Winemaker Notes
Blend: 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This is an earthy and spicy wine with meat and wet earth character. Medium to full body, fresh acidity and a savory finish. Velvety tannins. Why wait? But better in two or three years.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted blind at the Southwold 2012 tasting, the 2012 Larrivet Haut-Brion displayed a muted, earthy and leathery bouquet that fortunately gained intensity in the glass, the red berry fruit running to catch up with expectations. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin and well-judged acidity. It feels quite fresh in the mouth and though it might lack some persistence, there is sufficient balance and charm to ensure this will give a decade's worth of drinking pleasure. Tasted January 2016.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This is firmly structured while still keeping plenty of fruit. Juicy black currants are balanced by some dusty tannins. It's an attractive, rich and concentrated wine that will develop well and over the medium-term. Drink from 2017.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
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.