Château Saintayme Saint-Émilion Grand Cru 2019

Decanter

Black chocolate, baked earth, liquorice root and silky smooth tannins greet you on the first attack of this wine. I've never found this the easiest to love of the Durantou range but it is strikingly successful in 2019. Silky and yet slatey in texture, this both eases you through the palate and pulls you up short, slowing things down. Sparks of fresh minerality accompany the pulsing blueberry and raspberry fruits, and the juicy finish makes this one to look out for.

Jeb Dunnuck

I wasn't able to taste the 2019 Saintayme from barrel, but it's solid from bottle, offering a medium-bodied, elegant profile that's very much in the style of the vintage. Ripe black cherries, mulberries, crushed stone, graphite, and sappy flowers all emerge from the glass, and it's focused, firm, and straight on the palate. It’s going to benefit from bottle age.

James Suckling

A red with lovely, juicy character and plenty of ripe fruit and chocolate undertones. It's rich and layered. Flavorful. More concentration than the 2018.

Antonio Galloni

The 2019 Saintayme is just as impressive from bottle as it was from barrel. Rich, deep and explosive, the 2019 offers up an exciting mélange of dark cherry, plum, chocolate, licorice and dark spice. I would cellar the 2019 for at least a few years. This is an especially serious edition of the Saintayme. All the elements are impeccably balanced. Tasted two times.

Tastingbook.com

Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider

Dark in color, the wine exudes licorice, smoke, dark chocolate, black pit fruits and cherries. Full-bodied, lushly textured and with a hedonistic, fruit and chocolate filled finish, this will offer a lot of bang for the buck. The wine was made from blending 80% old vine Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc

The Wine Independent

100% Merlot and aged in 30% new oak, the 2019 Saintayme is medium to deep garnet-purple colored. It leaps from the glass with vibrant scents of juicy blackberries, wild blueberries, and rose oil, plus suggestions of chocolate box and underbrush. Medium to full-bodied, the palate delivers mouth-filling black fruits with fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with a skip in its step.

Robert Parker

Produced by the Durantou family, the 2019 Saintayme is a Saint-Émilion derived from soils rich in large stones in Saint-Étienne-de-Lisse. Offering up aromas of sweet raspberries, raw cocoa, spices and rose petals, it's medium to full-bodied, bright and lively, with a fleshy core of fruit and fine, powdery tannins that assert themselves on the finish. This will reward a bit of bottle age. It's 100% Merlot, all planted on vigor-reducing riparia rootstocks.

Vivino