Château Lynch Bages, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2023

Name: Château Lynch Bages, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac
Brand: Château Lynch Bages
Price: 420 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2004 2013 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

justerini & brooks tasting note

Lynch Bages continues its current run with another vin de garde. This is serious, intense and uncompromising. Not exactly easy to love on this showing; this is an introverted, rippling style with a serious tannic profile. The brooding nose offers lots of dark, mineral notes: graphite, coal dust, tobacco and earth mix with sultry blackcurrants and mint. There is clearly lots of positive extract. The palate is a deep well of inky fruit and minerals followed up by grand-scale tannins laced with detail. A modernist interpretation of a classical Pauillac. Recent vintages of Lynch that have not been particularly flamboyant from barrel, have shone once in bottle. We expect this 2023 to follow the same trajectory.

critic reviews

93-95/100Lisa Perrotti-Brown,The Wine Independent

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2023 Lynch-Bages prances out with vibrant notes of crushed blackcurrants and black raspberries plus fragrant hints of violets, iron ore, bay leaves, and fragrant soil with a touch of graphite. The medium-bodied palate delivers impressive tension, with a sturdy backbone of grainy tannins and an earthy finish. The blend is 71% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot, with pH 3.75 and TPI 95.

DRINKING WINDOW 2028 - 2042

date of review 05/2024

96/100Jane Anson,Inside Bordeaux

Concentrated, intense and muscular, not a word that I have used very often in 2023 Bordeaux. You get a deeply-rooted tannic grip, with soot, squid ink, cassis, blackberry, bilberry, liqourice root, slate scrap, pummice stone and mint. Lynch Bages seems to be wrought from a different place than it was a decade ago, impressive, powerful Pauillac, with an eye on long ageing. 75% new oak, Jean-Charles Cazes owner, Nicolas Labenne technical director.

DRINKING WINDOW 2033 - 2048

date of review 05/2024

93-95/100Neal Martin,Vinous

The 2023 Lynch-Bages takes some time to really settle, so I gave it 5-10 minutes in the glass. On the nose, glossy black fruit mixes with touches of cassis, graphite, violets and blood orange, perhaps demonstrating more horsepower than I anticipated. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, saturated tannins. There is a lovely symmetry to this Pauillac (not unlike Latour), armed with a cashmere texture and plenty of backbone on the finish, even though I would not describe it as a "grippy" Lynch-Bages. There’s plenty of graphite character on the aftertaste. Excellent.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2060

date of review 04/2024

93-95/100William Kelley,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

As usual one of the chunkier, broader-shouldered wines of the Medoc, the 2023 Lynch-Bages exhibits aromas of dark berries and cassis mingled with pencil shavings, licorice and pipe tobacco, framed by creamy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, rich and layered, it's deep, concentrated and generously extracted, with plenty of youthfully chewy tannin to carry it along in the cellar. The 2023 is a blend of 71% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot.

date of review 04/2024