L’Innocence de Seraphine

The 2025 Bordeaux vintage is defined by a paradox of extreme heat yet produced many wines with surprising elegance. After a mild winter, an exceptionally early and uniform flowering in mid-May set the stage for an accelerated growing season. However, the defining characteristic was a series of intense heatwaves in June and August, with temperatures peaking near 42°C.

The result was a year of remarkably low yields but also intense, pure concentration. Small, thick-skinned berries – particularly in the Merlot – produced wines with deep colour and rich phenolic structure. While the heat initially threatened to block ongoing ripening, critical rains in late August combined with cooler night temperatures preserved a “crystalline” acidity that distinguishes 2025 from the more opulent and hedonistic 2022 vintage.

Key Highlights:

• Quality vs. Quantity: Exceptional aromatic intensity and ripe tannins, though volumes are down roughly -15% due to heat-induced berry shrivelling.

• Terroir Success: Clay and limestone soils (notably in Saint-Émilion and Pomerol) thrived by regulating water stress.

• Style: Early tastings suggest a “modern classic” – combining the power of solar vintages with a refined, fresh finish and moderate alcohol levels (averaging 13.5–14%).

For collectors, 2025 stands as a “vigneron’s year,” where precise harvest timing was essential to balance its natural fruit density with graceful acids.

Petit Cantenac 2025, Saint Emilion Grand Cru, 13% Abv.

The 2025 Petit Cantenac stays true to the vintage and displays an incredibly intense, lifted, “crystalline” purity and perfume with piercing notes of violets, crushed red cherries, black currants and red currants with a delicate dusting of leafy spice, freshly cut cedar, and subtle notes of Asian five spice. The palate shows a mouthwatering crunchy structure, tightly delineated acids and a steely tension that envelops the bright red and black berry fruit concentration. The tannins are tense and sinewy rather than muscular, holding the ripe fruits in perfect balance. This is essentially a “modern classic” with a cool demeanour, crunchy bright acids together with a potent, focused depth of fruit. Forward and elegantly accessible in style but simultaneously quite a serious expression. Drink from 2028 to 2040+.

(Wine Safari Score: 92-94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Clos Cantenac 2025, Saint Emilion Grand Cru. 13.25% Abv.

Once again, the 2025 Clos Cantenac Saint Emilion Grand Vin is a 100% Merlot offering that will be aged for 12 months in 40% new oak barriques and 60% in second and third passage barrels. While this wine’s aromatics share an exotic, lifted exuberance with its junior sibling, Petit Cantenac, the perfume and fragrance is that much more intricate, broader, and more intense, showing sweet violets, rich ripe black berry fruits, crème de cassis, blue berries, black cherries and pronounced Christmas gateau nuances. There is a lingering hint of spicy new oak in the background, but this wine is decidedly plush and hedonistic with an impressive classical elegance. The palate is tight knit, cool and incredibly focused revealing a tight grained, stony minerality, hints of cigar box, tobacco leaf, black cherry compote and tart cassis on the finish. This wine possesses all the composure, freshness and seduction of a truly great Bordeaux vintage. Dink from 2028 to 2045+.

(Wine Safari Score: 94-96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

L’Innocence de Seraphine 2025, Pomerol, 13.5% Abv.

Many drinkers imagine Pomerol wines being 100% Merlot, but this example is a 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc assemblage. The aromatics are true to form – lush, plush, exotic and hedonistic with fragrant notes of sweet violets, red currants, black cherries and frais de bois wild strawberries. Complexing veins of black chocolate run deep into the wine, complimented by notes of wet tobacco and dried baking spices. The mouthfeel is full, glycerol and textural revealing hints of vanilla pod spice, picante black berries, creamy tannins and a savoury black liquorice finish. This wine has all the power of Pomerol fruit but with a slightly softer, more integrated, harmonious finish. This wine offers great value for Pomerol lovers. Drink from 2028 to 2040.

(Wine Safari Score: 92-93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Chateau Seraphine 2025, Pomerol, 13.5% Abv.

