Château Cheval Blanc 1945

Château Cheval Blanc

The war is won, life is returning, but everything misses. However, Nature participates in the celebration and this vintage will be considered as the wine of victory after six years of war.

The war is won, life is returning, but everything misses. However, Nature participates in the celebration and this vintage will be considered as the wine of victory after six years of war.

Weather conditions and vine’s growing cycle

Temperatures and rainfall

The harvest took place from 10th to 26th September. 1945 was marked by the frost of May 1st, followed by intense heat. It was a year characterized by an intense drought on the summer.

Features of the vintage

Ripening and yields

100 tonneaux – or 33 hectoliters per hectare -, indeed very delicate to vinify: they bear a very high volatile acidity, which will never fade.

Vinification that year is very difficult: fermentation reaching 38 degrees are extremely difficult to control at this time.

The 1947 miracle does not happen this year, but 1945 has certainly served as a trial run for the young cellar master Gaston Vaissière for his success two years later.

Tasting

The year 1945 has suffered some heterogeneity. Some bottles have never quit a too high volatile acidity for the wine to be pleasant on the palate. However, other bottles, well preserved for seventy years, offer a remarkably rich wine, opulent, silky and typically Cheval Blanc. Exceptionally concentrated, however sustained by a fairly right tension, Cheval Blanc 1945 is perfectly balanced, the sign of a great wine that has unfortunately suffered some very delicate winemaking in a year of serious technical and material insecurity. In a still deeply dark dress, it exhales a nose of great sweetness accompanied by complex notes of red fruit jam and tobacco, and more surprising notes of anise and straw. In the mouth it is a full wine, silky and powerful, which opens onto an impassive impression of serenity. As Cheval Blanc 1947 and 1948, it is characterized by roasted notes and resembles a great vintage Port, but unlike his glorious contemporaries, 1945 ends a little more quickly and harshly. This is a great wine carried by a remarkable freshness and exalted by his generous body.
Tastings
15/04/2010

The year 1945 has suffered some heterogeneity. Some bottles have never quit a too high volatile acidity for the wine to be pleasant on the palate.

However, other bottles, well preserved for seventy years, offer a remarkably rich wine, opulent, silky and typically Cheval Blanc. Exceptionally concentrated, however sustained by a fairly right tension, Cheval Blanc 1945 is perfectly balanced, the sign of a great wine that has unfortunately suffered some very delicate winemaking in a year of serious technical and material insecurity.

In a still deeply dark dress, it exhales a nose of great sweetness accompanied by complex notes of red fruit jam and tobacco, and more surprising notes of anise and straw.
In the mouth it is a full wine, silky and powerful, which opens onto an impassive impression of serenity.

As Cheval Blanc 1947 and 1948, it is characterized by roasted notes and resembles a great vintage Port, but unlike his glorious contemporaries, 1945 ends a little more quickly and harshly. This is a great wine carried by a remarkable freshness and exalted by his generous body.