2021 Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
Gentle extraction, smoked earth and coffee bean, with grippy salinity and juice. Touch of reduction right now but it opens to show great drinkability, capturing the parts of 2021 that make for an enjoyable, approachable and nuanced wine, with savoury blueberry and redcurrant fruits, and a wave of sage spice.
Harvest September 30 to October 14, 3.55ph. 20% new oak, 8% amphoras, 20% whole grape. Ageing in 30hl oak vats, plus amphora for 24 months then 6 months in a concrete vats. First release coming in December 2024.
Drink 2024 - 2032
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (January 2024)
The 2021 Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion contains 22% whole-bunch (to be exact). It has a lovely bouquet with peony and light white flower scents percolating through the black fruit. This is fresh and cohesive. The palate is medium-bodied with a very saline entry, showing black olive mixed with blackberry and bilberry fruit. Finely structured toward the finish, this is an absolutely delicious Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion that will get even better with bottle age.
Drink 2026 - 2045
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (November 2023)
The 2021 Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion is a stellar wine. Rich, complex and super-expressive, the C possesses notable depth and textural intensity. The C emerges from a separate property from Les Carmes Haut-Brion itself, located between Smith and Haut Bailly, where the microclimate is warmer. Cabernet Sauvignon drives the blend in this deeply textured red. The 2021 was done with 25% stems, but the whole clusters are pretty much buried by the sheer intensity of the fruit. Gravel, tobacco, incense and scorched earth add layers of dimension as it opens in the glass, while floral notes appear on the finish. Above all, I really admire the persistence here. This spent 24 months in oak—25% in French oak barrels and 75% in 30hL casks. I think this is the sole 2021 that is not in bottle yet!
Drink 2031 - 2061
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (December 2023)
A blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot, Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion 2021 has spent two years in barrel and one year in concrete vat. Hence this is a vat sample that hasn't been bottled yet. It has a deep garnet-purple color and it storms out of the glass with powerful notes of cassis, black cherries, and tar, followed by hints of crushed rocks, bay leaves, and pencil lead. Medium-bodied, the palate is bright, lively, and impactful, featuring firm, fine-grained tannins and loads of red and black berry sparks, finishing minerally. It should age very gracefully!
Drink 2025 - 2039
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, The Wine Independent (April 2024)
62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot. 20% whole bunch. Cask sample.
Fresh and gourmand with ample fruit and finely edged tannins. Structured but accessible at the same time. Minerally freshness from start to finish. Lots of energy and drive. Lovely balance.
Drink 2025 - 2038
James Lawther MW, JancisRobinson.com (May 2022)
The 2021 Le C des Carmes Haut-Brion, a blend driven by Cabernet Sauvignon, possesses a charming, gourmand bouquet with aromas of rose, cherries, violet, blueberry and spices, followed by a medium to full-bodied, juicy and supple palate with a lively mid-palate and a delicate core of fruit that segues into a long, penetrating and mouthwatering finish.
Drink 2024 - 2034
Yohan Castaing, Wine Advocate (February 2024)
Medium body with very fine, precise tannins. Iodine, sea-salt and blackcurrant character with violets and stems. Savory and tight at the end. Vibrant. 20% whole clusters in the fermentation and maceration. 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (May 2022)
Juicy, sour blackcurrants and red cherries, damsons and plums, with beautiful florality and lifted bramble aromas. Almost spritzy on the palate, a buzz to the red and pink fruits, good freshness but not sharp acidity, more gentle, calm and contained. Tannins are grippy but sappy and gently fleshy with a gorgeous pristine slate and liquorice edge to them, not harsh but mouthfilling with a sustained rise and persistence of flavour from the start to the cool, saline and succulent finish. Excellently controlled, playful and approachable. 20% whole bunch. Ageing 20% new oak, 72% 30hL-foudres and 8% amphoras.
Georgina Hindle, Decanter.com (April 2022)
About this WINE
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.
Pessac-Léognan
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.
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.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
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Description
Gentle extraction, smoked earth and coffee bean, with grippy salinity and juice. Touch of reduction right now but it opens to show great drinkability, capturing the parts of 2021 that make for an enjoyable, approachable and nuanced wine, with savoury blueberry and redcurrant fruits, and a wave of sage spice.
Harvest September 30 to October 14, 3.55ph. 20% new oak, 8% amphoras, 20% whole grape. Ageing in 30hl oak vats, plus amphora for 24 months then 6 months in a concrete vats. First release coming in December 2024.
Drink 2024 - 2032
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (January 2024)
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