Domaine Costa Lazaridi – Château Julia Merlot 2023

The Château Julia is the single-varietal premium line of Domaine Costa Lazaridi, named after Julia, the wife of Costas Lazaridis, to whom the series is dedicated. It is not the pinnacle of the house, but for me one of the most serious Greek Merlots, especially in its price bracket of recent years. This one is 100 percent Merlot, grown in the PGI Drama and aged for around a year in French oak, 40 percent of it new. Costas Lazaridis is regarded as a pioneer of modern winegrowing in Drama, planting his first vines there in 1979 and building the winery in Adriani in 1992. The house's red wines have been advised for years by Michel Rolland.

As a vintage, 2023 in Drama stands at 6.5 out of 10 and thus below the Drama median of 7.0. It was a cool, late and low-yielding year, the phenolic ripeness of the red varieties lagged behind, and it took patience to reach picking ripeness. The harvest bulletin nonetheless expects a long ageing potential from the reds.

On the nose it is spicy, not as vanilla-heavy as other vintages I have had, but still with a touch of Christmas spice. Michel Rolland's signature is certainly detectable. On the palate then a good attack, fruity, cherry-like and after that a great deal of olive tapenade. Rarely is Merlot so true to type.

Quite different was the 2020, the last vintage I tasted. I saw it in April 2022 at two years old at 93+ points, and it threatened to sink a little into interchangeability as far as the variety went. The vanilla dominated strongly back then, at least shortly after opening, and at first glance one would hardly have taken it for a Merlot, but it had an enormously long finish. The 2023, by contrast, is true to type, though it falls apart just a little. It is not really complexity, the elements sit somewhat side by side, and there is a lack of acidic drive that pulls everything together. That is why it does not convince me quite as much as the 2020, which in Drama came from a markedly stronger vintage at 8.5. The reverberation, on the other hand, is very long.

I do not think it will get much better, but that is already very remarkable. I would say this is a wine that can age for ten years after harvest, and I believe it will hold this level until 2033. In Greece it costs around 22 euros. For me these are 92 points.