Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a polished and attractive nose of cedar, kumquats, spiced pears and toffee apples. Creamy and deliciously spicy with a medium to full body. Everything in balance. Long, classy and delicious. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
This white wine is rounded and rich, with spice as well as mineral tightness. Still young, its creamy character shows the future direction of its development. Drink the wine from 2025.
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Decanter
Toasty notes, caramel, vanilla and apricot on the nose with a slight yellow-golden colour to the wine suggesting its seen oak and is a little stronger in profile than some of the other whites. Fleshy and full with stone fruit nuances on the palate alongside some evident wood aspects but held together with acidity. A touch of buttery sweetness gives weight with peach and citrus giving the lift. Confident and characterful.
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Wine Spectator
A plump and forward version, with salted butter and shortbread notes adding a caressing edge underneath Meyer lemon, white peach and honeysuckle notes. Crowd-pleasing in style. Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.
Sometimes light and crisp, other times rich and creamy, Bordeaux White Blends typically consist of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. Often, a small amount of Muscadelle or Sauvignon Gris is included for added intrigue. Popularized in Bordeaux, the blend is often mimicked throughout the New World. Somm Secret—Sauternes and Barsac are usually reserved for dessert, but they can be served before, during or after a meal. Try these sweet wines as an aperitif with jamón ibérico, oysters with a spicy mignonette or during dinner alongside hearty Alsatian sausage.
Recognized for its superior reds as well as whites, Pessac-Léognan on the Left Bank claims classified growths for both—making it quite unique in comparison to its neighboring Médoc properties.
Pessac’s Chateau Haut-Brion, the only first growth located outside of the Médoc, is said to have been the first to conceptualize fine red wine in Bordeaux back in the late 1600s. The estate, along with its high-esteemed neighbors, La Mission Haut-Brion, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pique-Caillou and Chateau Pape-Clément are today all but enveloped by the city of Bordeaux. The rest of the vineyards of Pessac-Léognan are in clearings of heavily forested area or abutting dense suburbs.
Arid sand and gravel on top of clay and limestone make the area unique and conducive to growing Sémillon and Sauvignon blanc as well as the grapes in the usual Left Bank red recipe: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and miniscule percentages of Petit Verdot and Malbec.
The best reds will show great force and finesse with inky blue and black fruit, mushroom, forest, tobacco, iodine and a smooth and intriguing texture.
Its best whites show complexity, longevity and no lack of exotic twists on citrus, tropical and stone fruit with pronounced floral and spice characteristics.