2025 Château Lynch-Bages, Pauillac, Bordeaux

The 2025 Lynch-Bages was picked 9 to 21 September and matured in 75% new oak barrels. This has a stunning bouquet with exceptionally pure blackberry, cassis and subtle violet scents, the oak seamlessly integrated. The palate is medium-bodied with finely embroidered tannins, perfect acidity, a touch of cedar and black pepper that dovetails into a peacock's tail finish that “clings” to the mouth. This continues the strongest run from Lynch-Bages since the 1980s and, perhaps with the 2025, it is close to surpassing that.

The 2025 Lynch-Bages is a wine only very patient consumers should contemplate. Dark and explosive, with incisive tannins, the 2025 is quite the powerhouse. Huge beams of tannin lend serious intensity and power. In many warmer years, this level of richness is accompanied by commensurately high alcohols and viscosity, but the 2025 is built around fairly classic lines, which only reinforces its sheer brawn.

Dark fruit with a touch of vanilla oak. Layered fruit on the palate. Firm but fine tannins. Tight and long on the finish. Not at its best, the oak not yet fully integrated but clear potential.

Dried floral scents, some cocoa powder, mint, red berries and sweet rose petals. Clean and crystalline, a lovely purity and soft chalky touch to the tannins which fill the mouth but don’t overwhelm. Feels quite a restrained style for Lynch, delicate almost, a gentle lick of liquorice, slate and wet stone with blackcurrant fruit. Quite a long style, very charming, juicy but really overall quite finessed/hands off. Ageing will add on a bit of added texture. Grippy, fleshy, chalky but cool. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 3.68pH.

Lots of great energy, with a precision and focus that sends you down the road to gorgeous dark fruits and mineral nuances. A cool, minty note. Medium- to full-bodied. Racy and intense, with a lightness at the end. Juicy fruit, too.

Currants, smoky oak, chocolate, and hints of violets all define the 2025 Château Lynch-Bages, a remarkably balanced, elegant Pauillac from this estate that has more than a passing resemblance to the 2019. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has ultra-fine tannins and nicely integrated acidity, and it builds beautifully with time in the glass. It should have some reasonable accessibility, but as with most vintages here, the cellar will be your friend.

Damson, cassis, bilberry, a wine that doesn't feel so far away from the very top vintages of the estate, clear expansion in the mid palate, with an uncompromising architecture that has the supple tannins of a warm year, with pomegranate, incense, blackberry, cedar, slate, crushed rocks. Excellently put together with juice, promise and personality. 3.68 pH. 75% new oak. Harvest September 9 to 21. Jean-Charles Cazes owner, along with his three sisters, Nicolas Labenne technical director.

The 2025 Lynch-Bages wafts from the glass with aromas of dark wild berries, lead pencil and spices, framed by well-integrated new oak. Full-bodied, dense and concentrated, it’s deep and muscular, with a broad-shouldered profile, yet more velvety and precise than usual, showing a touch of freshness through the mid-palate, concluding with a long, cassis-inflected finish. Without departing from its customary style—combining power and generosity in youth—it is more approachable en primeur, with softer, more polished tannins than in recent vintages.

The 2025 Lynch-Bages wafts from the glass with aromas of dark wild berries, lead pencil and spices, framed by well-integrated new oak. Full-bodied, dense and concentrated, it’s deep and muscular, with a broad-shouldered profile, yet more velvety and precise than usual, showing a touch of freshness through the mid-palate, concluding with a long, cassis-inflected finish. Without departing from its customary style—combining power and generosity in youth—it is more approachable en primeur, with softer, more polished tannins than in recent vintages. This is a blend of 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot, matured with 75% new oak.