FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 32
Chateau Cheval Blanc 2010
Released at a price so high that London merchants balked, the 2010 from Saint-Emilion's Cabernet Franc stronghold went on to earn a perfect score and a critic's warning that it was 'a full-on atomic bomb waiting to go off.'
- Maker
- Chateau Cheval Blanc
- By price in wine
- 37 of 100
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Create a free account- Estate
- Château Cheval Blanc, Saint-Emilion, on the Right Bank of Bordeaux, bordering Pomerol
- Classification on the label
- Saint-Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classé (A); the estate held the top 'A' rank from the first classification and withdrew from the system in July 2021
- Owners in 2010
- Bernard Arnault and Baron Albert Frère, who bought the estate in autumn 1998; one account says LVMH bought Arnault's shares in 2009
- Team
- Pierre Lurton, at the estate since 1991; technical director Pierre-Olivier Clouet, appointed 2008
- Grapes
- Cabernet Franc and Merlot; one critic gives the 2010 blend as 54% Cabernet Franc and 46% Merlot, and other sources differ
- Release price
- 900 euros a bottle en primeur in 2011, 21.4% above the 2009's 700 euros, per one critic
- Critics
- 100 points in the Wine Advocate (Lisa Perrotti-Brown); 99 from Jeff Leve
- Format
- 750 ml; the 2010 was also bottled in sizes up to an 18-liter melchior
Carved out of Figeac
Vines have been worked on the land at Cheval Blanc for centuries. The estate's own history cites 15th-century texts on its vineyards, archives from 1546 showing the owner handing the vines to a tenant farmer, and a 1587 contract requiring that tenant to keep watch overnight over the harvested fruit. A century later, a smallholding called 'Au Cheval-Blanc' was sold by Bertrand de Gombaud for 1,400 pounds.
The modern estate dates from 1832, when Jean-Jacques Ducasse, president of the court in Libourne, bought its core. Over the next 20 years he added plots bought from neighboring Château Figeac, then a vast property; one critic puts Figeac at 200 hectares at the time. The result was the vineyard of about 39 hectares that the estate says is practically unchanged today. From 1852 the wine, previously sold as wine of Figeac, carried the Cheval Blanc name.
What Ducasse assembled was unusual for Saint-Emilion: a site where gravel and clay sit side by side in roughly equal parts, which the estate calls 'a pure accident, but fundamental to its history.' Only a minor road, three to four meters wide, separates it from Pomerol, and one critic describes three distinct soils, clay on the Pomerol side and two kinds of gravel and sand. The estate farms the vineyard as 45 separate plots, though another account counts 44 parcels.
The families and the team behind it
Ducasse's daughter Henriette married a Libourne wine merchant, Jean Laussac-Fourcaud, and he modernized the estate. The estate credits him with understanding the importance of water stress for quality and with building covered drains in specific plots. From the mid-1860s he replanted with an atypical mix, half Merlot and half Cabernet Franc, completing the work in 1871. That bet on Cabernet Franc still defines the wine.
Medals followed: bronze at the 1862 Universal Exhibition in London, gold in Paris in 1878 and gold in Antwerp in 1886. The London and Paris medals still appear on the label. After Laussac-Fourcaud's death in 1888 the estate passed through his widow to his son Albert, who reversed the family name to Fourcaud-Laussac and installed twelve wooden vats used until 1966. One cellar master, Gaston Vaissière, worked there every day for 44 years. When Saint-Emilion's first classification was published in the 1950s, Cheval Blanc took the top rank, Premier Grand Cru Classé A. The estate dates that to 1954; a standard reference says the first list was published on June 16, 1955.
In autumn 1998 two friends and collectors, Bernard Arnault and Baron Albert Frère, bought the estate; one critic reports the price as about the equivalent of 135 million euros. Pierre Lurton had already been running it since 1991, after earlier work at his family's Clos Fourtet. Pierre-Olivier Clouet, recruited by Lurton as an intern in 2004, became technical director in 2008, and one of his first major projects was overseeing construction of a new cellar.
The 2010: a new cellar and a price that stung
The 2010 arrived in a year of change at the estate. A new winery designed by the architect Christian de Portzamparc was unveiled during the 2011 Vinexpo fair. It gave the team 52 temperature-controlled concrete vats in nine sizes, from 20 to 110 hectoliters, so that each parcel could be fermented on its own; the curved, conical vats were custom-designed and made at a factory near Venice. Two accounts date the cellar's completion to 2011; the estate's own history gives June 2021.
The release price made headlines. The estate offered the 2010 en primeur at 900 euros a bottle, 21.4% above the 2009's 700 euros, according to one critic's report from July 2011. A prominent London merchant told reporters the estate had got the price wrong and said he had sold only 40 cases, half of them to buyers in Hong Kong; another long-established London merchant declined to offer the wine at all.
The wine itself drew no such complaints. Tasting it from barrel in 2011, Jeff Leve called it 'close to perfection' and scored it 98-99; in bottle in July 2014 he gave it 99. In the Wine Advocate, Lisa Perrotti-Brown awarded 100 points, describing the palate as 'a full-on atomic bomb waiting to go off' and suggesting drinking from 2025 to 2075. Another Bordeaux critic gave it 100 after tasting it twice through April 2014, calling it 'liquid velvet or liquid silk, you choose.'
Sources disagree on the blend. The Wine Advocate review gives 54% Cabernet Franc and 46% Merlot, and a 2018 auction catalog note gives 55% and 45%. In a 2010 video interview, Pierre Lurton was summarized as saying the wine was 70% Cabernet Franc. Lurton called the vintage 'a fantastic surprise,' especially for Cabernet Franc, and compared its purity to the 1998.
