Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste

A balanced and fresh wine with raspberries, minerals and flowers. Medium-to-full body, with integrated tannins and a medium finish. Fine tannin structure.
James Suckling - jamesuckling.com - Apr 2013

My second placed wine, and also second in the Pauillac flight behind Ch. Pichon-Baron. Lightness of touch here. Cleanly made but with traditional restraint – nothing pushed. Cedary and savoury, with freshness and detail on the finish. Real style and breed. Fantastically drinkable. I can’t stress enough what a bargain this is – it is absurdly cheap for those people that want to drink proper Bordeaux in 6 or 7 years’ time.
Philip Moulin, Fine Wine Buyer

Pretty close to the top of my list of personal buys from the vintage. Fabulous intensity, purity and complexity combination, all lying within a dense red fruit core that seems endless on the finish. Xavier, I don’t know quite know what you have done over the last few vintages but please keep it up. A cellar must have!
Simon Staples - Sales Director, Asia

Deep opaque colour, fantastic pure harmonised fruit with amazing subtlety. A top class wine from an estate, which for too long has been one of the forgotten Crus of Pauillac, and is now realising its potential.

Francois Xavier Borie is now producing some of Bordeaux's greatest wines, expressing the personality of the terroir possibly more than any other proprietor. A fabulous wine balancing concentration, ripeness of fruit and complex structure all in one. One of the finest wines of the vintage.

Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste is an exceptional wine in 2009. Elegant, concentrated yet fresh, this has a delicious basket of red and black fruit flavours and wonderful mineral precision. Sweet ripe tannins and a long, persistent savoury finish dominate the palate. Absolutely charming, this could be one of the best buys of the vintage. Sensational.
Simon Staples, Sales & Marketing Director

The elegance and finesse of the vintage plays to the strengths of Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste and this one of the stand out wines of the vintage. Very pure and focused blackcurrant cassis fruit appears on the nose, with lighter redcurrant and cherry notes mixed with cigar box and lead pencil. A linear quality is found on the palate with some serious tannins and weight for the year. There is a creamy sweetness too, but all the while the elegance and poise of Grand-Puy-Lacoste stands out.
Hong Kong Fine Wine Team

A wine that has energy and is light on its feet. The nose jumps out the glass (even by GPL standards), with red currant, cherry and beautiful mint and hedgerow lift. This is all matched by a touch of spice from the oak. As always one of the most appealing noses in Pauillac! A streamlined and focused palate, offering cherry and raspberry fruit. An overall freshness and energy with enough flesh to balance the spice from the oak that adds length to the finish. As always this is a composed and whilst not the grandest or long lived GPL, if priced well this is a great buy to drink whilst waiting for the 2009 and 2010.
Hong Kong Fine Wine Team

Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste has been in excellent form over the last few years and the 2008 continues in this impressive vein. This boasts the generous fruit of the vintage but with a classic, Pauillac seam running right through the core. Once again feminine in style, this is stylish and elegant with crisp acidity and fine-grained but structured tannins; this represents excellent value in 2008.

A fabulously intense, fruit driven nose, with wave after wave of all the typical Pauillac nuances, leads to notes of pencil and tobacco. It is powerful and rich on the palate with a cool, sensual core of precise blackberry fruit. Xavier Borie’s 2009 was one of the wines of the vintage for us and he’s given us a double whammy here, with possibly an even finer example with his incredible 2010.
Simon Staples, Fine Wine Director

Tasting François-Xavier Borie’s wines is always a highlight, as the property is now producing some of the most attractive wines in the Médoc. The 2016 Grand-Puy-Lacoste is delicate and charming with an attractive nose of cassis, blackcurrant and dark fruit. The overall fruit quality is outstanding. It’s suave and generous on the palate, with fresh black fruit and a rich fleshy texture. The long finish continues for several seconds.

Blend: Cabernet Sauvignon 79%, Merlot 21%

This is a real return to form for Grand Puy Lacoste, with owner François Xavier Borie rightfully very proud of his Grand Vin in 2005. Made with more Cabernet Sauvignon than usual (78%) this has a gently toasty cassis nose, followed by elegant blackberry and dark cherry fruit with licorice hints and good freshness. It is far more feminine than the Lynch Bages and also the Pontet Canet, yet retains lots of energy and weight along with perfect balance. This may not be a powerhouse but it is one of the very finest wines in Pauillac, and indeed the whole of Bordeaux.

Similar to Lynch Bages, not only in style but also in far outperforming its classification, Grand-Puy-Lacoste has made wines in the last five years that are better than many Second Growths. Located on the Bages plateau the 30 to 60 year old vines to dig deep into the gravely soil and extract the mineral qualities that seem to be the signature of this chteau's wines. Extremely concentrated, with sweet, black cherries, cassis and flinty overtones on the nose. The restrained yet powerful palate displays classic Pauillac `grip' with ripe but firm tannins and attractive herbaceous hints supporting the pure, lush black fruit.

Intense in both the glass and the mouth, this is another super 2014 wine. There is underlying power here, velvety, ripe tannins and notes of a savoury nature, perhaps even cedar. Very pure fruit, cassis, plum and dark cherry stick out, along with a juicy dollop of vanilla cream. Heavenly spice comes through on the long finish. The wine is utterly sumptuous and effortlessly persistent. Classically elegant, this is a wine of real pedigree. It is truly drinkable and approachable at an early age and could be one of the real bargains of the vintage.

82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot