Bordeaux 2022 Cru Bourgeois: Haut-Médoc
Following on from my review of the 2022 Cru Bourgeois wines in the Médoc communes, from
St Estèphe all the way down to Margaux, I come here to the wines of the Haut-Médoc appellation.
I think if I were asked to seek out the very highest quality from among the ranks of Bordeaux’s many Cru Bourgeois properties I would turn first to the Haut-Médoc. While this appellation does not have the same cachet as Pauillac or St Julien, this has been to its (and to our) collective advantage.
Many Cru Bourgeois and unclassified properties – there are many which eschew any classification at all – are family-owned, and as land values soar in Bordeaux’s most glittering communes, inheritance taxes often result in the sale of vineyards or even entire properties. It is not uncommonly the case that it is only the cash-rich classed-growth neighbours which can afford to buy, and as a consequence with time many smaller estates in Pauillac and St Julien have been absorbed into larger and more famous names.
And this is not a purely historical matter; it was only in 2020 that the Bondon family secured the family ownership of Château Pontac-Lynch by selling off a significant swathe of its vineyards, 6.5 hectares in total, which were taken by neighbouring Château d’Issan. For the moment the greatly contracted Château Pontac-Lynch lives on, with Valentine Bondon at the helm. Château La Fleur Milon was not so lucky when it was acquired by Baroness Philippine de Rothschild in 2004; its vines were absorbed into the other Rothschild estates, most probably Clerc-Milon.
