Community Tasting Note

Cailles wrote:

Wednesday, November 23, 2022 - Ten Vintages Haut Bailly vs Mission HB: Preamble: All wines tasted blind in 10 vintage flights (1994-2015). To every flight one random third wine from Pessac Leognan added (2x Haut Brion, 2x Smith, 2x Pape Clement, 1x Branon, 1x Luchy Halde, 1x Carmes, 1x Chevalier). All wines opened a few hours before consumption but no decanting.

Some findings:
1) Haut Bailly outperformed Mission (5 vs 4 wins, 92.5 vs 90.5 average). 2) Haut Bailly is a rather structured wine which seems to shine bright in ripe and warm vintages, without any form of excess ripeness or extraction. 3) When done right (05/15), Mission eclipses Haut Bailly with its depth and delineation , but several vintages showed a bit too ripe but especially with the alcohol not well masked (09/10). 4) Pessac wines usually need quite some air to open up. In this setting (no decanting), most wines needed a lot of swirling to fully open up and will need more cellar time. 5) The best wines today were Haut Bailly 09 (96pts) & 10 (95pts) and Mission 05 & 15 (95pts).

TN: Medium+ expressive nose, ripe dark fruit, some blue fruit. On the palate this is very inviting, very round and velvety but with lots of tension and luxurious tannins. The whole spectrum blue, black and some dark red fruit, quite ripe but not too ripe. This is lots of fun to drink with some sweet layers of sugar powder, and then coffee and toffee. Some herbs and a nice minerality backbone shining through. Very complex and highly precise But overall this is so round and easy to drink from start to the long finish. One of the starts of the tasting and compared to the 09/10 no alcohol showing.

Decanting: Showed quite well from the go. Maybe no extensive decanting is needed.

Post a Comment / View Cailles's profile
2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (4,455 views)