Community Tasting Note

Keith Levenberg Likes this wine:

Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - By far the most packed and stacked Haut-Bailly I have ever had, which explains the pointgasms you are seeing from certain quarters. If you are accustomed to the lithe, ethereal house style that distinguished Haut-Bailly for, oh, a good century or so until recently, tasting this will make you wistful and maybe even a little bit sad. Still, I can't deny how impressive it is in its own way and under any other label I wouldn't have mixed feelings about it. It opens with plump black fruit that feels as dense as tar with a scorched, charcoal-singed element that screams Pessac. With a little bit of time some crunchier red fruit emerges in the treble band. If the old Haut-Baillys were rendered in gentle watercolor strokes, this one is a big wet splotch of Midnight Black oil paint dripping off the canvas. Well, truth be told it is not as sloppy as it may sound from that description but it definitely struggles to find its contours and hew to them. The tannin is a fine powder but the sheer volume it's infused with to remain proportionate to its fruit concentration imposes some physical limitations on its claims to finesse. If the mood strikes for something deep and intense, this can be enjoyed now for the way it expresses its Graves character in poster-sized boldface but if you want to see it mellow out even a little bit I think you will have to sign up for an aging cycle that might not be entirely compatible with many buyers' actuarial tables.

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