CHÂTEAU HAUT BAILLY
2014 Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan Château Haut Bailly
This is lovely. Such an elegance to the wine. Long and intense with beautiful spice. There is a really nice shape to the fruit-driven core. The dark furit is pert, polished and laced with minerality. Long and intense this has a compact tautness too for the longish haul. 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot. Rating: 93 L&S (Mar 2015)
* This is a pre-shipment/primeur offer. All orders are accepted under the TERMS of this offer which differ from the terms of the rest of the site.
The 2014 Haut-Bailly has a sophisticated bouquet with cedar and gravel-infused red berry fruit, gaining intensity with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, quite supple tannins that manage to form a firm frame that should see this repay cellaring. There is plenty of attractive, lightly spice red and black fruit, segueing into clove and black olive notes towards the finish. Excellent. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting. Drinking range: 2021 - 2045 Rating: 94 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Mar 2018)
Mellow nose with rather austere drying tannins but everything seems in place for the future. Drinking range: 2025 - 2040 Rating: 17 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Feb 2018)
The Château Haut-Bailly 2014 is a blend of 66% Cabernet Sauvignon and 34% Merlot picked between 24 September and 15 October. Véronique Sanders explained that it represents a much higher percentage of Cabernet because of its quality, the Merlot undergoing some saignée due to the size of berries. Matured in 50% new oak and including 8% vin de presse, it has a lovely bouquet with superb delineation, touches of undergrowth and tobacco infusing the pure black fruit, stirrings of black tea emerging with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with edgy, crisp tannin on the entry and good acidity (ph 3.7), perhaps more than say, the 2012. There is a fine sense of energy here and at dovetails into a lightly spiced, slightly saline finish. This is a slightly less ostentatious than recent vintages, a little more restrained but the terroir really shows through. Excellent. Expect this to land at the top of my banded score. Drinking range: 2017 - 2035 Rating: 91-93 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (May 2015)
Restrained black fruit and pencil shavings - beautifully extracted, though not as vibrant as best vintages here. Persstency and elegance, in line with 2001. 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot. Precision winemaking; Denis Dubourdieu consultant since 1998. (Highly Recommended Pessac-Léognan, Decanter.) Drinking range: 2025 - 2040 Rating: 94 Steven Spurrier (Apr 2015)
The 2014 Haut Bailly is exceptionally polished, creamy and textured from the very first taste. Black cherries, plums, smoke, tobacco and incense meld together in an ample, voluptuous wine built on pure texture. The high percentage of Merlot gives the 2014 relatively soft contours to balance the pure intensity of the Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a remarkably balanced, polished, young Haut-Bailly. The blend is 66% Cabernet Sauvignon and 34% Merlot. Rating: 93-96 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Apr 2015)
Rich and substantial but racier than the old Haut-Bailly style. Really very well mastered. Good balance without excess acidity or tannin. Very persistent. The concentration was presumably helped enormously by the saignée that produced the Rosé. Just a little stolid but a very impressive 2014. Drinking range: 2020 - 2034 Rating: 17.5+ Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Apr 2015)
Black fruits on the nose fragrant and floral the start of the palate has bilberry freshness quite firm. Rich in the middle the fruit is ripe the tannins well handled a mix of cassis and black cherry layers of flavour. Fresher at the back slightly herbal gravelly then sweet fruit comes and gives richness on the finish. Drinking range: 2018 - 2030 Rating: 89-93 Derek Smedley MW, www.dereksmedleymw.co.uk (Apr 2015)
An ambitious Haut-Bailly that's made with one eye on the future. Bold, concentrated and savoury but with considerable underlying finesse, this has gravelly tannins, bright acidity and sinewy tannins. The fruit sweetness is there, but it needs time to emerge from the wine's shell. Drinking range: 2022 - 2030 Rating: 94 Tim Atkin MW, www.timatkin.com (Apr 2015)
A subtle and refined wine with savory, salty and delicately fruity character. Full body, fine tannins and a fresh finish. Compacted and tight. Lovely tension. Precise. Rating: 93-94 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Mar 2015)
Château Haut Bailly
The now very reliable Pessac-Léognan estate of Haut Bailly was revived after its purchase by Belgian Daniel Sanders. He'd married into the Bordeaux wine trade in 1919, and formed a determination to buy Haut Bailly after tasting their awesome 1945. There was much work to do upon buying the estate, some of the vines were still ungrafted for instance, and the renovation was still not complete by the time Daniel's son took over in 1979. Véronique Sanders represents the latest generation to run the estate, albeit under the benign ownership of American Robert Wilmers who bought Haut Bailly in 1998 bringing more much needed investment, the fruits of which can be seen in the high quality of today's wines. The vineyards are planted to a fairly typical "Left Bank" mix of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc.
