Tasting Note:
Jean-Charles' motto this year comes from the Monty Python - "always look on the bright side of life"...for despite 2022 being a year "of torment, marked by extreme climatic phenomena… our vines were resilient, giving us an exceptional vintage and a life lesson". The Lynch 2022 proved a little divisive. Purists amongst us swooned over the classical lines, deep well of fruit and minerals and epic tannins. The wimps thought it was a bit too much. This is one of the most brooding, serious and long-term wines we tasted. Initially a bit impenetrable, with aeration, notions of graphite, iris, violets, crushed rocks and blackcurrant emerge reticently. The core is tightly wound. With huge levels of extract, this is a big, powerful wine, which leads with dark, sultry fruits infused with graphite and minerals. The concentration is admirable, and although big, the fruit is potent, alive and full of tension. Not easy to assess at this stage, one senses there are layers here as notes of mint and eucalyptus are revealed. This is a proper vin de garde, with wonderfully fresh, virile fruit, epic tannins loaded with detail and nuance. Undoubtedly, one of the most powerful and introverted wines of the vintage; we have every faith this is going to be an outstanding, long-lived Lynch Bages.