Chateau Lynch-Bages 2006
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A classic mature vintage, the nose offers an attractive interplay between deep, buttery black fruits, some cedar, and a cool, minty Cabernet character. The wine has plenty of structure and muscular characteristics, but beautiful fruit on the attack and alluring purity and nicely textured mouthfeel. A full-bodied finish with plenty of wrapping sweetness completes this tightly-packed Lynch-Bages.
Blend: 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This classic, powerful, firm Lynch Bages may be as concentrated (if not more so) than the 2005. It possesses a dense purple-tinged color, tell-tale cassis notes interwoven with hints of roast beef, savory herbs, spice box and subtle oak, good acidity and ripe tannin. The result is a full-bodied, fleshy Pauillac that will benefit from another 3-4 years of cellaring. It is capable of lasting 20-25 more years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Year after year, Lynch-Bages is able to produce sumptuous wines, typically rich, powerful and structured. This is solid, the blackberry ripe fruit enveloping this structure with a velvet sheen. This is developing into one of the successes of the vintage.
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Wine Spectator
Blackberry, licorice and mint aromas lead to a full-bodied palate, with velvety tannins and lots of blackberry and mineral fruit character. Shows outstanding concentration and balance. Best after 2014.
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James Suckling
Very focused and pretty now, with currants, minerals and hints of dried flowers. Full body with super-integrated tannins and a long, long finish. Beautiful.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
73% Cabernet Sauvignon; 15% Merlot; 10% Cabernet Franc; 2% Petit Verdot. Well-defined, ripe-currant fruit is the constant theme of this well-extracted young Pauillac, and, while showing plenty of fruity muscle and mass, the wine sports a fine sense of polish and suppleness without the sinewy toughness displayed by many of its mates. It is a complete and compelling claret with years of improvement ahead.
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Wine & Spirits
While the cedary scent shows this wine's potential complexity, the tannins bury it for now in extract. It's as black as ATV tires ripping roots out of the earth as it lays tracks over dark, blueberry flavors. A tough vintage of Lynch-Bages, this needs time to develop past its initial reduction and allow the fruit to come up.
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Wine
The grapes are all hand picked and then carefully sorted before crushing. A very strict selection is made prior to blending and the wine is traditionally aged in oak barrels before bottling.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.