Château Carbonnieux 2025

The 2025 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 94/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry, bright summer, tempered by cool nights, gave pure, balanced wines, more classic than sun-drenched.

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

"A brilliant wine of fine balance and freshness. Aromas of violet, raspberry and redcurrant on the nose and palate. Ample, with fine purity and fine, well-integrated tannins. Notes of flint and graphite on the finish. One of the best Carbonnieux in a long time." - James Suckling

The vintage

The 2025 vintage confirms the recognised quality of the years ending in 5. The vines benefited from an early and regular cycle, despite limited floral initiation in spring 2024, which reduced yields but strengthened the concentration of the grapes. Budbreak at the end of March and a dry spring gave the whole vineyard a head start. Flowering, fast and uniform in mid-May, was followed by strong heat from June. The very hot, almost rainless summer favoured small berries rich in substance and aromas. Some rainfall in mid-July allowed a complete and rapid véraison on all plots. The small crop load and the extreme conditions in early August accelerated ripening, requiring rapid organisation of the teams. The white harvest took place from 19 August to 4 September, producing precise, aromatic and well-balanced juices. The reds, harvested from 5 to 24 September, show fine concentration, ripe tannins and a clean structure.

Blend of the 2025 vintage

Figures from the 2025 sheet

• 14 % vol.Alcohol
• 28 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

20% 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.