Château Haut-Bages Libéral 2011

The 2011 vintage in Pauillac

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

Vintage character: A scorching spring followed by a wet August turned the seasons upside down: classic wines, shorter but true to type.

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 resulting wine shows both power and great elegance. The tannins are ripe and silky on the palate. A very nice balance, which allows us to rank this year among our classic vintages.

Blend of the 2011 vintage

Figures from the 2011 sheet

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

Winemaking

Traditional in stainless and concrete vats, whose volumes are proportional to the plots

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.