Name: Château Lynch-Bages Grand Cru Classé - Pauillac
Brand: Wine Maven
SKU: YCLB01-11
Price: 1583 HKD
Availability: instock
Rating: 4.9 (25 reviews)

Description

The power and elegance of a great Pauillac

Daring, innovative and with a reputation for often being the last to harvest, Jean-Charles Cazes defined the style of Lynch-Bages in the 1930’s. The wine’s distinctive character has earned it a place amongst Pauillac’s greatest. It combines structure, finesse and elegance, offering generous aromas in its youth and developing deeper complexities with bottle age.

Outstandingly consistent quality

The estate’s reputation as a top quality wine producer took off in 1945 after a series of exceptional vintages. Since then, Lynch-Bages has continued to produce excellent wines, even during years considered difficult in the Bordeaux region. The wine’s deep colour and tannic backbone have become part of its signature style. Jean-Michel Cazes, grandson of Jean-Charles, has worked hard to develop and refine the wine’s supple and smooth structure over the years. Vintage after vintage, the estate’s precise and excellent winemaking techniques have served to firmly establish Lynch-Bages reputation for consistent quality.

The Rite of Spring

2011 was a curious year with a remarkably warm and dry spring. Consequently, flowering took place early and in fine conditions.
July was cool and saw some rain, while August was mixed, cooler than average overall but with some heat spikes and some storms. September was warm and dry enabling the grapes to ripen fully.

Harvest began at Château Lynch-Bages (almost a fortnight earlier than in 2010) on September 12th and ended on September 28th.
Equipped with a new de-stemming system and an optical sorter, a complementary reception chain was tried out, receiving exclusively the harvest from plots deemed the most difficult or the most heterogeneous.

After two powerful, sunny vintages, 2011 is outstanding for its display of well ripened fruit, fine, plump tannins, and a good freshness to ensure classic balance.

Ageing:
Wooden barrels for 15 months (65% new wood)

Blending:
72 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 23 % Merlot, 3 % Cabernet Franc, 2 % Petit Verdot

Production:
66% of the harvest

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About brand

The history of Lynch-Bages, situated in the lands of "Batges" at the entrance to Pauillac, is emblematic of the Médoc region.

Although there are records of the Bages territory as far back as the 16th century, the history of wine production in the area really began in the 18th century. From 1749 to 1824, the vineyard was owned by Thomas Lynch, the son of an Irishman from Galway who worked as a merchant in Bordeaux. Thomas Lynch managed the land wisely and produced high quality wines under the name of ''Cru de Lynch''. As part of the prestigious 1855 Classification, for the Exposition Universelle de Paris, his wine would soon be classified as one of the fifth growths.

Later on, Jean ''Lou Janou'' Cazes, a ''Montagnol'' (a term used to describe farmers from the austere upper valleys of Ariège), came to the Médoc to earn a living. In the 1930's, General Félix de Vial, a descendant of the Cayrou family, leased the vineyard to Jean-Charles Cazes, the son of ''Lou Janou'' and a farmer at Château Ormes de Pez in Saint-Estèphe. Cazes went on to purchase both properties in the wake of World War II. Lynch-Bages has been run by the Cazes family ever since.

Lynch-Bages' old vat-house represents a rare example of traditional winemaking equipment the Médoc area. Its slatted flooring which introduced the advantages of gravitational design now used in modern vat-houses, was invented by Skawinski in 1850.

Back then, grapes were transported in a cart pulled by horses and then being lifted by crane and emptied into a wooden tank on wheels and tracks. One or two winemakers inside the tank then crushed the grapes, making the juice flow out through openings into vats on either side. A rope-pulley-bucket system and no less than six workers were then required to remove the leftover grape skins from the fermentation vat.

These remarkable winemakers had a hard and quite dangerous job. The last of them was the exemplary Xavier Tibur, who ended his career at Lynch-Bages in 1975. The old Lynch-Bages vat-house is open for visits and will transport you to another era.

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