Château Haut Bailly II, Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Pessac Léognan,

Sculpted, balanced and easy to love savoury plum and grilled blackberry fruit flavours. This moves carefully through the palate, gently delineated, with delicate tannins, smoked caramel and gunsmoke on the finish. Showing more complexity than it did En Primeur, just as you would hope with a 2nd wine but is not always the case in 2019.

A blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2019 Haut-Bailly II is deep garnet-purple colored. It strolls nonchalantly out with open notions of stewed black plums, blackberry pie, and underbrush with hints of licorice, tar, and bay leaves. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has bags of finesse with ripe, soft tannins and seamless freshness supporting the crunchy black fruits, finishing long and lifted.

The 2019 Haut-Bailly II, the second wine of Haut-Bailly, has accentuated the sous-bois elements on the nose since bottling, now feeling quintessentially Pessac-Léognan and quite marine-influenced in style. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, taut and fresh, still a little piquant on the finish but with more precision than I recall. This is very impressive. Excellent.