Bordeaux 2018: Pessac-Léognan

In this great if heterogeneous vintage, Pessac-Léognan has produced more than its fair share of the greatness while contributing less than its share of the heterogeneity. It deserves more attention than it typically receives.

Smith Haut-Laffite (Photo: Colin Hay)

When it comes to the Left Bank we typically think first and foremost of the classed growths of the Médoc and their famous classification system of 1855. The wines of the Graves (with a classification system only introduced in 1953) and of Pessac-Léognan (in which all of its classed growth are located but which only came into existence as an appellation in 1987) are often overlooked. This is unfortunate at the best of times. But in 2018 it is a particularly egregious omission. For in this heterogeneous but potentially great vintage Pessac-Léognan is more homogeneous as an appellation than most and it certainly has its fair share of the greatness.

In what follows I seek to give these wines some of the attention that I think their quality warrants – first in the most general terms and then in a little more detail.

As with my portraits of the Médoc and the right-bank before, it is useful to start with data on average vineyard yields. Here, to aid comparison, I present the figures for Pessac-Léognan alongside the averages for the the principal appellations of the Médoc (Margaux, St Julien, Pauillac and St Estèphe) and the Right Bank (Pomerol and St Emilion).

The picture that emerges is already striking. Yields in Pessac-Léognan in 2018 were among the lowest of the appellation. Only Pomerol (with an average yield in 2018 of 36.2 hl/ha) suffered more. In fact, even that is potentially misleading. For expressed as a percentage of average yield over the preceding decade, Pessac-Léognan’s yield in 2018 was lower than any of the Left or Right Bank appellations bar one – Pauillac.

In short, 2018 was not easy; and it was particularly tricky in the northern Graves. Many of the factors for this are likely by now to be familiar in that they are shared with the other leading appellations– the spread of downy mildew in the first half of the summer; evaporation, hydric stress and the resulting concentration of the grapes on the vine in September; and (if much less significantly and only in some vineyards) the legacy of frost damage in 2017. But to these, as in some parts of the southern Médoc (Haut-Médoc and Margaux), we can add a fourth – hail.

On 26 May a significant part of the appellation was hit by the band of hail storms that extended south from Blaye and Bourg through parts of Margaux and the southern Médoc to Bordeaux itself and on further south to Pessac-Léognan. In the space of an hour significant damage was caused in certain vineyards.

Take Carmes Haut-Brion for instance. Here there are, in effect, two wines from two completely different terroirs. Carmes Haut-Brion itself comes from the commune of Pessac. It was untouched by hail and the final yield was 37 hl/ha – very close to the appellation average. But 12 kilometres to the south, in the commune of Léognan, in the former vineyard of Le Thil from which Le C de Carmes Haut-Brion comes, there was considerable hail damage. The final yield here was a rather more meagre 25 hl/ha.

De Fieuzal, a further six kilometres to the south and west, was suffering a similar – and not entirely unfamiliar – fate. In 2016 it lost a significant proportion of its potential production to hail; in 2017 it lost the entire crop (in both red and white) to frost; and in 2018 it suffered, once again, significant hail damage. Stephen Carrier was philosophical – and he has made two excellent wines; but there is not a great deal of either. The final yield for the red is a parsimonious 24 hl/ha.

It is difficult, of course, to look for the proverbial silver lining in the dark storm cloud. But in a sense things could have been worse – and Pessac-Léognan might even be said to have been spared to some extent. There are two factors at play here. The first is that, for those who suffered it, the hail damage reduced quantity but not quality. And the second is that in Pessac-Léognan more than perhaps in any other leading appellation, the mildew that spread like wildfire through the vineyards hit the grapes much more than it did the foliage. This was certainly not the case in much of the Médoc.

That might not sound like good news; but it was. For although mildew-impacted fruit needs to be removed, and removed carefully, its removal causes no damage to an otherwise perfectly healthy plant. Indeed, the effect is much like an (albeit early and severe) green harvest – it encourages the concentration of terroir notes in the remaining fruit.

Mildew impacting the foliage is another matter altogether. For this also has to be removed and, crucially, that damages the capacity of the plant to ripen fully whatever fruit remains. Arguably, then, it was more possible in Pessac-Léognan than in Margaux, for instance, to make a great wine with significantly reduced yields. That is undoubtedly one of the (unappreciated) secrets of the appellation’s comparative success in 2018.

This also helps to explain another intriguing factor. For, as in Pomerol, but not many other leading appellations, the climatic characteristics of the vintage seem in Pessac-Léognan to have accentuated rather than suppressed the terroir notes in the very best wines.

