Bordeaux 2012 Primeurs: Pessac-Léognan Reds and Whites
Few châteaux provide quite as much detail as the team at Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion. One that comes close though is Château Haut-Bailly, perhaps not inappropriately as the property was, many decades ago, ranked at a very similar level, and is clearly in the ascendant again in recent vintages.
Château Haut-Bailly
The story presented by Véronique Sanders of Château Haut-Bailly very much mirrors that at Haut-Brion, and indeed throughout the rest of Bordeaux. The vines lurched from the cool spring weather into an August drought, although mention was made of the cool nights, clearly implying the fruit remained fresh despite the warmth. The harvest of the Merlots began a little later here (but more typical of the region as a whole – ripening at Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion is earlier thanks, I believe, to its warmer suburban mesoclimate) on September 27th, and proceeded until October 8th; this was after the rain of late September, but before the heavens opened in October. There was a little rain recorded on October 2nd at the weather station at Bordeaux airport at Mérignac (not all that far from the Pessac-Léognan appellation), but certainly nothing that would interfere with the harvest or the quality of the fruit. By the time the harvest was finishing on October 8th it was raining again, but by this time the picking of the Merlots had largely been completed.