In the market
Because a great Bordeaux vintage is a type rather than a single object, the 2010 trades bottle by bottle and case by case. In October 2026 a US retailer listed a single 750 ml bottle at $1,216.41, also quoting $7,298.46 for a six-bottle case. Another US merchant offered it in six-bottle cases at $9,540, or $1,590 a bottle. These are asking prices, not sales.
The vintage has also appeared in spectacular sets. A 2018 sale in Hong Kong offered a single lot of 2010 Cheval Blanc in every size from half-bottle to an 18-liter melchior, including a jeroboam, an imperial, a salmanazar, a balthazar and a nebuchadnezzar, with an estimate of HKD 1.1 million to 1.4 million for the lot. The catalog note, from a veteran taster, read: 'OMG! Freshness, eucalyptus and huge Cheval Blanc personality on the nose.'
Reading the bottle
A genuine 2010 grand vin carries the label 'Château Cheval Blanc' with the medals from London (1862) and Paris (1878) that the estate says still adorn it, and, for this vintage, the rank 'St. Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classé (A).' Labels dropped the 'Premier Cru Classé A' wording from the 2022 vintage, after the estate left the classification.
Do not confuse it with Le Petit Cheval, the estate's second wine, made since the 1988 vintage and also produced in 2010; one critic rated the 2010 Petit Cheval 93. One critic puts typical grand vin production at 8,000 to 10,000 cases a year and Petit Cheval at about 4,000. The estate also now makes a white, Petit Cheval Blanc, first presented in September 2016 with the 2014 vintage.
Outside the system, still at the top
Cheval Blanc's reputation rests on long memory. By the second half of the 19th century, the estate says, merchants treated it as an equal of the Médoc's first growths, and it 'brushed shoulders' with Margaux, Latour, Lafite and Haut-Brion at auction in Paris and London. One critic calls the 1947 what many experienced tasters consider the best Bordeaux of all time, and notes that both the 1929 and the 1947 reached 14.4% alcohol.
In July 2021 the estate made what it called 'the difficult decision' to remove itself from the Saint-Emilion classification, saying the criteria were no longer aligned with its principles of terroir, wine and history. Château Ausone withdrew the same day, and Château Angélus soon followed. The 2010 was bottled while Cheval Blanc still held the rank, so its label carries the 'Classé (A)' wording that vintages from 2022 onward do not.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- About 39 hectares per the estate; one critic gives 41
- Plots
- 45 per one critic; another counts 44 parcels
- Soils
- Gravel and clay in roughly equal parts, plus sand
- 2010 blend
- 54% Cabernet Franc, 46% Merlot (Wine Advocate); 55/45 in another source
- Typical production
- 8,000 to 10,000 cases of grand vin a year, per one critic; 2010 figure not published in the sources used
- Wine Advocate (Lisa Perrotti-Brown)
- 100, drink 2025-2075
- Jeff Leve
- 99 in bottle (2014); 98-99 from barrel
Timeline
Archives show the owner of the land passing the vineyards to a tenant farmer.
Jean-Jacques Ducasse, president of the Libourne court, buys the heart of the estate.
Wines formerly sold as Figeac are sold for the first time under the Cheval Blanc name.
Cheval Blanc wins a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition in London, still shown on the label.
Jean Laussac-Fourcaud completes the replanting to half Merlot, half Cabernet Franc.
A gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.
Laussac-Fourcaud dies; the estate passes to his widow, then to their son Albert.
Cheval Blanc is ranked Premier Grand Cru Classé A in Saint-Emilion's first classification, per the estate (a standard reference dates the first list to 1955).
The second wine, Le Petit Cheval, makes its debut.
Pierre Lurton takes over management; no grand vin is made that year.
Bernard Arnault and Baron Albert Frère buy the estate in the autumn.
Pierre-Olivier Clouet becomes technical director.
The 2010 vintage is harvested and vinified.
The new Portzamparc winery is unveiled during Vinexpo, and the 2010 is released en primeur at 900 euros a bottle.
Jeff Leve scores the bottled 2010 at 99 points.
A lot of 2010 Cheval Blanc in every format from half-bottle to melchior is offered in Hong Kong.
Cheval Blanc withdraws from the Saint-Emilion classification.
Starting with this vintage, labels no longer state Premier Grand Cru Classé A.
The world in 2010
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastates Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
A magnitude 8.8 earthquake strikes Chile, one of the largest in recorded history.
The first iPad goes on sale.
Ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull eruption begins disrupting air travel across Europe.
The Deepwater Horizon rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and starting a massive oil spill.
The eurozone and the IMF agree on a 110-billion-euro bailout for Greece.
Spain wins the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Instagram launches publicly.
Daily price data
FLOAT reprices this wine every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | $1,216 | Asking price, not a saleSingle 750 ml bottle listed by a US retailer at $1,216.41. Not a sale. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Chateau Cheval Blanc 2010 is number 37 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (32 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- In 1991 yields at Cheval Blanc fell to just 7 hectoliters per hectare, and no grand vin was made at all.
- When Pierre Lurton was hired in 1991, the owners suggested he change his name, since 'Lurton' was tied to a rival estate and many other châteaux.
- The 2010's curvy concrete vats were custom-designed by architect Christian de Portzamparc and made at a factory near Venice.
- A single cellar master, Gaston Vaissière, worked at Cheval Blanc every day for 44 years.
- The 1862 bronze medal from the London Universal Exhibition still appears on Cheval Blanc's label.
- In 2015, for the first time, Cheval Blanc made no second wine; what did not go into the grand vin was sold in bulk.
- Both the legendary 1947 and the 1929 Cheval Blanc reached 14.4% alcohol.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026