2011 Château les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux

2011 Château les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux

Product: 20118013701
 
2011 Château les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
You can place a bid for this wine on BBX

Description

This has kept its colour and remains a soft plum red, but there is a slight angularity to the tannins which means austerity is the main take-away on the attack. Autumnal raspberry notes come through, and there is a lovely freshness and delicacy overall, but not quite the generosity and grace that you get in this wine today.

Drink 2021 - 2032

Janes Anson, Decanter.com (Feb 2021)

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

Critics reviews

Jane Anson92/100
Very different in style from the 2010, this has less breadth through the palate, touches of rose stems and angular tannins, really a signature of Carmes Haut-Brion in these earlier years. Smoked earth and tobacco alongside blueberry and raspberry fruits. This has finesse and grace, and can be drunk now with a carafe. 3.59ph. First year with the new owner Patrice Pichet.
 
Drink 2022-2038
 
Jane Anson, janeanson.com (Feb 2022)
Read more
Wine Advocate92/100
This tiny jewel of a property, situated close to La Mission-Haut-Brion and Haut-Brion, has turned out one of the stars of the 2011 vintage. A deep dark ruby/purple color is followed by hints of graphite, charcoal, creme de cassis and Christmas fruitcake. This medium-bodied Pessac-Leognan is gorgeously concentrated with impeccably well-integrated acidity, tannin, alcohol and oak. An authoritatively long finish adds to the class and nobility of this wine. Drink it over the next 15 years.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. - 30/04/2014 Read more
Wine Spectator90-93/100
Polished, with nice mouthfeel to the range of cassis, black cherry and raspberry fruit. Sweet spice fills in on the finish. Should stretch out more as well.
Wine Spectator's 2011 Top-Scoring Red Bordeaux
(James Molesworth, Wine Spectator, April 10, 2012) Read more
James Suckling92/100
An outstanding wine from the 2011 vintage, with blueberry and chocolate character. It’s full-bodied, with velvety tannins and an intense finish. Shows powerful structure. Extremely well done from here for the vintage; shows the hand of the new owner. Better in 2016.

James Suckling, jamessuckling.com (Feb 2014) Read more
Decanter92/100
This has kept its colour and remains a soft plum red, but there is a slight angularity to the tannins which means austerity is the main take-away on the attack. Autumnal raspberry notes come through, and there is a lovely freshness and delicacy overall, but not quite the generosity and grace that you get in this wine today.

Drink 2021 - 2032

Janes Anson, Decanter.com (Feb 2021) Read more

About this WINE

Château les Carmes Haut-Brion

Château les Carmes Haut-Brion

Château les Carmes Haut-Brion is a 10.3-hectare wine estate in Pessac-Léognan on the Left Bank of Bordeaux. The property was established over 400 years ago. It takes its name from the Carmelites, the order of monks that tended it for almost 200 years. Once a little-known neighbour of the world-famous Châteaux Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion, things have changed rapidly here in recent years and it is today one of Bordeaux’s most exciting names. In 2010, the estate was acquired by Patrice Pichet, a French property developer. He quickly enlisted the dynamic Guillaume Pouthier as winemaker and director, and this has been a truly hot property ever since.

The wine here is stylistically unique within Bordeaux. This is in part due to the vineyard: the estate sits just outside the city of Bordeaux, with some limestone soils to complement the more typical gravel and clay. There is a high proportion of old-vine Cabernet Franc, rarely seen to any great extent on the Left Bank. The team has worked very hard to understand the specificities of each plot and sub-plot, enabling them to react to specific needs – but only where necessary.

Guillaume Pouthier is also a serial innovator. He is a proponent of whole-bunch fermentation, which is virtually unheard of in Bordeaux. Extraction, an important winemaking process, is handled differently here too: Guillaume uses a very gentle method of infusion rather than the more typical pumping-over or punching-down. The wines are matured in a combination of new French oak barrels, large oak casks and amphorae.

Find out more
Pessac-Leognan

Pessac-Leognan

In 1986 a new communal district was created within Graves, in Bordeaux,  based on the districts of Pessac and Léognan, the first of which lies within the suburbs of the city. Essentially this came about through pressure from Pessac-Léognan vignerons, who wished to disassociate themselves from growers with predominately sandy soils further south in Graves.

Pessac-Léognan has the best soils of the region, very similar to those of the Médoc, although the depth of gravel is more variable, and contains all the classed growths of the region. Some of its great names, including Ch. Haut-Brion, even sit serenely and resolutely in Bordeaux's southern urban sprawl.

The climate is milder than to the north of the city and the harvest can occur up to two weeks earlier. This gives the best wines a heady, rich and almost savoury character, laced with notes of tobacco, spice and leather. Further south, the soil is sandier with more clay, and the wines are lighter, fruity and suitable for earlier drinking.

Recommended Châteaux: Ch. Haut-Brion, Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, Ch. Pape Clément, Ch Haut-Bailly, Domaine de Chevalier, Ch. Larrivet-Haut-Brion, Ch. Carmes Haut-Brion, Ch. La Garde, Villa Bel-Air.

Find out more
Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

Find out more