Château Haut-Bages-Libéral: Tasting & Drinking
The wines of Château Haut-Bages-Libéral were encountered early on in my exploration of Bordeaux, this early encounter reflecting the more affordable prices. The style was always rather worthy and workmanlike, and could offer good value to those in the know. In my experience, though, the wines rarely caused any excitement.
In more recent vintages, however there has been a more attractive, lifted style apparent, with a more gentle and texturally caressing character, which I have found more appealing. Having said that, I can’t help feeling that the wines are certainly still missing something. When you look on a map and see the location of the vineyards, across the road from Château Latour, down the road from Château Pichon Comtesse, round the corner from Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste – I can’t help feeling that this is an estate with some untapped potential.
What would the wines be like, I wonder, if the focus of the proprietor was solely here, and not cast across four different Bordeaux estates, not to mentioned Acaibo, their estate in California, with which they have been involved since 2012? Different, perhaps?
Looking back to recent vintages, the wines are modest compared to their peers, especially so when considering the neighbours list above. The most recent successful vintages include 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2016, although in each case I would have hoped for something more. The 2023 also put on a decent show. Nevertheless there is clearly some improvement in recent years, these wines a step up from what was produced in other recent vintages such as 2009 and 2010. I don’t have any noteworthy experience with the second wine, but I have tasted one or two vintages of Ceres, which showed a disappointing character marked by oxidation and perhaps other microbial misbehaviours, consequent upon the zero-added-sulphites agenda. (24/7/02, updated 28/11/06, 26/9/13, 22/3/25, 5/3/26)
