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By Root 340 0

with the 1947 vintage—probably the most coveted wine of the century. Despite a string of brilliant incarnations since, Cheval was somewhat overshadowed by neighboring Pétrus, which became the most expensive wine of Bordeaux, and by the left bank aristocrats who, through the ′80s and early ′90s, duked it out for 100-point Parker scores. In the mid-′90s, Saint-Émilion—like Brooklyn—became fashionable, thanks in part to ambitious winemaking, clement weather, and the accessibility of its Merlot-based wines. In 1998—one of the greatest right bank vintages of recent years—Cheval-Blanc was purchased by luxury-mad Bernard Arnault, of LVMH, and Baron Albert Frère, a Belgian tycoon. As of 2006, no wine property is hotter than Saint-Émilion’s premier château, although Cheval-Blanc is in some ways a republic unto itself, resembling no other wine in the world.

Located on the border of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, Cheval-Blanc has qualities of both—and of neither. Its combination of earthiness and sophistication reminds me (note earlier comment re subjectivity) of Turgenev, who had one foot in Russia and one on the Continent—and who has probably never been a Jeopardy! answer, like Tolstoy (Lafite? Pétrus?) or Dostoyevsky (Mouton-Rothschild?). The pretty, modest nineteenth-century manor house and the modern winery next door probably won’t show up on the cover of a design magazine. The real beauty is underground: the estate encompasses three different soil types; 40 percent of its subsoil is the same clay that pops up a few hundred yards away at Pétrus. But Cheval-Blanc is unique among the wines of Bordeaux in part because of its high percentage of Cabernet Franc—usually more than 50 percent of the blend. The wines of the left bank are predominantly from Cabernet Sauvignon; those of Pomerol and Saint-Émilion are mostly Merlot.

Unlike the other big Bordeaux, which take half a lifetime to get sexy, Cheval-Blanc is approachable and even delicious in its youth, and yet it continues to develop over the decades. Imagine a child star who remains a top box-office draw into her sixties. I can’t explain the chemistry, but I know from experience that the tannins in the typical Cheval-Blanc are like cashmere compared with the scratchy Harris tweed tannins of Latour or Mouton-Rothschild (and even Pétrus), which take twenty years or so to mellow and drape correctly. Which is not to say you should guzzle Cheval soon after it is bottled. The aromatic complexity of a forty-year-old Cheval-Blanc in a great vintage such as ′64 or ′55 is like a catalog of minor vices: tobacco, menthol, coffee, truffles, and chocolate, to name a few.

Many tasters claim that the ′49 is at least as great as the ′47—a freakish hot-vintage wine that stopped fermenting before all the sugar was converted to alcohol, leaving some three parts per thousand residual sugar, which makes it resemble nothing so much as a great port. It was clearly a one-off, a spectacular wine that lingers on the palate for minutes and in the mind forever. Generally, Cheval-Blanc is more lyric than epic, more Andrew Marvell than Milton. I love the ′55, my birth year. The ′61, gorgeous as it is, is not as profound as the ′64, one of my top three wines of all time; I have tasted it several times, thanks to Julian Barnes, who loves it beyond all other Bordeaux and has a stash in his cellar.

The ′75 is one of the few wines of that vintage that has lived up to expectations. Parker gives 100 points to the ′82 Cheval, but I find it less rich and concentrated than the ′83, the ′89, or the ′90. (The latter appears to be evolving very rapidly, in my recent tasting experience, seeming far more mature than most vintages of the ′80s.) Pierre Lurton, the dynamic young director of the estate and scion of a famous Bordelais family, told me at a recent tasting at New York’s Veritas that he too feels the ′82 may be slightly less than perfect. Nineteen eighty, he points out, was a monstrously prolific vintage, and it was the last one at Cheval-Blanc in which no green harvest or barrel selection was made. Since then the ch