The team at Calon-Ségur, led by Régisseur Vincent Millet, were very draconian in their selection process in 2011, with almost all of the estate’s merlot relegated to the second wine, the Marquis de Calon. This led them to the unprecedented step of serving the second wine after the grand vin this year during our visit, but one can see why this was done once the two divergently- styled wines were both tasted. The 2011 Marquis de Calon is fully eighty percent merlot this year, and one does indeed find some of the coarseness to the tannins on the backend here that can be found pretty easily around the Médoc in this vintage. But, that said, this is still quite a successful second wine, offering up a lovely nose of dark berries, black cherries, cigar smoke, dark soil tones, espresso and nutty new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and a bit chewy, with a good core of fruit and nice bounce on the backend. The tannins are plenty firm here, but there certainly seems to be enough stuffing to eventually resolve the tannins.