Leve will get me drunk, blind me on some Rolland dreg. I end of swooning over it, get elevated from Yak to Hack* in Board social status. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Answer is that they’re not remotely perfect substitutes - hard to think of two Bordeaux more different from each other in fact. Les Carmes is an unusual wine for Graves and even for Bordeaux as a whole. The blend relies heavily on cabernet franc and they’ve been using all sorts of hip new winemaking techniques lately - clay amphorae, whole-cluster ferments. The style change and perhaps a bit of marketing glamour (I’m told that new Philippe Starck-designed cellar is far-out!) are responsible for the high-90s scores it’s been getting lately as opposed to the mid-90s scores it’s gotten previously but trust 'em, the difference is yuuuuuuuge. It’s a deeper, heavier wine than it used to be and I do like it better - I always thought Carmes needed more personality. Actually I still think it needs more personality. But we don’t know yet what these new wines will taste like when they’re mature. We do know that their recent esteem reflects technique at least as much as terroir.
Haut-Bailly on the other hand is one of the most elegant wines in Bordeaux, both banks. Mature Haut-Bailly has a texture of pure silk that can rival Romanee St. Vivant. In Bordeaux it’s really only matched by Lafite-Rothschild and a handful of top Pomerols like VCC and Trotanoy. It benefited for a long time from some very old vines that packed intense flavor into that slender frame so it combines that refinement with screaming terroir personality like few other wines have. Pessac (we’ll go with the short name, even though Haut-Bailly is in the Leognan part) is by far the most characterful/interesting appellation in Bordeaux IMO and I’m pretty convinced those tarry, mesquite-smokey flavors were what Pepys was tasting when he remarked on the “good and most particular taste I never met with” in Haut-Brion. Haut-Bailly in on the short list with the other H-B, Pape-Clement, and sometimes La Mission in giving textbook examples of those flavors. For reasons I haven’t exactly understood, since about 2005 or so, Haut-Bailly has been getting much higher point scores than prior vintages. There has been a lot of renewed diligence in the vineyard and cellar but the ratcheting up in points was bizarrely sudden relative to the gradual changes in the wine. These changes have plumped up the wine a bit - it’s no longer so slender - but still has that super-refined texture. But for the most part the new high-90s scores do not reflect improvement so much as they’re belatedly bringing the scores up to recognize a quality level that was always there, with just a few blips in transition periods. So if you need a 98-point Haut-Bailly, you can buy some of the recent vintages, some of which are already knockouts and others best locked away (the 2015 is the finest, 2014 the best value in my book). But if you don’t care about the points you can pick up a back vintage and get something that shows even better. 1995 and 1990 are in a great spot at the moment. 1998 may be just a short ways off. They’ll improve for decades more. If you can find bottles with good storage there are some '60s and '70s vintages as good or better than the same vintage Haut-Brion. Ditto for Pape-Clement. But not so for Les Carmes…
Much as I love old bottles of Haut Bailly, I think it is a stretch to say they are better than Haut Brion.
A wonderful read. Thanks.
It has always surprised me that you don’t like Les Carmes as much as I do, given its Cab Franc profile. I think it has tremendous charm and personality. At least until 2014. Now it is more of more. I will pop a 2016 shortly. I’m backfilling at this point.
Haut Bailly is often a cut above, but I agree with Mark, for my palate, it is not comparable to Haut Brion. Rarely. I do agree that it historically is about as elegant as Bordeaux gets. I love it. The 1947 I had at Berns - in what is reputedly on OTT vintage - was incredibly elegant, ethereal. A beautiful silky transparent texture but still conveying so much sensory information. I have not had a vintage any younger than 2008. I refrained from buying 2009 and 2010 after reading some of the critics’ notes and scores, but did load up on 2014. Glad to see you are so positive on 2015 and 2016, but the pricing is so high that I’d rather backfill.
A short (and no doubt partial) answer is simply supply vs. demand. HB produces about 4-5x as much of their grand vin as LCHB. I asked the LCHB chateau rep about the big price increase at the '16 UGC tasting in Houston last year and that’s the explanation she gave me. Huge new demand. Small supply.
