Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is pure Sémillon, with gorgeous hints of orange as well as riper yellow fruits. It is a precise wine, pointed beautifully with highlights of crisp apple and acidity. Barrel Sample: 93-95
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Decanter
A clear step up from some of the other wines in the tasting where ripe pear and lemon meringue aromas and flavours enchant. The wine is neither bitter nor varietal, exuding impressive density on the mid palate, leading to a long finish marked by white stone fruit and lift. It integrates the oak derived notes (40% new oak aging) very well. While the 2014 may show better grip and tension, this vintage illustrates how white Pessac-Léognan can succeed in a warmer vintage. An excellent price/quality ratio here. Try with cheese or fish. Drinking Window 2020 - 2026
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Jeb Dunnuck
While I had an off bottle of the red, the 2015 Château de Franc Blanc is certainly well worth tasting and shows the strength of the whites from the Graves region in 2015. This ripe, caramelized, citrus and grapefruit scented beauty boasts lots of minerality, a ripe, concentrated texture, good acidity, and a clean finish. I’d happily drink bottles over the coming 3-4 years, and wouldn’t be surprised to see it keep longer.
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Wine Spectator
This has focus and intensity, with taut edges keeping the core of straw, white peach, star fruit and gooseberry notes moving through. Light salted butter, chalk and verbena accents linger on the finish. Drink now through 2021.
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.