2023 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Pauillac, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
75% new oak, rest one year old, around 60% of production in this 1st wine (this is similar each year, as here the vineyard footprint has not changed since 1855). Harvest September 11 to 28.
We are in classic Grand Puy Lacoste territory here, great balance, good freshness, Pauillac typicity, less concentration than 2022, showing instead bright cassis and blackberry fruits, salted cracker edge, liquorice, graphite, spiced cocoa beans, and flashes of fresher redcurrants on the close of play. Great quality, and you can see the fine ageing potential stretching ahead.
Drink 2030 - 2046
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux (April 2024)
The 2023 Grand Puy Lacoste was picked September 11 to 28 at 48hL/ha and matured in 75% new oak.
It has a classic “GPL” bouquet with blackberry, pencil box, and light marine scents. It is obviously not as powerful as the previous vintage. Yet, it is in a typical style, beautifully defined and focused—just a touch of cracked black pepper surfaces with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with a gentle but insistent grip, just a light bitter edge lending tension and nerve. I perceive good depth here, but this is not a powerhouse of a Pauillac (is GPL ever?). It fans out toward the finish whilst maintaining control. This wine has an impressive linearity; thus, I suspect it will require less bottle age than recent vintages.
Drink 2029 - 2052
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (April 2024)
The 2023 Grand-Puy-Lacoste is powerful, reticent and shy, revealing black cherry, gravel, scorched earth and liquorice notes. It’s rich, ample and quite potent, marked by an intriguing mix of super-ripe Merlots and later-picked Cabernet. All of this fruit was picked before the September rain, so the tannins are a touch aggressive. Time in bottle should help this come together.
Drink 2033 - 2063
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (April 2024)
It’s a blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon and 23% Merlot that was picked between September 11-28.
Aromas of cassis, cigar wrapper, pencil shavings, and violets introduce the 2023 Grand-Puy-Lacoste, a medium—to full-bodied, fleshy, and supple wine that’s seamless and sensual. It has good depth at the core, beautifully integrated tannins, and a lively, charming profile.
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (April 2024)
77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot. 48 hl/ha. Cask sample.
Relatively subdued but upright, firm, and structured, it is clear-cut and classic in form. It shouldn’t disappoint GPL fans.
Drink 2032 - 2045
James Lawther MW, JancisRobinson.com (May 2024)
77% Cabernet Sauvignon and 23% Merlot.
Beautiful purity and freshness to the blackcurrants and blackberries with subtle cedar and graphite notes. Medium- to full-bodied. So polished and silky, almost weightless. It’s very long.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (May 2024)
Cassis notes are accentuated by almost cranberry freshness, along with red apple and black pepper aromas, which presage a palate somewhat crunchy and brambly in its fruit expression - with the lovely nuance of seashell freshness plus pleasing mid-palate juiciness. No less than 12% wine was used to accentuate a sense of structure from the 77% Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, but there is a sense of reticence to the wine for which barrel ageing in 75% new oak should lend needed breadth and a higher likely score.
But it remains a solid and more high-toned expression of this great terroir instead of a great vintage such as 2016, 2019, 2020, or 2022, where I was more enthusiastic—nevertheless, a wine that you can enjoy sooner than those vintages but also capable of cellaring.
Drink 2027 - 2050
Panos Kakaviatos, Decanter.com (April 2024)
The Grand Vin 2023 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste checks in as 77% Cabernet Sauvignon and 23% Merlot (the 11th to the 28th of September) with the élevage in 75% new French oak.
Its deeper plum hue is followed by beautiful aromatics of crème de cassis, graphite, and flowers. This carries to a medium-bodied Pauillac with a pure, elegant mouthfeel, ripe, polished tannins, and beautifully integrated oak. It’s a little gem of a 2023 with the pure, focused, elegant, yet concentrated style of the vintage.
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2024)
About this WINE
Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste
Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste is a 5ème Cru Classé Pauillac estate which has for many years been consistently outperforming its classification. Grand-Puy-Lacoste is located a couple of kilometres west of the town of Pauillac and is owned and run by François-Xavier Borie.
Grand-Puy-Lacoste's 90 hectares of vines (Cabernet Sauvignon 75%, Merlot 25%) are in one block surrounding the substantial 19th century château and lie on deep gravel beds over limestone. The grapes are fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats and the wine is then matured in oak barriques (50% new) for 18 months.
Grand-Puy-Lacoste combines marvellous cigar box perfume with rich blackcurrant and cassis fruit and velvety power which is the epitome of top class Pauillac at its very best.
Pauillac
Pauillac is the aristocrat of the Médoc boasting boasting 75 percent of the region’s First Growths and with Grand Cru Classés representing 84 percent of Pauillac's production.
For a small town, surrounded by so many familiar and regal names, Pauillac imparts a slightly seedy impression. There are no grand hotels or restaurants – with the honourable exception of the establishments owned by Jean-Michel Cazes – rather a small port and yacht harbour, and a dominant petrochemical plant.
Yet outside the town, , there is arguably the greatest concentration of fabulous vineyards throughout all Bordeaux, including three of the five First Growths. Bordering St Estèphe to the north and St Julien to the south, Pauillac has fine, deep gravel soils with important iron and marl deposits, and a subtle, softly-rolling landscape, cut by a series of small streams running into the Gironde. The vineyards are located on two gravel-rich plateaux, one to the northwest of the town of Pauillac and the other to the south, with the vines reaching a greater depth than anywhere else in the Médoc.
Pauillac's first growths each have their own unique characteristics; Lafite Rothschild, tucked in the northern part of Pauillac on the St Estèphe border, produces Pauillac's most aromatically complex and subtly-flavoured wine. Mouton Rothschild's vineyards lie on a well-drained gravel ridge and - with its high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon - can produce (in its best years) Pauillac's most decadently rich, fleshy and exotic wine.
Latour, arguably Bordeaux's most consistent First Growth, is located in southern Pauillac next to St Julien. Its soil is gravel-rich with superb drainage, and Latour's vines penetrate as far as five metres into the soil. It produces perhaps the most long-lived wines of the Médoc.
Recommended Châteaux
Ch. Lafite-Rothschild, Ch. Latour, Ch. Mouton-Rothschild, Ch. Pichon-Longueville Baron, Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Ch. Lynch-Bages, Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Ch, Pontet-Canet, Les Forts de Latour, Ch. Haut-Batailley, Ch. Batailley, Ch. Haut-Bages Libéral.
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
77% Cabernet Sauvignon; 23% Merlot. Emeline Borie observed 2023 as a vintage of two halves.
The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon ripened and were picked under very different conditions: quickly in hot weather for the Merlot and more slowly for the Cabernet. There is a juicy Merlot character of dense plum in the 2023, but GPL is a classic expression of Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon: cassis, cedarwood, black pepper and understated graphite. These elements are to the fore here. Every year, this château delivers excellence and an unforced expression of its terroir, unchanged in composition since 1855.
Our score: 17.5/20
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