2025 Haut Bages Liberal

Auslieferung bis zum Herbst 2028!
Delivery until Fall 2028!

(Pauillac; 80% Cabernet Sauvignon; 19% Merlot; 1% Cabernet Franc & Petit Verdot; a final yield of 32 hl/ha; pH 3.57; 13.2% alcohol; tasted with Claire Villars-Lurton in Bordeaux). Utterly divine aromatically. Classical but somehow more vibrant than almost any other wine of the appellation, both from the impact of the limestone and from the biodynamic winemaking. Cedar and graphite are already very present, rendering this more classically Pauillac in personality than it sometimes can be; the fruit is darker too and this has a beguiling almost slightly aristocratic charm. The tannins are fabulous, with that lovely chalky powdery feel right on the finish. The vivid sense of freshness is helped greatly here by the limestone (present here in the highest proportions for a classed growth). Sapid and almost scrunchy on the finish, with the grip and twist of the tactile tannins squeezing additional freshness onto the palate. I love it.
95-97/100 Colin Hay

Château Haut-Bages Libéral 2025 is a vintage in which its terroir is fully revealed. The clay-limestone vineyards surrounding the cellar lend the wine a rare sense of clarity and tension. The acidity is pure and bright, giving the palate a flowing, transparent ease, while the finish carries an unexpected saline note, seldom found in Pauillac, setting it distinctly apart from its peers. It is difficult to imagine that such abundant vintage energy could be handled with such composure and order, moving like a gentle stream across the palate, gradually refining what could have been a powerful structure into something increasingly fine and precise.
94-96/100 Alexandre Ma

Intense, gunsmoke and roses opening, the perception of acidity that is typical in the vintage is higher here than in the Claire Lurton Margaux wines, but measured by salinity, autumnal fruits and chalky tannins, Eric Boissenot consultant. 3.56ph, with the highest proportion of limestone in any vineyard in Pauillac. Harvest September 8 to 18. Yield 32 hl/ha. 35% new oak. 3.56 pH.
93/100 Jane Anson