Winemaker Notes
Sustainable and organic practices
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Delicious mix of blackcurrants, cherries and chocolate with hints of graphite and smoked meat. Tight, medium body and layers of polished tannins. It’s round, creamy and long-lasting with a crushed-rock note at the end.
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Wine Enthusiast
This vineyard, now surrounded by the Bordeaux suburbs, is producing some fine classic wines. This vintage in its youth is lightly stalky, with a smoky character that comes from wood aging. Its potential is fine, softening, highlighting the black-currant flavors and tannins.
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Wine Spectator
Delivers a light grilled savory edge that adds energy to the mix of steeped red currant and blackberry fruit, ending with a sanguine echo on the finish. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2028.
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.