Château Carbonnieux 2024

The 2024 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 87/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A rainy spring and a difficult flowering reduced the crop; the dry October saved fine, light, easy-drinking wines.

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

"Like a shimmering garnet satin, the nose reveals tender notes of ripe red fruits (raspberry, cranberry) that fade and play hide-and-seek with floral aromas, coming and going as they please. The palate is fresh and tender, with a rather luminous, balanced substance." - Le Figaro

The vintage

The 2024 vintage was marked by cooler than normal average temperatures. Budbreak was very early, at the end of March. Spring was cool and wet, which slowed the vegetative cycle. Flowering took place at the end of May during a lull in the weather that favoured good bunch formation; coulure and filage affected only a minority of vines in the area. The summer proved favourable to good water stress, thanks to the rainfall of winter and spring, while episodes of high heat remained limited. Véraison began in the first week of August, losing the lead gained at budbreak. The moderate functioning of the vine allowed a slow breakdown of acids and a gradual build-up of sugars, conditions particularly beneficial to the white varieties, which show a fine acid/sugar balance. The harvest began with the whites on 2 September and ended on 8 October with the reds.

Blend of the 2024 vintage

Figures from the 2024 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 40 hl/haYield
• 26 yrsVine age
• 200,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Fermentation kinetics = 10 days in temperature-controlled stainless-steel vats, followed by post-fermentation maceration.

Ageing

30% new oak, in Bordeaux barrels - 14 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.