- Colour Red
- Producer Château Haut-Bailly
- Region Pessac-Léognan
- Drinking 2018 - 2040
- Case size 12x75cl
- Available
2009 - Ch Haut Bailly Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan - 12x75cl
- Colour Red
- Producer Château Haut-Bailly
- Region Pessac-Léognan
- Drinking 2018 - 2040
- Case size 12x75cl
- Available
No further quantities available
Go To CheckoutNeed help? Call +44 (0)20 7793 7900 or email wine@goedhuiswaddesdon.com.
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Goedhuis, April 2010, Score: 93-95
A wine of great purity this bears all the hall marks of wine director Véronique Sanders, letting the fruit and terroir express themselves with minimum intervention of wine making. This is ripe and rich with a lovely silky mouth feel and the rounded tannins on the finish provide for additional length and complexity.
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Robert Parker, April 2015, Score: 100
I have had this wine now four separate times since I wrote my official review after bottling of the 2009s. It goes from strength to strength, and it is not surprising that it is now one of the perfect wines of this great, great vintage – the finest vintage of Bordeaux that I have tasted in 37 years covering that epicenter for world-class quality in wine. Much of it is attributable to winemaker Véronique Sanders and her boss, Robert Wilmers. Their incredibly draconian selection process and their enormous investments in both the viticulture and the estate as well as the winemaking facility have paid off brilliantly over the last decade. The 2009, which has an opaque ruby/purple color, an extraordinary nose of high-quality unsmoked cigar tobacco, graphite, blackcurrants and spice, hits the palate with a medium to full-bodied, saturated and rich mouthfeel, but an elegant and ethereal quality that is difficult to articulate. It is rich, complex and tastes as if it were the vinous equivalent of a remarkable haute couture creation from the late Coco Chanel. It is full-bodied yet elegant, powerful yet delicate, and remarkably velvety-textured, sumptuous and loaded with upside potential. It can be approached now, as most 2009s tend to be, given their richness of fruit, low acidity and extraordinary concentration, but the great complexity that will emerge from this fabulous terroir is at least a decade away, and this wine is set for 50 or more years of longevity. Kudos to Haut-Bailly! Drink 2015-2065. 100/100
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Robert Parker, Dec 2011, Score: 98+
This is a tour de force in winemaking, particularly for readers seeking the quintessential example of a Bordeaux that combines compelling complexity and finesse with significant flavor authority and intensity. I suppose we could see this coming as American owner, Robert Wilmers, along with his winemaker/manager, Veronique Sanders, continue to push the envelope. Yields were extremely low in 2009, and the final blend was an intriguing concoction of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc. It came in just under 14% natural alcohol, which makes it among one of the more powerful Haut-Baillys produced. However, power is not the hallmark of this wine. This terroir is known to produce relatively light wines, and by reducing yields and picking riper fruit, Wilmers and Sanders have achieved a level of concentration and intensity that is unprecedented for Haut-Bailly. That said, they have not lost any of these wines’ stunning elegance, finesse or aromatic complexity. Drink: 2012 - 2052
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Robert Parker, February 2012, Score: 98
A dense ruby/purple-tinged color offers up notes of forest floor, subtle wood smoke, mulberries, black cherries, cassis and a hint of lead pencil shavings. There is even a floral component lurking in the intricate aromatic profile. The wine is medium to full-bodied with wonderful intensity that builds incrementally and has a long, silky, luscious finish. There is plenty of tannin, but it is largely concealed by the wine’s beautiful fruit and ethereal complexity. Given its virtually perfect balance, this brilliant Haut-Bailly should age effortlessly for 3-4 decades. Drink: 2012 - 2052
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Robert Parker, April 2010, Score: 96-98+
The greatest Haut-Bailly ever made? One can't speak enough of the job Veronique Sanders has done in2009. Tiny yields have resulted in the most concentrated Haut-Bailly I have ever tasted. Eclipsing even the 2005, the 2009 possesses 13.9% natural alcohol. Dense purple to the rim, it exhibits a precise, nuanced nose of mulberries, black cherries, black currants, graphite, and a singular floral component. A wine of profound intensity and full-bodied power, yet stunningly elegant, and never heavy or massive, it builds incrementally on the palate, and the finish lasts over 45 seconds. Remarkably, there is not a hard edge to be found in this beauty. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc were harvested between October 7 and 14, which explains their phenolic maturity. The wine's extraordinary freshness, elegance, and precision are nearly surreal. This tour de force should age brilliantly for 40+ years. Drink: 2010 - 2050
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Decanter, April 2010, Score: 18.5
Dense purple red, quite rich cassis fruit with fragrant wild roses concentration, great clarity, depth and precision over succulently ripe vineyard fruit, still quite reserved, a wine of undeniable beauty and class. Drink 2015-30.
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Wine Spectator, April 2010, Score: 95-98
Lovely sweet berry and plum aromas, with hints of sandalwood and cedar. Full-bodied, with milk chocolate, berry and vanilla bean character. Thick and dense tannins, but balanced and very pretty. Sneaks up on you. Really powerful in tannins. This could be better than the fab 2005. 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 37 percent Merlot and 3 percent Cabernet Franc.
Producer
Château Haut-Bailly
Rich in sandstone composed of fossilised shellfish ("faluns"), Haut Bailly has one of the mostnoteworthy terroirs in Pessac Léognan. As a direct result of this ancient soil, their wines areextremely elegant and pure. Though not enormously high profile, this château is one of the mostappreciated by critics and collectors alike.
Region
Pessac-Léognan
Stretching from the rather unglamorous southern suburbs of Bordeaux, for 50 km along the left bank of the river Garonne, lies Graves. Named for its gravelly soil, a relic of Ice Age glaciers, this is the birthplace of claret, despatched from the Middle Ages onwards from the nearby quayside to England in vast quantities. It can feel as though Bordeaux is just about red wines, but some sensational white wines are produced in this area from a blend of sauvignon blanc, Semillon and, occasionally, muscadelle grapes, often fermented and aged in barrel. In particular, Domaine de Chevalier is renowned for its superbly complex whites, which continue to develop in bottle over decades. A premium appellation, Pessac-Leognan, was created in 1987 for the most prestigious terroirs within Graves. These are soils with exceptional drainage, made up of gravel terraces built up in layers over many millennia, and consequently thrive in mediocre vintages but are less likely to perform well in hotter years. These wines were appraised and graded in their own classification system in 1953 and updated in 1959, but, like the 1855 classification system, this should be regarded with caution and the wines must absolutely be assessed on their own current merits.
