Château Tour de Mirambeau - Cuvée Passion 2016

The Despagne family owns five estates and 300 hectares of vineyards, planted with traditional Bordeaux grape varieties. The Despagnes’ dedication, creativity, and expertise ensure that all their wines—particularly those from their flagship estates, Tour de Mirambeau and Rauzan Despagne—could serve as a model for many Bordeaux wines: always pleasing to the palate yet never straying far from classic Bordeaux style. Here, the wines are always very harmonious.

A very well-structured wine with harmonious aromas of ripe fruit and oak, with hints of mocha, and a full-bodied, opulent palate that is never heavy, with firm tannins. It has character and potential.

A family of winemakers for over two centuries, the Despagne family, based in the heart of the Entre-deux-Mers region, is a key player in the Bordeaux wine industry, managing 300 hectares spread across several vineyards—Bel Air Perponcher, Tour de Mirambeau, Rauzan Despagne, Lion Beaulieu, and Mont-Pérat—managed by the children of Jean-Louis (Thibault, Gabriel, and Basaline) and by Joël Elissalde, the technical director. Their wines are often featured in these pages, in all three colors.

The 2016 Cuvée Passion from Château Tour de Mirambeau was closed and a bit subdued on the nose when I tasted it at the Cercle de Rive Droite. On the palate, it is medium-bodied with a smooth attack, a hint of acidity, cedar, and a touch of soy with notes of black fruit, along with a distinct structure, especially on the finish. It has good potential, even if the aromas need to become more lively.