Please make sure that you have read the terms of this offer which are different from those of the main website. If you are unclear as to what is involved in primeur purchases please do call us, but see the 'practical notes' below.
Ordering
Prices are per case as listed 'in bond London'.
Pre-Orders are a firm commitment from you to buy the wines you order on release, subject to the price being below the upper price of the estimated band on our website. You may also set your own upper price limit, lower or higher than ours. Pre-orders will be fulfilled subject to availability. Providing this firm commitment to us effectively gives you priority.
Wines listed on the website (after any pre-orders and allocations have been fulfilled) can be ordered in the usual way via the website order form or by email or telephone 020 7221 1982, always subject to stock remaining.
Confirmation
All orders will be confirmed by email and are contractually binding unless written cancellation is received within seven days of the confirmation date, apart from pre-orders which are binding if the release price is below the top estimate or other price you have set.
Invoices are raised at the In Bond price, excluding any duty and VAT which will become payable at the prevailing rates on arrival of the wine if required duty paid.
Payment is required on sight of invoice, by cash, cheque, debit card or credit transfer. We reserve the right to charge 2% per month on invoices unpaid after 30 days.
Delivery
- Shipment to our bond (LCB Creek Road) and insurance are included in the in bond price.
- Delivery is free to Lea and Sandeman / Elephant storage accounts, both duty paid and in bond.
- Other deliveries (In Bond and Duty Paid) are also free subject to a minimum order from the offer of £1000, orders below this total will be charged £16.50+ VAT when the wine invoices are issued. We will group deliveries and this is a charge for your entire purchases, not a per-case charge.
- Delivery for 2016 Bordeaux primeurs will probably be completed by October 2019, but we make no guarantee as to specific delivery times, and some of the Sauternes may be later.
Practical notes - how it works
We start a sale in each customer's name and add all their primeur orders to one sale which is invoiced at the end of the campaign (or when the customer wishes) for immediate payment. We and our customers find that having a single invoice for the vintage is the simpler option, but do please note that confirmed orders are still binding as above even if the final invoice has not been issued.
When the wine is shipped, unless previously specified we will assume that delivery is to be to bonded storage with Elephant Storage, but in any case, we will contact you requesting any alternative instructions. If you have another bonded delivery address you would like the wine to go to, please tell us at the time of ordering. If the wines are required duty-paid we will issue invoices at the rates prevailing at the time for the excise duty (currently £25.98 per case) and the VAT (currently at 20%) on the total of the wine cost and the duty.
Half-bottles, Magnums and larger bottles.
One of the additional advantages of buying en primeur is being able to order the wine in the bottle size you want. Even if a wine is only listed in one size, you can order any bottle or case size you want if the property supplies it, but you must order the case/bottle size you require and check that the correct size has been invoiced.
Additional charges are as follows:-
- +£15 per case of 24 half-bottles
- +£15 per case of 6 Magnums (2 bottles equivalent, 1.5 litres each)
- +£35 per individually boxed Double Magnum (4 bottles equivalent, 3 litres)
- +£45 per individually boxed Imperial (8 bottles equivalent, 6 litres) for Salmanazars, Balthazars, Nebuchadnezzars and Melchiors please enquire for availability and price.