100% agree with Keith Levenberg. The main reason that Carmes Haut Brion is skyrocketing is that it is quite a unique wine for Graves and for a Bordeaux thanks to a special blend but much more thanks to new techniques (especially whole-cluster fermentation). People are always looking to find these “unicorns”, the odd-one-outs (think Rayas).
There is a second reason: I follow 16 wine critics for Bordeaux. There are a bunch of critics who like that unique style a lot. But others don’t care that much. Haut Bailly gets on average slightly better scores than Les Carmes. A more nuanced analysis shows that while for Haut Bailly all ratings are roughly around the average, for Les Carmes Haut Brion ratings are much more spread and the average is much less representative. Some Critics (JM Quarin, Yves Becker as well as Jeff) rated Carmes consistently very high including 5 max scores vs only 3 max scores for Haut Bailly for 2015-2018. If you follow one of these critics closely (as I do with Quarin for Bdx) then LCHB stands much more out than the average score would suggest.
Here my CT tasting note on the 2018:
More than 40% whole cluster fermentation. The at the tasting present winemaker Guillaume Pouthier told us that his target always was and is to produce a singular expression of Pessac and Bordeaux. The result, as is true for 2016, is indeed singular and in my opinion amazing. Sweet strawberry candy, fresh dark sour cherries, stems, sous bois, a nice complementing layer of fresh herbal aromas. Very smooth, fine tannins, wonderfully integrated acidity. Intense, elegant and soft. Even if you don‘t have a lot of experience you would be able to single this wine out in a blind tasting. Believe the hype and go get some bottles (also of the 2012 we tasted alongside (no CT note but definitely a 94+ experience; and of course you should buy the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 too).
I see this wine somewhere in the 95 to 99 point range.
There are 16 published critics for Bordeaux?! 
I am curious if Gilman has commented on the Chateau and its changes. I think he stopped writing about young Bordeaux - perhaps just from barrel tasting - but I am curious.
I enjoyed a bottle of 2000 Les Carme Haut Briton quite recently. It was earthy and still firmly structured. I’m not a Leve; on this board I’m a nobody, but I would definitely view the wine as a good deal better than “just ok”.
I’m a nobody, too. The 2000 is excellent. I just grabbed a few more at $100 per. All day long at that price…
2014 Haut Bailly
$58.99
66% Cab 34% Merlot
Riedel Bordeaux Grand Cru Glasses
Two hour decant
Consumed last nite.
The 2014 first hits with classic cassis which gives way to a touch of leather and sweet tobacco. On the palate, a bit shy at first but some coaxing revealed an elegant dark fruit profile. Medium-bodied with firm and persistent fine-grained tannin. Excellent. Excellent value as well. Needs a few year in the cellar.
I picked up a case of the ‘78 Haut Bailly recently for a song. If they are remotely close to HB quality I’ll be thrilled!
Perhaps there should be a separate thread on this, but we should all consider that the assemblage that is put together by a chateau for a vintage that is less than a year old is a “good faith representation” of what a chateau will eventually continue to age, blend and bottle. Although I like most of us, will rely on some part on these early tasting reviews, we are talking about reviews of wines that have not even bottled and the final blend of what all will go into the wine and to what percentage has not even been etched in stone. The LCHB high prices is due to economics. Less supply of the wine, and lots of demand from how well it showed early, all factor into why the pricing is higher than normal. Although I am an admirer of LCHB and happy for what they have apparently achieved, I think the smarter buy for the buck will be the Haut Bailly in 2018. Last thing to note, I wonder what pricing for the 2019 or 2020 LCHB will be? That will be of course influenced by how that vintage showed, but also by how well the 2018 LCHB shows when it is finally in bottle and available to be tasted.
FWIW Chambers St as of this morning has decent quantity of 1998 LCHB @ $75.
I grabbed some as well.
The ‘59 Calon Segur was quite tempting . . . .
Yes. Ditto the 82 CS and 59 Pichon mag!
Very well written and great points.