2022, Château Haut-Batailley, PAUILLAC, 5ème Grand Cru Classé

Bordeaux Blend: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot.

This 5th growth property was sold to the Cazes family of neighbouring Lynch Bages in March 2017. Quality has jumped under the new ownership and there is a stylish new label. The vines are extremely well situated, bordering those of Lynch Bages, Les Forts de Latour and Pichon Lalande. 2022 is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot.

The 2022 Haut-Batailley has a very intense and almost untamed bouquet that explodes from the glass, and only after five or ten minutes does it begin to show some restraint. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy, fresh and multi-layered tannins, not dissimilar to the Mouton-Rothschild that I tasted a couple of hours earlier. With a satin-textured finish, this will need a decade in the cellar and some taming during élevage. Like a young tiger at the moment. 93-95 Neal Martin, Vinous.

Classy and very focused with blackberry and blackcurrant character. The tannins nicely melt into the wine with finesse and weightlessness. Elegant. 94-95 James Suckling.

Sculpted plum and raspberry puree fruits, fresh lift through the palate, this is a lovely wine that has intense liquorice and bilberry fruit, a little austere in its tannic structure on the finish, more so than in recent vintages at this sculpted fruit-forward Pauillac, but there is great spice here, and has the phenolic richness and density of the year. 93 Jane Anson, Decanter.

Drinking Window: 2033 - 2070