In St Emilion, Margaux and even Pauillac, it was sometimes difficult to tell wines apart. But in Pessac-Léognan, I was consistently struck in each leading property by the signature of a different and singular fruit profile. This, to be fair, is a product of wine-making just as much as it is of weather. The concentration of mildew on the grapes and not on the leaves certainly played a role. But as Guillaume Pouthier explained to us at Carmes Haut-Brion, this is a vintage in which wine-makers had the capacity to make very different wines, depending on the choices they made.

When it came to picking, in particular, their hands were not tied in any way by the weather conditions. It is a vintage, then, in which choices made in the vineyard and, afterwards, during vinification are very much on display. But although styles certainly vary, most of the leading crus seem to have gotten those choices right if my two recent visits to the appellation are representative.

So what of the wines themselves?

In the search for the qualitative heights it is impossible not to start with Haut-Brion and its (far from identical) twin and sometime rival, La Mission Haut-Brion. Both are exceptional, though very different, and one would rather not have to choose between them.

La Mission Haut-Brion (53% Merlot; 43% Cabernet Sauvignon; 4% Cabernet Franc) is remarkably open and attractive, seemingly just a little darker in colour and a little more accessible at this formative stage than its twin. It is beautifully limpid in the glass and that gloss and sheen is immediately present on the palate too. One knows one is in the presence of very serious tannins – but they are at first imperceptible other than in their contribution to the wondrously soft and supple mouthfeel. But towards the long and composed finish they start to crumble and roll on the tongue releasing little waves of sappy pure griotte and red cherry fruit. This is very complete, very composed and very integrated with a very gathered and precise finish.

Haut-Brion (49% Merlot; 39% Cabernet Sauvigon; 12% Cabernet Franc) is, as it so often is, remarkable. It is more obviously grand, more restrained and held-back, less immediately accessible but at the same time gloriously cool, composed and brimming with potential. It is sombre, yet lithe and energetic too. Here we find dark black cherries and raspberries enwrapped in a rich graphite minerality and a deep, spicy, peppery finish elongated by powdery, chewy tannins and the signature juniper and smoky notes of this extraordinary terroir. Needless to say, it has 50 years of evolution ahead of it. The potential for this wine is staggering.

Scarcely less staggering, in its own distinctive way, is Domaine de Chevalier (65% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot). This is, for me, quite simply the best Domaine de Chevalier that I have ever tasted and, Haut-Brion and La Mission excepting, the wine of the appellation in 2018. It is wonderfully layered and complex, rich, full and opulent and yet extraordinarily focussed and multi-dimensional. Its fruit and mineral signature sings of the Chevalier’s DNA. We find cherries and cassis, with little picquant notes of redcurrant too; there is a spicy pepperiness, hints of tobacco smoke and just a touch of vanilla. But above all this wine is characterised by its remarkable purity and freshness – a product of managing to hold the alcohol level to an impressively low 13.8 degrees.

Haut-Bailly (55% Cabernet Sauvignon; 35% Merlot; 5% Petit Verdot; 5% Cabernet Franc) has also produced a great wine in this vintage, better in my view even than the fabulous 2015 and pushing the wondrous 2010 in terms of quality. It has over half a degree more alcohol than Domaine de Chevalier (at 14.4% – just exceeding the 2010’s already considerable 14.3%) but it is imperceptible because of the beautiful purity, precision and focussed freshness of this wine. The personality of Haut-Bailly in 2018 comes from the crispness of its fruit (cassis, blackberry and brambles), its filigree tannins, its graphite minerality and the delightful notes of liquorice root, cinnamon and nutmeg spice. It is elegant, stylish, poised and singularly balanced. Haut-Bailly is, as Veronique Sanders put it to us (in the words of Jean de la Fontaine), “tous, mais rien de trop” (everything, but not too much of anything).

No less pure and no less precise is the extraordinary Les Carmes Haut-Brion (37% Cabernet Franc; 34% Cabernet Sauvignon; 29% Merlot). In 2018 this is a fabulous wine and wonderful testimony to the skill and craft of its deeply accomplished wine-maker, Guillaume Pouthier. This is another serious contender for wine of the appellation and, like Domaine de Chevalier, simply the best wine I have ever tasted from this property. Here, though, this comes in part from an ongoing progression in the technical craft of the wine-making itself. This is a vintage in which the whole berry (100%) and whole-bunch (53%) vinification practiced here in recent years really, really pays off. Like Domaine de Chevalier again, this is ‘only’ 13.75% alcohol. This, in combination with a pH of 3.61 (most wines in the appellation have a pH of 3.8 or above) really helps to lock-in the freshness of the fruit. The wine is a beautiful limpid purplish blue in the glass, seemingly a visual reflection of the seamless purity of its crystalline blueberry fruit. There is a lovely vein of graphite minerality allied with an almost ferrous salinity that is one of the signatures for me of this distinct terroir. The finish is long, gathered and composed with ripples of croquant fruit releasing little injections of juicy acidity onto the palate. This is one of the most energetic and lively wines of the vintage and it is unlike any other wine in the appellation – a reflection both of its unusual encépagement and the singular character of the wine-making here.

