiful integration and length. Racy and focused. Just the right amount of wood and fruit with tannins. Second wine of Chateau Margaux. 73% cabernet sauvignon, 18% merlot, 5% petit verdot and 4% cabernet franc.

Soft rose-touched blackcurrants, really quite delicate and pretty yet also expressive, the aromas clearly discernible in the glass with a vivid pink-purple rim. So smooth and quite sensuous, you get the crushed velvet texture and thrashing acidity straight away, giving a round mouth, with these spikes of piquancy from the Petit Verdot. Really quite perfumed too. Vibrant with an excellent aromatic display and so much freshness. It’s on the tightrope - balancing the austerity and the plushness, the richness and the delicacy, the acidity and the structure. Tastes young and sparky, like a racing car ready to go, all energetic and buzzed. A great second wine. 4% Cabernet Franc completes the blend.

Beautifully sappy balanced feel, plums, damson, red cherry, sage, gunsmoke, peony, balanced alcohols. This is a 2nd wine with plenty of character, finesse and nuance, stretches out through the palate, a touch more Cabernet Franc this year in the blend, giving a savoury floral uplift. 30% of overall production, 60% new oak. 36hl/h yield, Philippe Bascaules estate director.

Mostly likely the second wine of the vintage, the 2021 Château Margaux Pavillon Rouge boasts a deep ruby/purple hue as well as beautiful aromatics of red and blue fruits, smoke tobacco, violets, and graphite. It's medium-bodied, has remarkable purity, integrated acidity, and one heck of a beautiful finish. You can taste more than a little Grand Vin in this, yet it clearly has more up-front charm and appeal. A blend of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, it benefits from air and should be at its best from 2029-2041.

Quite floral in nature, the nose exudes white and purple flowers, black cherries, spice, and just a hint of espresso. The palate is medium-bodied, vibrant, crisp, and chalky, with a sweetness to the lifted, chewy red fruits with a touch of citrus in the finish. The wine blends 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, and 4% Cabernet Franc, 13.1% ABV, 13.5 pH. Drink from 2025-2037.

The 2021 Pavillon Rouge showed well from barrel. Now, in bottle since late June, it has a gorgeous, very pure, almost Burgundy-like bouquet that blossoms in the glass: raspberry, blackberry and crushed violet scents. The palate is medium-bodied with very succulent tannins, fine acidity, gentle grip and a disarmingly minerally, fresh finish. What a delightful Pavillon. -- Neal Martin

The 2021 Pavillon Rouge offers up aromas of raspberries, sweet cherries and white flowers, followed by a medium to full-bodied, lively palate that's quite taut and youthfully structured out of the gates, with good depth at the core and powdery tannins. It will reward a bit of bottle age. - William Kelley