Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Juicy and fine-grained, with racy, ripe strawberries, lightly baked currants and a touch of asphalt and roasted spices. Tight and nicely chewy, with medium body and lots of almost dusty tannins. Firm, fruit-forward finish. A blend of 55% merlot, 43% cabernet sauvignon and 2% cabernet franc.
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Decanter
Ripe plums and black cherries on the nose, really quite intense and bright. Vibrant but rich too. A lot of high acidity, really quite prominent, verging on sharp, but lifts the expression and gives a real edge to the red fruits on the palate. Sleek, well defined, but this also has some chew and flesh as well as bite. It’s a little high toned, but actually once it’s settles it’ll be lovely for sooner drinking. Bright, young, buzzy and easy.
Barrel Sample: 92 -
Jeb Dunnuck
Graphite, tobacco, spicy herbs, and both red and black fruits all emerge from the 2023 Echo De Lynch-Bages, a medium to full-bodied second wine that has plenty of tannins, good balance, and outstanding length. The tannins aren't as polished as the Grand Vin, but this has real character.
Barrel Sample: 90-92 -
Vinous
The 2023 Echo de Lynch-Bages is a potent second wine. It’s really the Cabernets that drive the wine's flavor profile and overall feel. The Echo is not as juicy or succulent as it can be, rather it is a wine that will need a year or two post-release to show at its best. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 90-92 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Notes of cassis, dark berries, cedar and spice box introduce the 2023 Echo de Lynch-Bages, a medium- to full-bodied wine that is layered and structured, offering good depth at the core and concluding with a somewhat firm, spicy finish. Despite its rather classic, gently earthy profile, it is already approachable.
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.
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.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.