La Forge de Ripeau, Grand Cru St Emilion 2020

(2 fl. total price) - Top year 2020, 2nd wine from Ripeau Grand Cru Classé, located on the border with Pomerol - neighbor to Cheval-Blanc and partly with the same blue clay as Pétrus Pomerol.
"Forge de Ripeau" is a formidable 2nd wine for Ripeau Cru Classé, which in 2020 gets 94p/100 from respected WIneCellarInsider. The 2nd wine makes up 40% of the harvest and is also sold as Tour de Ripeau (average price $56 on WineSearcher).
A dark, full-bodied wine, quite strong (up to 14%) with sumptuous fruit and a long aftertaste. 5* + good buy in Vinbladet. Impressive now, but will probably only peak from 2025-2030.
Ripeau is historic Cru Classé in St Émilion with vines between Cheval-Blanc and Corbin. The castle was long owned by the charming couple de Wilde, whose grandfather Loubat (yes, the one with Pétrus!) bought it in 1917! It was inherited by the daughter, married to de Wilde, whose family owned it until 2014.
However, Ripeau needed investments - and they came in the form of the Grégoire brothers, whose father was selling la Rivière in Fronsac. A wealthy Chinese buyer had been found, but both buyer and seller died when they crashed during a helicopter ride over Rivière.
The Grégoire brothers (photo) have since invested heavily in Ripeau with new cellars and a policy of 100% ecology without insects/plants/fungi or other poisons. The permitted copper sulphate has even been scrapped. The fields have also been drained and a weather station has been erected in the park (1.5 hectares of green oasis in the middle of the precious soil of gravel and blue clay (like Petrus). The oenologist is the competent Claude Gros.
The wine is close to Pomerol, but often a bit firmer, more cabernet (35%) as a supplement to 65% merlot. A low yield is allowed on the 16 hectares of wine, typically 80,000 bottles, of which 30,000 are used for the second wine (Forge and Tour as well as l'Ange), which has received good marks in recent vintages (around 90p/100).
Vintage 2020 was a difficult vintage with a wet spring and dry summer, but Ripeau got perfectly ripe grapes that turn into wine in perfect cellars. The wine undergoes 100% malolactic fermentation in small oak barrels.
WineCellarInsider by the respected Jeff Leve has tasted all new vintages from the castle in 2023 (!) and writes about the 1st wine 2020:
94p/100: "Flowers and licorice pop with espresso and ripe cherries in the perfume. Fresh, supple and rich, with ample layers of ripe, red and black fruits, that provide a lusciously textured, polished and plush finish with length and hedonistic pleasures . Under the new owners, the wines here keep improving vintage after vintage"
https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/bordeaux-wine-producer-profiles/bordeaux/st-emilion/ripeau/