Château Ausone 2015

Of impressive precision, top‑class tannins, immense freshness and tension, a perfect aromatic expression of berries and herbs, with noticeable minerality. Truly first‑rate.

The nose is laden with red fruit and shows remarkable depth of concentration. Brambles and blackberries with good tannin integration. Slightly coarse on the finish but with lovely length. Good if not great.

What a ravishing nose of the ripest black fruit, with so many spicy and some floral nuances. Compact and very well-structured palate that’s only just beginning to show what’s packed in there. For this vintage, it’s rather cool and dry, even at the finish (where a lot of 2015s show a hint of warmth from alcohol). Clearly a wine with a great future, but needs some time to give its abundant best. Drink or hold. Château Quintus vertical tasting. SP.

Tasted blind. Very dark crimson. Intense and attractive nose. Very rich but mellifluous. No over-extraction. Lots of ripe fruit. Really rather glorious. Just a tiny undertow of tannins. (JR)

The 2015 Ausone has a superb bouquet that soars from the glass, revealing finely delineated black cherry, sage, cedar and liquorice aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, silky-smooth texture and hickory-tinged red fruit, with a harmonious, fine-boned finish that suggests this will benefit from another couple of years in bottle. This was a second impressive showing. Tasted blind at the 2015 Bordeaux Ten-Year-On tasting at Farr Vintners.

Is there a more consistent wine in Saint-Émilion? Perhaps, but it is hard for me to think of any wine that produces wine at this high level of quality, vintage after vintage. 2015 continues that streak. This is what intensity is all about, on the nose and palate. Picture a bucket of insanely ripe black cherries, black plums and licorice squeezed over rocks and stones before it's placed into your glass, and well you get the idea. The purity of fruit, incredible level of concentration, silky tannins and a finish that stays on target for at least 60 seconds or longer is what you'll find here. The only issue is, you need to buy this for your kids, as it's going to take 20 years or more to start showing its stuff. But, if you have the money and the time...

Dark ruby in colour with purple reflections and subtle brightening on the rim. On the nose, black berry fruit, fine nougat, a touch of ripe plum, delicate vanilla, and fine oak with candied orange zest. The palate is complex and silkily textured with ripe, integrated tannins, and a touch of black berry fruit. Lasting for minutes, the spicy, fruity finish has a notable saline minerality. With the potential to age for many years, this has what it takes to be a hundred-point wine.

An utterly perfect wine from Alain Vauthier, the 2015 Château Ausone offers off-the-hook notes of crème de cassis, black raspberries, toasted spice, and dried flowers, with more floral and mineral characteristics developing with time in the glass. Amazingly deep, full-bodied, pure, and ethereally textured, with building density and tannin, it’s one of those wines that need to be tasted to be believed. Unfortunately, the production is minuscule (and expensive). A wine that will make your heart rate jump; give it 4–5 years of cellaring and I suspect it will keep for as long as you’d like to hang on to bottles. It’s a tour de force in wine and the wine of the vintage in 2015.

The 2015 Ausone is composed of 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc, aged in 85% new barrels. Dark color, massive, purple, more viscous than the 2016. On the nose, the 2015 shows clearly more Cabernet fruit than the rounder 2016. Spicy and assertive, with crisp, cool-tinged aromatics, deep and impressive on the nose. Rich and racy on the palate, it is very intense and incredibly fresh, with brilliant, vibrating acidity that delivers tremendous grip on the tongue. Extremely expansive, with fine-grained tannins, it feels very engaging and full. This Ausone has endless energy, comes across softer than the slightly rough 2016, flows generously and has a crunchy fruit that the French call ‘croquant’. Bravo.

50% Cabernet Franc, 50% Merlot. 30 hl/ha. Deep purple-garnet, dense at the core, with violet hues at the rim. Brilliant bouquet: noble wood notes, fine currants, black berries, licorice, a hint of kitchen herbs and mint—everything feels both delicate and regal. A fleshy, structured palate shows massive concentration with plenty of backbone; aromatically it stays in the blue—and even more in the black—fruit spectrum, with a dramatic aftertaste. A goosebump-inducing Ausone built for a very long life. This is the maximum at its maturity. Among all the Premiers A, this is the best for me.

Elegant, tightly knit, complex, fresh bouquet with assorted berries, blueberries, a delicate hint of eucalyptus, various herbs, slate. Balanced, dense, multi-layered, refined palate with powerful, sweet aromatics, plenty of fine tannins, a tightly woven structure, very long, concentrated finish. Still has room to improve. 19/20 2025 - 2045

Vibrant medium-intensity cherry red, the limestone fingerprint clear even visually in that it is more jewel-like than most of the vintage. A masterclass in what slate scrape and pumice stone mean when talking about texture in a wine, set against a caress of black cherry, raspberry, white tea, pomegranate, gunsmoke, leather; exceptional, with a juicy finish, truly outstanding — and this is a higher score than I gave it back in 2022 in a vertical at the estate. 85% new oak for ageing.

Ausone 2015 is a blend of 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc and has a medium to deep garnet color. It needs considerable swirling and air to begin to reveal notes of iron ore, Chinese five-spice, underbrush, and black truffles, before it opens out to a core of fruitcake, dried roses, licorice, and blueberry preserves, plus a hint of kirsch. Full-bodied, rich, and powerful on the palate, it delivers a solid core of muscular fruit with firm yet velvety tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with incredible length and jaw-dropping layers. Incredible!

Just before bottling, the wine confirms the enthusiasm felt during the en primeur tastings. No harsh edges, but a constant fresh, saline precision. In line with previous vintages, everything seems effortless, despite the fleshy, sun-filled volume of 2015. From the obvious aromatics to the moving finish, the grace is unique and the balance perfect.

Fairly deep color. The nose is splendid, refined. The wine is dense, refined, with great persistence, fabulous, extremely refined, highly elegant, with a very long finish as well. The 2015 surpasses the 2010 in elegance. An added grace. Aged for 20 months with 85% new oak. 50% Cabernet Franc, 50% Merlot. 21,000 bottles.

Deep purple. Complex, intense bouquet marked by fruity notes. Black berries, liquorice, violets, a sweet touch, clove. Lush, fruit-driven attack. A lot of grace, elegance and pedigree! The tannins are perfectly integrated and in line with the structure. Excellent fruit intensity from start to finish. So much grace and character. An elegant, pleasurable Ausone that can be approached fairly young… and for quite some time, even once it is less young!

Logo on the cork: A in a circle (Amorim) Beautiful dark color, slightly evolved. Highly aromatic nose, fine, fruity, pure. Delicate on entry, silky through the mid-palate, with a soft yet present body, and above all plenty of flavor; the wine stretches out on the finish, long, delicious, and impossible to spit out.

Gradually, the wine gains in complexity; you can sense its superb structure and an ever more defined backbone, with the aromatics to follow. This reserved style is appreciated. Above all, let the bottle rest in the cellar, or you risk missing the essence.

97–99. Barrel Sample. With only 21,000 bottles for the world, this will always be a rare wine, yet its quality is not in doubt. Beautifully structured and with tannins that are sweet, generous, as well as firm, it is packed with the ripest blackberry fruits. It is a complex wine, dark and with great potential.