Winemaker Notes
Blend: 80% Sauvignon Blanc, 20% Sémillon
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
With an intense citrus flavor, spiced with toast from wood aging, the wine has a tropical-fruit aroma. A majority of Sauvignon Blanc in the blend, gives the intense wine layers of citrus and pineapple, spice, apricot and peach flavors.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
James Suckling
Wow. This is a really powerful white with aromas of sliced apples, pears, yellow fruit and oyster shells. It shows undertones of vanilla and pie crust. Full-bodied and layered, with excellent depth, power and intensity.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Clean stone fruits, spicy wood, and honeyed white flower notes, as well as a kiss of clean reduction, all define the 2023 Château Malartic-Lagravière Blanc, which is always a classy white from this estate that’s worth attention. It's medium-bodied on the palate, with rock-solid depth and density, nicely integrated acidity, and a distinct sense of minerality on the finish. It's a beautiful, layered, textured white to enjoy any time over the coming decade or more.
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Wine Spectator
ière Pessac- Léognan White 2023 | $76 Lovely aromas and flavors of white ginger, jasmine and lemon curd flow through, with a brushstroke of salted butter car- rying the finish. Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Livelier and more harmonious than it appeared at the en primeur stage, the 2023 Blanc from Malartic Lagravière reveals aromas of herbs, white flowers, confit citrus and kumquat. Medium-bodied, juicy and tensile, it is precise and well-defined, structured around a lively core of fruit and concludes with a bright, citrus-inflected finish. Readers drawn to incisive, classically proportioned dry white Bordeaux will find this rendition particularly compelling.
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.