Bordeaux 2022 at Two Years: Pessac-Léognan, Red
After a long day traipsing up and down the Médoc peninsula I retired to a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux, in readiness for my Pessac-Léognan tastings. The location was ideal, as it was situated just a few minutes drive from Les Carmes Haut-Brion, which was my first appointment the following morning.
Well, it should have been a few minutes drive.
In Bordeaux ‘rush hour’ is a somewhat ironic term, as there is often not that much ‘rushing’. As I left my hotel the following morning the city was still in darkness, the street lights flickering only dimly in a torrential rain shower. Nudging my little hire car into the morning procession I crawled at an escargot’s pace, and with every change of the distant traffic lights from red to green I crept forward no more than a few metres before they reverted to red. I felt both envy and pity for the cyclists who sailed past, circumventing the jam; envy as they would soon arrive at their destination, probably while I was still creeping towards these lights. Pity because most of them seemed ill-equipped for the rain; the majority would arrive at their workplaces soaked to the skin.
Eventually I made it through the lights. The rain began to ease off, and the gloom lifted a little, the latter coinciding with my arrival at Les Carmes Haut-Brion. Here I had my first appointment of the day, starting at 08:30 am. It was an opportunity to revisit this wine, now in bottle, but which garnered such praise when tasted as a barrel sample at the primeurs, back in early 2023. After this tasting I nipped next-door, to La Mission Haut-Brion, where I tasted all the Clarence Dillon wines including Haut-Brion, both whites and reds, grands vins and deuxièmes vins.
I then continued south, heading out of the suburbs (always a relief) to knock on the cellar doors at Brown, Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Haut-Bailly, Domaine de Chevalier and one or two others along the way. In fact I headed so far south I ended up at Climens, which is a pretty good place to end up on any day. But I will save that encounter for my Sauternes report; here let’s focus on the reds of Pessac-Léognan and Graves. It will probably come as no surprise that in this superb vintage, the Pessac-Léognan appellation has turned out some superb wines.
