Chateau Haut-Batailley 2012 Red Wine

Elaboration

The 1855 Classification divided Bordeaux into a hierarchy that has barely changed in 170 years — and Château Haut-Batailley has occupied its place among Pauillac's fifth classified growths with the quiet, consistent excellence of an estate that has never needed to announce itself. Born from the division of the original Batailley estate by the Borie family, Haut-Batailley farms 22 hectares of deep coarse gravel soils in the heart of Pauillac — the appellation that produces what many consider the world's greatest Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines, and where the combination of gravel, drainage and the moderating influence of the Gironde estuary creates the precise conditions that the variety demands. In 2017, the Cazes family — owners of Lynch-Bages, another celebrated fifth growth — acquired the château, bringing the resources and ambition of one of Pauillac's most dynamic families to an estate whose style of elegance and purity was already something to protect. The 2012 is the last expression of the Borie era at its most complete: a blend of 71% Cabernet Sauvignon and 29% Merlot, hand-harvested with two successive selections, vinified over three weeks and aged 16 to 18 months in French oak. Thirteen years on, it is exactly where it should be.