Antonio Galloni has released his in-bottle scores for the Bordeaux 2018s, which include another 100-point score for Château Palmer.
Palmer was one of three 100-point scores Galloni awarded, the other two being for Petrus and Lafleur. As his fellow critic at Vinous, Neal Martin did in his in-bottle review, Galloni recognised the 2018 Palmer as a, “freak of nature” that was, nonetheless, a “real head-turner” and “truly sublime”.
Although with its tiny yields he said it was a wine that would be hard to find, he also said he thought it was “worth it”.
Since Martin’s 100-point score and equally unequivocal praise at the start of the month, the price of the Margaux third growth has been climbing, up from £2,800 to over £3,200 currently.
Of his other 100-pointers, he said Lafleur was “mesmerising”, while Petrus was “unquestionably wine of the vintage on the Right Bank” in his view.
Right Bank wines scored highly in general, as can be seen in the table below, with high scores for the likes of Ausone, Cheval Blanc, Trotanoy, Le Pin and La Gaffelière among others.
First Growths Mouton-Rothschild and Margaux were also high-scorers. Mouton has found its way into the upper echelons of many critics’ scores this vintage.
Galloni made particular mention of the richness and alcohol content of the wines in 2018 but said overall, “they are also remarkably balanced”.
Nonetheless, while increasingly able to handle the ripeness and higher alcohol they had to deal with, he did think, “we are approaching a limit of how rich these wines can be”.
