Château Haut-Bages Libéral 2010

The 2010 vintage in Pauillac

Vintage benchmark: 99/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry summer and cool nights concentrated small berries: a benchmark vintage, with dense tannins and a thirty-year aging potential.

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

2010 is a great vintage, distinguished by its very straight and very structured style. It is a harmony between power and finesse, with a classic tone.

The vintage

Overall, the winter of 2010 was cold and dry, thus causing a late start to the vegetation. A warm spring then led to a fast and uniform bud bursting. The flowering of cabernet sauvignon was also rapid thanks to a perfect weather (hot and dry). However, some rains would cause the sag of the merlot. The berries changed color rapidly but the maturation was slow and steady through the warm days and cool nights. Finally, the grapes were harvested in ideal weather conditions at their optimal maturity. At the approach of the harvest, the level of maturity of the compounds reflected the exceptional weather conditions of 2010. This vintage rises to the level of the great vintages of reference (2000, 2005 and 2009). The wines are very colorful, powerful, with an excellent balance of acid / alcohol / tannin. The maturity is exceptional, especially as regards the accumulation of tannins, sugars and aromatic freshness. It is a great year with an excellent aging potential.

Blend of the 2010 vintage

Figures from the 2010 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 35 yrsVine age
• 100,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Traditional, in concrete and stainless steel tanks whose volumes are proportional to the plots; in barrel for 16 months, 40% new.

Ageing

18 months, of which 40% in new barrels, 40% in barrels of one wine, 20% in ovoid concrete tanks

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.