Château Haut-Bages Libéral 1996

The 1996 vintage in Pauillac

Vintage benchmark: 92/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry, windy September saved the Médoc's cabernets: the cabernet vintage par excellence, structured and slow to open.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pauillac. 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 nose is balanced with smoky and fruity hints (blackcurrant). On the palate, the tannins are silky and elegant, supported by a good acidity. The wine is fine and has a nice complexity of the fruit.

The vintage

The vintage is exceptional in terms of quality and quantity. The grapes had a slow ripening thanks to a nice summer and without any excess of heat and dryness.

The wine is balanced with very elegant and complex aromas. The perfect ripening of the cabernet sauvignon had given a high concentrated wine but also full, aromatic and with a long ageing potential.

Blend of the 1996 vintage

Figures from the 1996 sheet

• 35 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Traditional in stainless and concrete vats, whose volumes are proportional to the plots. Fermentation on skins: 18 to 24 days.

Ageing

In oak barrels during 16 months. 40% of new oak.

Terroir

The vineyard covers 30 hectares, half of which are located around the property, adjoining Château Latour. The other part of the vineyard is on the Bages plateau, in the south of Pauillac. The estate's plots are located in 2 areas, one made up of deep gravels and the other of clay-limestone and chalky limestone. This type of soil gives the wine its power and its mineral character. A large part of its fine deep-gravel land overlooks the Gironde estuary. These gravels were carried down by the river from the Pyrenees during the Quaternary era. They rest on a limestone bedrock.