Château Haut-Bages Libéral 2008

The 2008 vintage in Pauillac

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

Vintage character: A bright late season saved a cool summer: wines of unexpected freshness and aromatic precision.

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 2008 vintage is characterized by its red and black berries aromas but also minerality and cedar. The nose and the mouth show some freshness. A nive balance with fine tannins. Slightly peppery and hint of clove.

The vintage

2008 is the seventh consecutive year with a dry winter. That caused an early stop of the growth and a lengthening of the ripening phase.

The freezing temperatures of early April brought frosts and caused a late budbursting. The rains of early June thwarted the flowering and those of mid-August had finally depressed the winemakers.

All these weather events predicted a vintage with a low yield, but we will remember this vintage as a late year. A late season with warm days and cool nights would save the vintage. Indeed, these conditions encouraged a slow and steady ripening of the grapes. They could then be harvested at their optimum maturity with an excellent concentration of tannins.

The merlot were harvested from September 30th to October 6th and the cabernet sauvignon from October 7th to 16th of 2008.

Blend of the 2008 vintage

Figures from the 2008 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.