- Colour Red
- Producer Château Haut-Brion
- Region Pessac-Léognan
- Grape Cab. Sauvignon/ Merlot/ Cab. Franc/ Petit Verdot
- Drinking 2025 - 2038
- Case size 6x75cl
- Available En Primeur
2022 - Le Clarence de Haut-Brion Pessac-Léognan - 6x75cl
- Colour Red
- Producer Château Haut-Brion
- Region Pessac-Léognan
- Grape Cab. Sauvignon/ Merlot/ Cab. Franc/ Petit Verdot
- Drinking 2025 - 2038
- Case size 6x75cl
- Available En Primeur
Need help? Call +44 (0)20 7793 7900 or email wine@goedhuis.com.
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Neal Martin, April 2023, Score: 91-93
The 2022 Le Clarence de Haut-Brion has a slightly higher-toned bouquet than the La Chapelle with blueberry, blackberry, iris petal and strawberry pastille aromas. Playful. The palate is medium-bodied with a saline entry and fine-boned tannins. The 2022 is poised and focused with a sophisticated finish. Superb. Drink 2027-2047
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Wine Advocate, April 2023, Score: 91-93+
The 2022 Le Clarence de Haut-Brion, the second wine of Château Haut-Brion, is elaborated from a blend of 61.2% Merlot, 21.9% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14.5% Cabernet Franc and 1.5% Petit Verdot. It reveals a bright, fruity bouquet with aromas of dark berries, plums, tobacco, graphite and spices. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, layered and seamless, textural and fleshy with structuring tannins and a fresh, tense finish. It is a very nice way to introduce the great wine of Haut-Brion.
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Antonio Galloni, April 2023, Score: 92-94
The 2022 Le Clarence de Haut-Brion is fabulous. Rich, deep and explosive, La Clarence is everything a second wine should be. In other words, a smaller-scaled version of the original. Sumptuous dark fruit makes a strong opening statement. Complicated notes of gravel, dried herbs, crushed rose petals and blood orange lend gorgeous savory nuance. Impressive. Drink 2028-2042.
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Goedhuis, April 2023, Score: 94-95
More muted on the nose than the Chapelle de la Mission, the Clarence slowly offers up hints of black fruit, spiced oak, black cherry stone, olive and toast. Impressive even now. The understated palate starts supple and soft, flowing through to the ultimately juicy palate. It’s packed with generous fruit of ripe Moyer plum and Braeburn apples, and a well-judged acidity lifts, supported by nicely crunchy tannins. Once again marking this as a vintage for second wines.
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James Suckling, April 2023, Score: 94-95
A medium- to full-bodied red with fine and lightly chewy tannins. Lots of dark chocolate, crushed stone and graphite flavors at the end. Subtle. 62.1% merlot, 21.9% cabernet sauvignon, 14.5% cabernet franc and 1.5% petit verdot.
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Jancis Robinson, April 2023, Score: 16.5
More subdued than La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion at this stage but seems to have more energy and freshness. Mouth-filling fruit on attack. Plush texture. Firm tannins but a slight powdery dryness on the finish. (James Lawther MW) Drink 2030 – 2040
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Jane Anson, April 2023, Score: 92
Dense plush texture, crushed roses, damson puree, orange peel, cocoa beans, baked spices, 32hl/h yields, lowest since 1991.
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Jeb Dunnuck, April 2023, Score: 92-94
The 2022 Le Clarence De Haut-Brion is mostly Merlot but includes 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, and a little less than 2% Petit Verdot. It's a darker fruited, more structured second wine offering medium to full-bodied richness, a ripe, layered, textured profile, beautiful tannins, and classic notes of darker currants, cherries, smoked tobacco, and scorched earth. It's clearly an outstanding wine and has more than a hint of classic Haut-Brion style.
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Matthew Jukes, April 2023, Score: 18+
Le Clarence could not be more different from La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion. This time the second wine is more edgy, nervy, tense and much darker in fruit tone and the strength of its conviction and energies. The palate is dry, scouring and dynamic, with ultra-fine, bitter pips and delicious fruit, and this is all countered with waves of black fruit crashing on the palate and then slipping away, leaving complete calm. For such an active wine, it is exquisitely balanced and thoroughly refreshing and invigorating. This will be a long-lived Le Clarence, yet it will kick off earlier than any recent vintages I remember.
Producer
Château Haut-Brion
Arguably the oldest recognised Bordeaux grand cru, Haut Brion has been owned by the American Dillon family since 1935. The Château was an early moderniser - the first estate to implement steel vats in 1961 - and over the years, their incredible investments have re-established the inherent quality of this property, enabling it to emerge as possibly the most consistent first growth since the 1980s. Situated in Pessac-Léognan ...Read more
Arguably the oldest recognised Bordeaux grand cru, Haut Brion has been owned by the American Dillon family since 1935. The Château was an early moderniser - the first estate to implement steel vats in 1961 - and over the years, their incredible investments have re-established the inherent quality of this property, enabling it to emerge as possibly the most consistent first growth since the 1980s. Situated in Pessac-Léognan in Graves, the estate is the only classified growth located outside the Médoc. Château Haut Brion has the most Merlot and the most Cabernet Franc of any of the First Growths and the second wine is Le Clarence de Haut-Brion, known as Ch Bahans Haut Brion prior to 2007.Read less
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.
