Lynch-Bages, GPL - plus Branaire, Talbot, Labegorce etc, Le Prieure, Grand Mayne
It has been a busy day for Bordeaux, with two top Pauillac properties releasing back-to-back. Both are classically-styled, powerful, but never over the top. Lynch-Bages has been owned by the Cazes family since the 1930s, and the Cazes play the long game, with generations of work and investment pushing Lynch into the top league. This is the second vintage made in their huge new cellar, where 80 gravity-fed tanks enable a more precise, parcel-by-parcel approach to vinification. Grand-Puy-Lacoste is the only chateau in Pauillac unchanged in size and location since the 1855 classification. Over the last 40 years, Francois-Xavier Borie has brought this much-loved chateau into the modern era while keeping winemaking on the right side of traditional.
But those two are far from the only recent releases. Branaire-Ducru was one of the highlights of our recent trip, and the 2021 is a beautiful, balanced wine achieved in complete defiance of all the vintage’s challenges. Also from St-Julien, this morning has brought Talbot. Under the guiding hand of Jean-Michel Laporte (ex of Conseillante) this once reliable but unexciting property has in recent vintages been proving how good its terroir really is. From Margaux we have had the Perrodo family wines: third-growth Marquis d`Alesme, sleek Labegorce, and their most recent acquisition Tour de Mons, where Neal Martin praises the ‘filigree tannins’.
The action hasn’t all been on the left-bank. Across the water in St-Emilion, yesterday brought us Le Prieure. Recently welcomed into the exclusive Calon-Segur stable, this is in the words of Jane Anson, 'one to watch, without a doubt'. And this morning also brought Jean-Antoine Nony’s structured, stylish Grand Mayne; it perfectly encapsulates the vintage mantra of ‘elegance without excess’. /NT