Smith Haut-Laffite (60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 34% Merlot; 4% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot) is very different stylistically, but very good too. The alcohol level here is three quarters of a degree higher than at Les Carmes Haut-Brion (at 14.5%) and there is just a hint of its presence on the finish. But this too is a remarkably fresh wine in the context of the vintage and there are subtle changes in the wine-making style here, with less obvious oak influence at this stage and a greater emphasis on precision and purity. The wine is big and punchy, as ever, but clean, crisp, fresh and stylish. There are characteristic notes of unsmoked tobacco and a touch of pepper to accompany the cherry and blackberry fruit.

Pape-Clément (66% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Merlot; 4% Cabernet Franc) is also undergoing a slight change in style. Here too there is less obvious oak presence and the extraction in 2018 is particularly gentle. The wine is serious, slightly sombre, elegant and accomplished. One finds fruits of the forest, cinnamon and five spice and a generous tobacco smokiness. It has a lovely lithe tension and is perhaps more obviously characteristic of the appellation than it has been in recent vintages. It is purer, a little leaner and more focussed and precise. Like Smith I have a sense that a new style is still in the process of emerging and that the 2018 is defined more by the idea of what it does not want to be than it is by a clear sense of what it is seeking to become. But this is a very fine and very composed wine nonetheless. It is very true to the appellation and it deserves to do well.

If Smith and Pape Clément are both in the midst of a stylistic evolution, that is not the case at de Fieuzal (55% Cabernet Sauvignon; 30% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; 5% Petit Verdot). Here the style has been well-honed, if subtly tweaked, over a number of years and in 2018, for me at least, it produces its greatest rewards to date. Though, at a final yield of 24 hl/ha, there is rather less of it than they were clearly hoping, the wine itself is fabulous. It is bold and ambitious and might not be to everyone’s taste. But I, for one, love the energy and focus of this wine. It has a very pure blackcurrant and red and black cherry fruit and gloriously svelte tannins. It is polished and subtly spicy, with a touch of fragrant sweet cinnamon and nutmeg and a gently saline note which accentuates the long fresh finish. It is attention-grabbing in all the right ways. After three rather trying vintages, to say the least, Stephen Carrier deserves very great credit for this exciting and distinctive wine.

Bouscaut (approximately 60% Merlot; 35% Cabernet Sauvigon; 5% Malbec) is, of course, much better known for its (excellent) white wine. But in 2018 its red is most definitely worth the detour. There has been considerable progress here in recent vintages. But the 2018 takes Bouscaut to new qualitative heights. There is composed and accomplished wine-making here and the quality of the old-vine Merlot, on the little argilo-calcaire heights around the chateau itself, bring a certain singularity to this wine. The mouthfeel is soft and gentle, the tannins are velvety and the overall balance is exquisite. This is precise, tobacco-tinged and refined and it leaves one with the lovely sensation of chewing on grape-skins.

Finally we come to Latour-Martillac (60% Cabernet Sauvignon; 32% Merlot; 8% Petit Verdot). This is very much an up-and-coming property. The 2019 will be made in a brand new state-of-the-art gravity-fed wine-making facility allowing for more fine-grained and precise parcel-by-parcel vinification. But the pronounced upward trajectory in recent vintages is already very clear; and 2018 continues the trend. This will surely turn out to be one of the best value releases of the vintage. It is deep, intense and nicely concentrated and the bramble and dark berry fruit sits very elegantly alongside a cool dark graphite minerality. It lacks the layered complexity of the very best wines of the appellation and the alcohol level (at 14.7 degrees) is just a little alarming; but this is very much a property on the rise.

And what of the whites?

Bouscaut (Photo: Colin Hay)

2018 is not, for the most part, a great white-wine vintage. Sémillon, in particular, suffered in the long hot Indian summer, imparting a certain limp, fat, flabbiness to many wines throughout the region. However, there are exceptions and the great majority of those exceptions are to be found in Pessac-Léognan. Let me conclude by identifying just a few.

