Château Lynch-Bages: History, environment, grape-growing, and wines

According to famed wine purveyor Berry Bros & Rudd, Château Lynch-Bages "is one of the best-known Medoc estates and has always had a particularly strong following on this side of the English Channel." The chateau's primary wine "can be surprisingly soft and approachable when young. However, when fully mature, it develops a succulent richness and a heavenly bouquet of minty blackcurrants and cigar boxes."

Accolades such as this, combined with the positive experiences of some group members, contributed to us selecting this wine as the third and final Pauillac entrant tasted in this series.

History

The Lynch-Bages winery is tightly linked to the Cazes name but the chateau's history stretches back way beyond its initial encounter with that nomenclature. I have divided the history of the estate into pre-Cazes and Cazes eras with the former encompassing north of 300 years. 

Environment

The below chart situates Lynch-Bages within the Pauillac region and in context to fellow producers.

With the exceptions of the first growths to the north (Lafite and Mouton) and south (Latour), the second growths to the south (Baron and Comtesse), and the fourth growth Duhart-Milon, all other producers in the Commune are (like Lynch-Bages) fifth growths.

The right side of the chart provides information on selected aspects of the wine-growing environment.

Grape-Growing and Wines

The variety mix for the estate's flagship wine is 71% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. Vines planted by André in 1973/74 gave Lynch-Bages and advantage in the 1980s because they were flourishing at a time when the rest of Bordeaux was just beginning to replant. 

These vines continue to yield benefits to the estate today as they serve as the basis for the Chateau's strategy of using massal selection for vine propagation. As the estate sees it, the mix of older vines is the result of decades of adaptations to the specific terroir.

The Chateau's farming and vineyard management practices are detailed in the chart following.

The estate began production of a white wine in 1990 and embarked on a massive renovation and modernization project in 2017. At the conclusion of this program, Lynch-Bages had shifted to a gravity-flow architecture for winemaking and had amassed enough vessels to allow implementation of parcel-by-parcel vinification.

With this deeper understanding of Chateau Lynch-Bages and its environment, we are now positioned to undertake an informed tasting of its wines.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

An overview of Bordeaux's Medoc

Our Orlando Tasting Group has recently held vertical tasting events focused on the Pauillac wines of Pichon Baron and Comtesse de Lalande and are about to embark on the tasting of a third -- Château Lynch-Bages. Before we do, however, I would like to take a step back and explore the larger context within which these chateaux operate.

Pauillac - the home appellation of these three estates -- exists within a larger geographical construct called the Medoc (illustrated below) which owes its winemaking prowess to (i) a temperate climate (characterized by humid springs, hot summers, sunny autumns, and relatively mild winters) and (ii) its gravelly soils. 

The region's growing conditions are favorably impacted by the climate modifiers detailed in the chart below.

The Medoc is divided into two sub-appellations: Medoc, to the north, and Haut-Medoc, with the former covering 4700 ha and the latter 4300. The Medoc sub-appellation, called Bas Medoc in earlier times, has heavy, moisture-retaining soils which are much more suited to Merlot  than the Cabernet Sauvignon which dominates in its neighbor to the south. 

Within the Haut-Medoc appellation there are four communal appellations renowned for producing some of the finest wines in the world. We will focus on this appellation and its communes in the remainder of this post.

The chart below provides an overview of the Haut-Medoc landscape and illustrates how its constituent parts function as an integrated draining mechanism.

Many areas in the Haut-Medoc have large deposits of gravel which were washed down from the Pyrenees thousands of years ago. This gravel provides excellent drainage and ideal conditions for Cabernet Sauvignon which does not like "wet feet." These gravelly soils retain warmth and, in so doing, aid in the ripening of the grapes. The characteristics of the soils at the commune level are detailed in the chart below.

With the treatment of this broader context complete, we can now resume our tasting of the commune wines.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme