Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Château Hosanna is up there with the crème de la crème of the appellation and is a true gem. Awesome cassis, candied violets, truffle, chocolate, and underbrush-like notes define the bouquet, and it's full-bodied, with a seamless, silky texture, ultra-fine tannins, and a rock star of a finish. This is another magical Pomerol from the Moueix family that you couldn't have enough of.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
Wine Enthusiast
Tightly textured, this is a wine whose future is assured. With intense white fruits, spice and touches of toast from the wood aging, the wine's concentration and taut character combine richness and structure.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
James Suckling
Lots of sliced cooked apple, pear, flint, and matchstick aromas. Full-bodied and dense, yet agile and bright. Rich HB white with lemon curd. Oily and slightly heavy but comes through energetic at the end. 72% sauvignon and 28% semillon. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
Grippy fresh, green-tinged flavors, a little more evident than in the Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, here you get more angular acidities, and yet it works. Sauvignon-dominant flavors and aromatics of rosemary, mint, turmeric, lime blossom and steely citrus. Excellent persistency and a deliciously mouthwatering finish.
Barrel Sample: 96 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Haut-Brion Blanc also exhibits a deft touch of youthful reduction, unwinding in the glass to offer up aromas of nectarine, peach, grapefruit and Sauvignon botanicals, followed by a full-bodied, broad and fleshy palate that's layered and integrated, concluding with a delicately oak-inflected finish. This, too, has turned out nicely. Best After 2023
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.