Château Les Carmes Haut Brion, Pessac Léognan, 2021

Name: Château Les Carmes Haut Brion, Pessac Léognan
Brand: Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion
Price: 411.53 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2006 2015 2020 2021 2023 2024

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.

critic reviews

96/100Lisa 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

94/100Jane 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

95/100Neal 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

95/100Yohan Castaing,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2021 Les Carmes Haut-Brion has turned out beautifully in bottle, though it is more introverted and brooding than it appeared during en primeur tastings, unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries mingled with spices, loamy soil, licorice, rose petals, gentian and black pepper. Medium to full-bodied, deep and seamless, with a concentrated core of fruit framed by ripe but abundant structuring tannins and bright acids, it concludes with a long, palate-staining finish. As readers may remember, it's a blend of 40% Cabernet Franc, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 25% Merlot.

DRINKING WINDOW 2027 - 2055

date of review 02/2024