Château Carbonnieux 2023

The 2023 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 91/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: July mildew followed by a hot September demanded strict selection: fleshy, aromatic wines, more approachable than 2022.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pessac-Léognan. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

"The 2023 vintage was produced in two stages, with a climatically difficult growing season. Despite these challenges, it produced very interesting wines, both white and red. As for the red wines, successive periods of heat at the end of August and the beginning of September favoured the ripening of the grapes, giving them an ideal level of maturity. Faced with these variable conditions, our work focused on the careful choice of harvest dates, aimed at guaranteeing the characteristic style of our wines." - Andréa Perrin, oenologist

The vintage

The 2023 vintage was marked by weather conditions fairly in line with thirty-year norms. Budbreak began at the end of March, followed by a brief return of cold in early April. Late pruning and protective measures kept the damage to a minimum. Spring was warm with rainfall close to the average. Bunch emergence was promising and flowering, which began on the 18th, benefited from favourable summer-like conditions. Disease and pest pressure was high because of the strong humidity and mild nights of the first summer months, but it was contained thanks to the vigilance of the vineyard team. Green harvesting made it possible to remove damaged bunches with no noticeable impact on the final yield. Summer rainfall remained average, with moderate temperatures until mid-August. The scorching temperatures of the last two weeks and early September favoured optimal ripening. The harvest began on 24 August and ran until early October.

Blend of the 2023 vintage

Figures from the 2023 sheet

• 14 % vol.Alcohol
• 40 hl/haYield
• 26 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Fermentation kinetics = 20 days in temperature-controlled stainless-steel vats. Barrelling from 05/12/2023 to 05/01/2024. 32 batches.

Ageing

40% new oak, in Bordeaux barrels - 15 to 18 months

Terroir

A great terroir is a gift of Nature shaped by the work of men. The product of an original geological past, the Garonne gravel ridge of Château Carbonnieux has been under vine for more than seven centuries. The diversity of the soils along the slopes of this gravel "bean" offers a wide range of expression capable of producing exceptional white and red wines. Such a geological foundation guarantees complexity and breadth in the wines of this Pessac-Léognan Cru Classé. Today, the Carbonnieux estate covers 170 hectares of land at the gates of Bordeaux, of which the vines occupy 92 hectares in a single block, divided equally between red and white varieties.