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Jean Philippe Delmas and his team at Clarence Dillon estates have quite simply nailed the 2025 vintage. This is another superlative wine from the family stable. Floral spring aromas, with further scents of violet and lavender and early summer fruits. Charming and graceful in the palate, with a velvety texture, the tannins are suede-like in style and quality, giving rounded depth and a refined density. It builds and builds as the deeper darker berry flavours evolve. Fleshy and juicy, exuding joy and happiness and thankfully the flavours rest in the mouth for an eternity as it reaches for perfection.
The 2025 La Mission Haut-Brion is one of my early favorites in this vintage. Aromatic and vibrant, with striking purity, the Grand Vin is magnificent. Red-toned fruit, blood orange, pomegranate, mint and cinnamon soar from the glass. Beams of supporting tannin lend energy and shape. In a word: compelling. One of the wines of the vintage. Drink 2035-2075.
Jean Philippe Delmas and his team at Clarence Dillon estates have quite simply nailed the 2025 vintage. This is another superlative wine from the family stable. Floral spring aromas, with further scents of violet and lavender and early summer fruits. Charming and graceful in the palate, with a velvety texture, the tannins are suede-like in style and quality, giving rounded depth and a refined density. It builds and builds as the deeper darker berry flavours evolve. Fleshy and juicy, exuding joy and happiness and thankfully the flavours rest in the mouth for an eternity as it reaches for perfection.
Stretching from the rather unglamorous southern suburbs of Bordeaux, for 50 km along the left bank of the river Garonne, lies Graves. Named for its gravelly soil, a relic of Ice Age glaciers, this is the birthplace of claret, despatched from the Middle Ages onwards from the nearby quayside to England in vast quantities. It can feel as though Bordeaux is just about red wines, but some sensational white wines are produced in this area from a blend of sauvignon blanc, Semillon and, occasionally, muscadelle grapes, often fermented and aged in barrel. In particular, Domaine de Chevalier is renowned for its superbly complex whites, which continue to develop in bottle over decades. A premium appellation, Pessac-Leognan, was created in 1987 for the most prestigious terroirs within Graves. These are soils with exceptional drainage, made up of gravel terraces built up in layers over many millennia, and consequently thrive in mediocre vintages but are less likely to perform well in hotter years. These wines were appraised and graded in their own classification system in 1953 and updated in 1959, but, like the 1855 classification system, this should be regarded with caution and the wines must absolutely be assessed on their own current merits.
