Château Haut-Bailly Retrospective, 2013: Vintage Rundown
Having polished off my lunch (my mother always insisted I left a clean plate, and that’s exactly what I did here) I started with the older vintages first, and so the first flight of five wines kicked off with the 1998 vintage. This vintage, when it comes to Pessac-Léognan, isn’t a bad place to start at all, as it was a good vintage for the region, sufficiently enticing for me to have added some bottles of 1998 Château Haut-Bailly to my own cellar a few years ago. Reviewing the growing season, there was early and uniform flowering (an advantage), and a drought in July and August, before the rains came in September. Quality was ameliorated by placing a sorting table between the destemmer and press for the first time, so that after destemming manual removal of stem fragments and other unwanted material could be effected. The quality shows through in the wine, which I have long enjoyed, although I have to admit that in the light of what has been achieved in subsequent vintages it does pale somewhat.
Hopes of another great vintage in 1999 were raised when flowering was again earlier than average, and was also uniform, much like 1998. The mid-véraison point came on August 4th, matching the 1989 season. It was perhaps inclement weather during picking that knocked the quality back a little; there was some trial picking from September 10th, but most of the fruit came in between September 22nd and October 5th, the pickers dodging the rain but plugging on whenever possible in order to harvest before the spectre of grey rot appeared. Although good and clean, the more troublesome season shows through in the quality of the wine in my opinion.
I suspect few words need to be said about the 2000 vintage; although Robert Wilmers had not really been in charge long enough to make a huge difference, the quality of the vintage shines through. The average temperatures were above normal, and the harvest progressed from September 13th to October 11th, under excellent conditions. The wine is very fine indeed. Enough said, I think. Moving on, the story of 2001 is more surprising, as like 1998 this remains a relatively overlooked vintage, in this case because it lives in the shadow of the previous year. There had been some fine tuning of work in the vineyard, and yields were cut back to 39 hl/ha. The wine, despite the hard work, the quality of the fruit and the rigorous hand-sorting is not up to the same level as 2000, but it is very good indeed. The first flight finished with 2002, an impressive wine for the vintage, showing delicacy but also dark and fresh fruit. A dry and cool growing season, culminating in picking from September 20th to October 15th, it was the weather that engendered this cooler, crisper style. Quality was ameliorated by use of a vibrating sorting table between the destemmer and press again
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