Ch.Sociando Mallet 2015 750ml

Wine Advocate #224, Apr 28, 2016 by Neal Martin
The 2015 Sociando Mallet is a blend of 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 50% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc this year. It has a rather introspective bouquet, broody and earthy, although with aeration it reveals pleasant blackberry and wild strawberry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with chewy tannin, a little rustic and brutish at the moment with an abrasive finish that will hopefully soften by the time it is in bottle. I feel that this was just upended by the storms that swept across the region in September.

Chateau Sociando-Mallet is an unclassed Bordeaux wine producer from the appellation Haut-Medoc. The winery is located on the Left Bank of the Bordeaux wine regions, in the commune of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne north of Saint-Estephe, France. Despite its estimation as a producer of high quality wine, it was neither ranked in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 (not existing at the time), nor is it listed among Medoc's Cru Bourgeois, due to a decision of its owner Jean Gautreau not to enter it for such classification.
The winery also produces a second wine named La Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet.
Situated on what was in 1633 the residence of a Basque nobleman named Sievre Sociando, the first documentation of the estate mentions its nobles terres. After its acquisition around 1850 by Madame Mallet, it was recorded in the 1883 edition of Cocks & Feret along with Chateau Verdignan as the leading cru of Saint-Seurin.
Sociando was a forgotten and derelict property of vastly reduced land by the time it was bought by Jean Gautreau, a negociant from Lesparre, in 1969. The estate has since seen considerable expansion and modernisation, and enjoys high prices and a good reputation in today's wine market.

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