The 2018 Château du Cartillon is an interesting drop for me, I liked it, I really liked it. I found this wine earthy, with blackcurrant and some nice oak overtones. According to the tasting notes, this is a 50/50 merlot/cabernet sauvignon blend. Generally a Haut-Médoc also features petit verdot, cabernet franc, malbac and carménère, so this is a fairly simple blend. If you have good fruit and good processes then this may not be an issue.

I like the Médoc style, so I need to do a little online searching so I know exactly what Haut-Médoc is. From what I can determine, Haut-Médoc is a larger district of the Bordeaux region. Ok, so what does that mean? I have not been to the Bordeaux wine region yet, but I will go at some stage in the future. As the Haut-Médoc region is larger, it apparently has a greater diversity of terroir; that is climate, soil and topography than the Médoc region. But one has to remember, these are sub-regions that are very close to each other, they are connected.

Viewing wine region maps of the greater Bordeaux, I know and like Médoc, Haut-Médoc and the Saint-Émilion regions so I have a few ideas. What I learnt is there are a whole load of sub-regions within the greater Bordeaux environment that I knew nothing about. Saint-Émilion is better known for merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon wine varieties. The Médoc sub-region is known as the left bank along the Gironne/Garonne River flowing through Bordeaux. So I drank my Château du Cartillon and really liked it, I will be looking for more in this price range.