Lynch Bages 2011

The medium-bodied 2011 Lynch Bages possesses a saturated ruby/purple color as well as beautiful creme de cassis notes, a generous, concentrated, well-made, medium to full-bodied style and supple tannins. A successful effort in 2011, it should be drinkable in 3-4 years and last for 15+. It is a sleeper of the vintage. Drink 2017-2032.

The 2011 Lynch-Bages is quite savoury on the nose with dried blood and meat juices intermixed with the black fruit. The palate is ripe and rounded on the entry, quite dense and muscular for a Pauillac, grippy towards the finish where I am seeking more elegance and precision. Not bad, though not the best wine that the Cazes family have overseen this decade. Tasted blind at the annual 10-Year-On tasting. 2022 - 2038

A dense, chewy wine for the vintage, with plum, currant and blackberry character. Full body, polished tannic texture and a bright finish. Very pretty indeed. This needs time to soften. Try in 2019.

Young, poised black fruits, blackberry and bilberry that are ripe but still laced with fresh acidities, giving a slight angularity to the tannins. This is good quaility, with signature Lynch Bages confidence, but does not expand through the palate as the vintages on either side do, holding itself back. I suggest waiting for another few years before drinking to really allow things to soften up. 65% new oak, with an optical sorter used for the first time in this vintage, and 65% of overall production making it into the 1st wine.

Lynch Bages is one of the most popular and reliable Châteaux of Bordeaux. Release prices of this classic Pauillac are usually modest compared to those that consumers are happy to pay for mature vintages. This much-loved Chateau consistently makes one of our most demanded and biggest selling wines and we are fortunate to have an excellent relationship with the Cazes family and good allocations which we have built up over many years. A wine to buy en primeur every year. If you are thinking of only buying a few cases en primeur then Lynch Bages should always be one of them. Jean-Michel Cazes' son Jean-Charles is now in charge here and recent vintages have been really outstanding. 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot. Aged in 75% new oak. This has a really black colour and an intense nose of sweet ripe cassis, raising, and cigar box. Stylistically it is reminiscent of Mouton Rothschild. Big, grippy, tarry and seriously built. This is classic Lynch Bages. Strapping stuff, really powerful and stacked with some firm tannins. Set to be a long term classic claret. This is like the 1996 Lynch Bages but better.

In 2011, Lynch Bages has clearly made one of Pauillac's finest wines that, for us, showed better than Lafite. One of the very best wines of the vintage.

There is a lot of power on the nose with black cherry and cassis to the fore. The palate has depth of flavour structure from the firm tannins the fruit enriched by liquorice and coffee. Towards the back there is richness of fruit but enough bilberry and bramble freshness to give an elegant twist to the finish.

Like Pontet-Canet, this is a château that continues to make a mockery of the 1855 classification. There's much more Merlot in the blend than usual because it suffered less from the drought than the other varieties, according to Jérôme Le Roux, and 75% new oak because of the "tannic structure". The result is a rich, hedonistic red blend, bursting with blackcurrant and liquorice flavours and dense, yet supple tannins. 10+ years.

Fine density of blackcurrant Cabernet fruit, very good natural richness and very ripe tannins. Drink 2016-2030.