2025, Château Les Carmes Haut Brion, PESSAC-LÉOGNAN, Grand Vin de Graves

This is the closest vineyard to the city of Bordeaux and is a "clos" - surrounded by a stone wall as in Burgundy. Consequently they never suffer frost here and bud burst and flowering are regularly ahead of everyone else. It has a stunning boat-shaped winery designed by Philippe Starck. This unique château is producing wines of first growth quality.

54% Cabernet Franc, 29% Cabernet Sauvignon and 17% Merlot.

The precision is so seductive and intellectual, with aromas of fresh flowers, iron, graphite, cedar, blood oranges and black fruit. It's medium-bodied with a compact palate of intense tannins that melt into the wine. Rather weightless in nature. It kicks in at the end with incredible intensity and focus.
99-100 James Suckling.

The 2025 Les Carmes Haut-Brion reveals a complex, harmonious bouquet of pomegranate, iris and peony, intertwined with cassis, mulberries and dark berries. Medium to full-bodied, dense and structured, it’s deep and layered, its concentrated core of fruit framed by velvety structuring tannins, concluding with a long, mineral-inflected finish. Combining tension with an ethereal profile, it delivers remarkable clarity, freshness and elegance. While slightly more overtly structured at this stage than the prodigious 2022, it remains impeccably balanced.
95-98 Yohan Castaing, Wine Advocate.

Les Carmes Haut-Brion is totally beautiful. Sleek, grilled campfire, a ton of momentum and there is a spherical feel through the mid palate, expanding and deepening the fruit flavours. High floral as you would expect, a crush of peony, iris, violet right on the first nose, chalky and slate edge to the tannins, full of energy. 70% new oak. This is highest level of Cabernet Franc to date. 2035-2055.
96 Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux.