Winemaker Notes
The Blanc de Lynch-Bages 2017 is a pale-yellow colour with green hues and has a particularly expressive nose. The wine delivers lovely liveliness on the palate, offering complex aromas of peach and white fruit with exotic notes. It stands out for its freshness, characteristic of the vintage.
Blend: 40% Sauvignon Blanc, 41% Sémillon, 19% Muscadelle
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Lots of spiced pears and lemon rind with lemon-grass and stone undertones. Gun flint. Full body and dense, creamy texture. Phenolic. Pure with lively acidity. Really lively at the end! A blend of 41% semillon, 40% sauvignon blanc and 19% muscadelle. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
Utterly gorgeous freshness and zip, with intensity of flavour. It has a little more Sémillon than usual, due to frost affect the Sauvignon Blanc, which seems to mean the aromatics of the Muscadelle are a little more prominent than a classic Lynch Bages Blanc, adding a white flower honeysuckle lift. It is beautiful and works within the cascade of flavours, although I miss their more classic blend - they probably do too, to be fair. Already bottled. 45% new oak. Harvested 4 September to 8 September.
Barrel Sample -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Blanc de Lynch Bages, already bottled, is a blend of 41% Sémillon, 40% Sauvignon Blanc and 19% Muscadelle. It leaps from the glass with exuberant notes of white peaches, pink grapefruit and passion fruit plus hints of dried herbs, cedar and honeysuckle. Medium-bodied, elegantly played and wonderfully refreshing in the mouth, it has a quiet intensity that grows into a vibrant expression on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Peach, white ginger, jasmine and quince notes mingle in this juicy, offbeat white. Streaks of honeysuckle and orange blossom show on the finish. Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle. Drink now through 2023.
The grapes are all hand picked and then carefully sorted before crushing. A very strict selection is made prior to blending and the wine is traditionally aged in oak barrels before bottling.
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.
One of the most important wine regions of the world, Bordeaux is a powerhouse producer of wines of all colors, sweetness levels, and price points. Separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a coastal pine forest, this relatively flat region has a mild maritime climate, marked by cool wet winters and warm summers. Annual weather differences create significant vintage variations, making Bordeaux an exciting French wine region to follow.
The Gironde estuary, a defining feature of Bordeaux, separates most of the region into the Left Bank and the Right Bank. Farther inland, where the Gironde splits into the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers, the bucolic, rolling hills of the area in between, called Entre-Deux-Mers, is a source of great quality, approachable reds and whites.
The Left Bank, dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, contains the Médoc, Graves, and Sauternes, as well as the region’s most famous chateaux. Merlot is important here as the perfect blending grape for Cabernet Sauvignon adding plush fruit and softening Cabernet's sometimes hefty tannins. Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec may also be used in the Left Bank Bordeaux wine blends.
Merlot is the principal Bordeaux wine variety of the Right Bank; Cabernet Franc adds structure and complexity to Merlot, creating wines that are concentrated, supple, and more imminently ready for drinking, compared with their Left Bank counterparts. Key appellations of the Right Bank include St. Emilion and Pomerol.
Dry and sweet Bordeaux white wines are produced throughout the region from Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and sometimes Muscadelle or Sauvignon Gris. Some of the finest dry whites can be found in the Graves sub-appellation of Pessac-Léognan, while Sauternes is undisputedly the gold standard for sweet wines. Small amounts of rosé and sparkling Bordeaux wines are made in the region as well.