chateau les carmes haut brion pessac leognan

Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion

Château Les Carmes Haut Brion, Pessac Léognan, 2021

Name: Château Les Carmes Haut Brion, Pessac Léognan
Brand: Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion
Price: 499.22 GBP

94/100

Inside Bordeaux

96/100

The Wine Independent

95/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

delivery

in bond

Broking

2021
6x75cl
DP
£499.22
2021
6x75cl
DP
£517.22
2021
6x75cl
DP
£667.22

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

These suburban vineyards (the only vineyards within the city of Bordeaux) comprised of Mindel gravels on clay and limestone are planted with 39% Cabernet Franc, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 41% Merlot. Guillaume described 2021 as a vintage of "incredible intensity! A year requiring the skills of a tightrope walker, when nature played games with the winegrowers". There was no pumping over or pigeage this year - he described it as a "passive extraction". They continued with 45% whole bunch fermentations that reduces the alcohol content and adds a sapidity. The nose offers aromas of wild hedgerow fruit, seaweed, violets, incense and paprika. On the palate there's a ripe core of vibrant dark berries with flecks of minerals. Good lift and tension here. There is a real persistence to the fruit as well as a salty precision to the tannins. One of Bordeaux's most unique and individual wines. Produced from 40% Cabernet Franc, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 25% Merlot and aged in 70% new oak barrels, 20% 18hl foudres and 10% amphorae.

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GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

96/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

A blend of 45% Cabernet Franc, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20% Merlot, Les Carmes Haut-Brion 2021 has a pH of 3.6. 55% whole bunches were used and it spent two years in barrel, which is four months longer than usual. It has an opaque garnet-purple color and it bursts from the glass with vivacious notes of redcurrant jelly, black cherry preserves, and black raspberries, followed by hints of garrigue, wild thyme, cast-iron pan, and dusty soil, with a touch of roses. The medium-bodied palate delivers intense red and black fruit layers, with a sturdy frame of tightly knit, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing on a lingering ferrous note. With a structure and intensity like this, it should age slowly over the next 30-40 years+, which is an anomaly for this generally earlier drinking vintage.

drinking window 2026 - 2050

date of review 04/2024

94/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Deep ruby colour. This has a ton of Carmes signature right from the first moment, expressive, beautiful cool climate character and expression. Nuanced sanlity, leaning into the savoury character of 2021 and rendering it vivid and precise, with violet and iris florals, chalky tannic grip, crushed red rose petals, pomegranate, mandarin, liqourice, blueberry. Natural yeast fermentation, 70% new oak, 10% amphoras. 45% whole bunches, which for Carmes is lower than it has been in recent years (2022 being an all time high at 70%). 3.6ph.

drinking window 2027 - 2040

date of review 04/2024

95/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2021 Les Carmes Haut-Brion was one of the best wines of the vintage when I tasted from barrel. This contains 49% whole-bunch (a slightly higher figure than Guillaume Pouthier gave me during en primeur). The barrel-aging has what Pouthier called a "white toasting", very light, so that you don't smell the oak (70% new). It has a complex bouquet, quite open with mainly red fruit, cedar and hints of pressed violet. The palate is medium-bodied with finely chiseled, unobtrusive tannins that imbue this Pessac with a sense of symmetry. It possesses thrilling salinity and is a little granular in texture on the finish, completing perhaps the most impressive wine of this challenging season.

drinking window 2027 - 2055

date of review 02/2024

product details

Specifications

Country:

France

Region:

Bordeaux

Appellation:

Pessac Léognan

Producer:

Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion

style:

Red Wine

Grape Variety:

Cab Sauvignon Merlot

abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.