Haut-Brion (81% Sauvignon Blanc; 19% Sémillon). The selection here was very severe indeed, and there is a lot less Sémillon in the final blend than is usual. The wine really benefits from that. But, partly as a consequence, this is very distinctive with a rather singular fruit profile. It is rich, oily in the mid-palate and exotic, with tropical fruit notes – guava, passion fruit and mango – alongside grapefruit, spices, lanolin and even root ginger. The wine is beautifully crisp and fresh and, in the context of the vintage, it is a complete success. But it is not perhaps everyone’s idea of Haut-Brion blanc.

La Mission Haut-Brion (57% Sauvignon Blanc; 43% Sémillon), by contrast, is somewhat more traditional in both composition and fruit profile. But 2018, for me, is not a particularly great example of this singular terroir. The wine is rich, powerful and fleshy. The fruit is crisp and pure – grapefruit, lemon and lime cordial, with a touch of gooseberry too. But, for me at least, there is just not quite enough acidity to balance the power and oily richness of the mid-palate.

In the context of the vintage, Domaine de Chevalier (75% Sauvignon Blanc; 25% Sémillon) has made another extraordinary wine. This may not be the best Chevalier blanc ever, but that it comes close to achieving that feat is remarkable given the inherent difficulties of the vintage. It is, I think, my white wine of the vintage – and that is quite an accomplishment. It is ethereal in a way that no other wine quite achieves in 2018. It is rich and opulent, but it is strikingly fresh and it has a glorious natural acidity, giving it a remarkable tension. There is orange blossom, grapefruit, mango, passion fruit, eucalyptus and passion flower with just a touch of fleur de sel and on the exquisite, long aerial finish there is a lovely citrus-pulp freshness that brings the palate together in a crescendo of sappy fruitiness. This massively exceeds all expectations.

Smith Haut-Laffite (90% Sauvignon Blanc; 5% Sémillon; 5% Sauvignon Gris) is also very impressive in the context of a challenging vintage. There is only 5% Semillon in the final blend here and yet we have a wine that is very characteristic of both the appellation and Smith itself. It would not, I think, be difficult to pick this in a blind tasting, though it might be more difficult to pick the vintage. This, too, is rich and generous and it unfolds slowly across the palate with just enough acidity to keep everything in balance. The fruit profile is again dominated by grapefruit, with hints of ginger and white flowers and a gentle spiciness. It is long, juicy, sappy and, above all, fresh.

Pape-Clément (57% Sauvignon Blanc; 39% Sémillon; 4% Muscadelle), too, impresses, particularly when one considers that there is 39% Sémillon in the final blend here. This is unapologetically big, fat, rich and plump, with the same combination of tropical and citrus fruits that characterises the vintage. There is a delightful flinty note of minerality, too, even a hint of struck-matches and jasmine. But this is all held together, crucially, by a punchy sherbet freshness which manages to temper the richness and maintain the balance on the palate. Though it flirts with excess, it comes down just on the right side of the wire.

Altogether more classic is the stylish and composed Bouscaut. This is, and has been for some time in my view, an underappreciated wine. It is very consistent from one vintage to the next and still represents excellent value for money. It is something of an insider’s pick. This, too, would be easy to identify in a blind-tasting. It is very fine, very pure and marked, like virtually no other white wine in this vintage, by freshness. The fruit is citrus – lime and lime cordial with just a touch of grapefruit and white flowers. We also find the signature chalk/limestone notes of the terroir that are almost reminiscent of some Grand Cru Chablis. It is excellent and it is highly recommended.

Chateau Latour Martillac

De Fieuzal (50% Sauvignon Blanc; 50% Sémillon) too has made a spectacular wine in a tricky vintage. It might contain equal parts of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc (and hence just about the highest proportion of Sémillon amongst the leading crus), but you would never guess it given the energy, poise and freshness of this vibrant and exciting wine. It has an interesting floral complexity accentuated by the use (in part) of 400 litre acacia oak barriques. This too is highly recommended.

Finally we return to Latour-Martillac (54% Sauvignon Blanc; 46% Sémillon). Like the red, this is now very accomplished and on a steep upward trajectory that will surely only be further enhanced by the new chai in which the 2019 will be made. Tasted alongside the already impressive 2016, this is a significant step up in quality (in a vintage that was, of course, rather more challenging). Again we find sherbet notes which help to maintain the freshness across the palate. This is nicely delineated and complex and it has an impressively sappy finish.

Colin Hay is Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po in Paris where he works on the political economy of la place de Bordeaux and wine markets more generally. His Bordeaux 2018 coverage will conclude with a final piece on the ‘wines of the vintage’.