Château Lynch Bages, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2025
Serious, dark and brooding, but rippling with nervy energy, which makes this so vibrant and captivating. Leading with a wonderful array of fragrant griotte, violets, mulberry, hints of coal, truffle and tilled earth as well as a deeply mineral sensation of graphite and rocks. The attack is bursting with mineral Cabernet character, lots of intensity and dimension with suggestions of orange peel, sage and underbrush leading to a perfumed, rather nimble finish. A serious vin de garde but with brightness, energy and dazzling, enveloping tannins. There's a fabulous seam of fragrant cassis that flows through this wine and resonates on the long, noble finish. Outstanding!
critic reviews
The 2025 Lynch-Bages was picked 9 to 21 September and matured in 75% new oak barrels. This has a stunning bouquet with exceptionally pure blackberry, cassis and subtle violet scents, the oak seamlessly integrated. The palate is medium-bodied with finely embroidered tannins, perfect acidity, a touch of cedar and black pepper that dovetails into a peacock's tail finish that “clings” to the mouth. This continues the strongest run from Lynch-Bages since the 1980s and, perhaps with the 2025, it is close to surpassing that.
Damson, cassis, bilberry, a wine that doesn't feel so far away from the very top vintages of the estate, clear expansion in the mid palate, with an uncompromising architecture that has the supple tannins of a warm year, with pomegranate, incense, blackberry, cedar, slate, crushed rocks. Excellently put together with juice, promise and personality. 3.68 pH. 75% new oak. Harvest September 9 to 21. Jean-Charles Cazes owner, along with his three sisters, Nicolas Labenne technical director.
The 2025 Lynch-Bages wafts from the glass with aromas of dark wild berries, lead pencil and spices, framed by well-integrated new oak. Full-bodied, dense and concentrated, it’s deep and muscular, with a broad-shouldered profile, yet more velvety and precise than usual, showing a touch of freshness through the mid-palate, concluding with a long, cassis-inflected finish. Without departing from its customary style—combining power and generosity in youth—it is more approachable en primeur, with softer, more polished tannins than in recent vintages. This is a blend of 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot, matured with 75% new oak.