2009 Chateau Lynch Bages 5eme Cru Classe, Pauillac 12x75cl

Producer Profile

Château Lynch-Bages is an estate in the Pauillac appellation
on the Left Bank of Bordeaux that is classified as Cinquièmes Crus (Fifth
Growths) in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855.

Its lands date back to the 1500s when the first mention of wines from ‘Batges’
has been found. Then, the area was a collection of plots before these were
unified in the early 1700s and created into the Domaine de Bages.

Château Lynch-Bages is another famous Bordeaux wine with an Irish historical
connection.  John Lynch emigrated to Bordeaux in 1691 and his son Thomas
Lynch married into the Drouillard family, taking on the Domaine de Bages in
1750. It was Thomas’s son, Michel Lynch who created ‘Cru de Lynch’, producing
excellent wines, pioneering new technology, ingredients and our modern
understanding and respect of the terroir. After various owners from 1825 to
1938, the estate has been owned by the Cazes family and now Jean-Charles Cazes
since 2007.

The 100 hectares of Château Lynch-Bages benefit from a favourable setting with
the surrounding protection of the Gironde River on one side, the Atlantic Ocean
on the other, and the Landes forest completing the creation of a perfect
viticultural microclimate.

The vineyard on a gravel ridge overlooking the Gironde
estuary has a well-drained gravel bed with a limestone sub-strata and produces
predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, with
a smaller plot producing white Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle.

OUR VERDICT

Lynch Bages is one
of the ‘must-have’ classified growths and one of the undisputed pearls of
Pauillac.  Bigger in structure than many of the wines of the appellation,
it is one of the few 5^th growths that would qualify, routinely, as
an investment wine – and it has more in common in quality terms with the 2^nd
growths.