Chateau Cos d'Estournel· Saint-Estephe

The pagodas give it away from the Saint-Julien road. Louis Gaspard d'Estournel built his oriental folly above the Gironde in 1811 because he sold his wine to the East, and nearly two centuries later the silhouette still announces one of the most singular estates in the Médoc. Today it belongs to Michel Reybier, who has spared nothing on the cellar beneath that theatre.

This is a Second Growth that has long played above its 1855 rank. The Grand Vin is Cabernet-led, raised in sixty percent new oak, and built, as the 2020 plainly is, for two decades of patience.

I keep Cos for the collectors who want Saint-Estèphe's iron grip with a Pauillac sense of polish. It rewards the cellar, not the impatient.