We often like to compare second wines to their Grand Vins but this Seraphine is in a completely different league. A blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, the wine will be aged in a selection of 300 litre new French oak barrels and amphorae. Thereafter, the wine is racked off into French oak barrels (45% new and 55% second and third fill) where it will be matured for 12-14 months to harmonise further. On the nose, this is pure hedonistic joy – vibrant, lifted and enticingly fresh and perfumed showing bay leaf and thyme spice. Notes of fresh violets, savoury black cherries, earthy loam, and damsons plum nuances melt into earthy black currants and a sappy wood spice persistence. The concentration is notable, the acid freshness and creamy fruit concentration simply breathtaking, buffered by incredibly supple, creamy fine grained tannins. An intricate, powerful, complex expression that is sure to impress Bordeaux lovers! Drink from 2028 to 2040.

(Wine Safari Score: 96-97/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

EP and back vintages of Clos Cantenac and Chateau Seraphine are available from specialist UK merchant Museum Wines.

“Is 2022 the acme of Bordeaux? Will it be uttered in the same breath as 1945, 1961, 1982, 2016 and so forth? The 2022 vintage is one of the modern-day greats. The best will stand the test of time.” ~ Neal Martin, Vinous.com

Few wine critics can challenge the supremacy of Neal Martin when it comes to the region of Pomerol and its wines. Indeed, his epic tome is now regarded as the ultimate authority on the region, recently prompting Neal to agree to start work on an updated second edition. Reading the above comments from Neal in his recent Pomerol “in bottle” report, it is very clear that 2022 is already being compared to some of the region’s other hallowed vintages, a sign that bodes exceptionally well for producers who produced second wines.

Chateau Séraphine 2022 recently placed 8th in Neal Martin’s overall review of Pomerol 2022 wines, only coming in behind the great names of Petrus, Le Pin, VCC, La Conseillante, L’Eglise Clinet, Lafleur and Trotanoy. So the Seraphine Grand Vin is certainly rubbing shoulders with the heady, elite big boys of Pomerol. So, what better time then to take another closer look at the second wine from owner Martin Krajewski, namely the L’Innocence de Seraphine 2022, a wine that normally offers exceptional bang for your buck. The new release 2022 will be available in bottle soon but the 2019 is currently offered for £65 inc. per bottle in the UK (and which also rated a solid 93/100 on A Fine Wine Safari).

The 2022 Vintage:

The word was out early that the Bordelais felt they had something special in 2022, long before the world’s wine merchants arrived to make their own assessments at En-primeur. Heatwaves and drought are not usually parents to high-quality wines. However, the wines in barrel confounded merchants’ expectations, with most agreeing that the 2022 vintage was indeed a special one across Bordeaux. Despite the lack of water, the vines did not seem to suffer terribly, remaining in leaf and in good health right up to the harvest. The berries were small and so yields were restricted.

Chateau Seraphine vineyards in Pomerol in September.

All varieties were beautifully ripe, so much so that some properties felt no need to produce any second wines, many opting rather to increase the proportion of press wine in the final blend, such was its quality. Predictably, release prices were, on the whole, very high. But, due to the across-the-board high quality, those producers that did decide to make second wines, like Chateau Seraphine, produced exceptional examples that will undoubtedly thrill Bordeaux lovers.

L’Innocence de Seraphine 2022, Pomerol, 14% Abv.

Pomerol’s consumer popularity is undoubtedly reinforced by the elegance, succulence and fleshy accessibility of the appellation’s Merlot based wines. This beautiful 2022 is the second wine of the iconic boutique Chateau Seraphine and shows all the regal elegance, pedigree and sophistication you’d expect from this prime right bank terroir. Dark and inky in the glass, the aromatics display a majestic melange of black berries, cassis, damson plum, milk chocolate, and cocoa powder with delicate Chinese five spice nuances. In the mouth, the texture is liquid silk, creamy, plush, and expansive with a weightless concentration and incredibly powdery soft tannins that are enlivened by well integrated tangy acids and a lush cola-tinged finish. Seamless, creamy, and undeniably seductive with a wonderful approachability already, this is exactly what sophisticated Pomerol drinkers want in an earlier drinking expression. Drink now to 2035+.

(Wine Safari Score: 93/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

The wines of Chateau Seraphine and Clos Cantenac are imported into the UK by fine wine specialist merchant Museum Wines.