Location, location, location, they say. How can this property, sitting as it does at the southern border of

Chateau Lynch-Bages and contiguous to six other Classified Growth Pauillacs including Chateau Latour remain under everyone’s radar? One reason may be that all those other guys are owned by high profile corporations or members of the French aristocracy while Chateau Haut de la Becade has been owned by the same Rainaud family for seven generations. And it’s small. Despite their vineyard being an island in the middle of a sea of Classified Growths, at just under eight hectares, their production is dwarfed by their neighbors. Think 600 total cases of wine as compared to, say, their neighbor Mouton Rothchild’s 30,000. When the Pauillac classification happened in 1855, no one was farming the property and hence the Haut de la Becade property wasn’t graded, virtually the only estate in the entire enclave of Bages that isn’t. Rumor is their neighbors have offered the Rainauds boatloads of money for the property but they stubbornly cling to an estate that makes every bit the same quality wine as their neighbors but seems doomed to get only a fraction of the price in the market. I can say that while it probably isn’t great to watch their neighbors fetching in the high three-digits per bottle, it’s nice for us to be able to discover a property that still manages to do what they do and still offer extraordinary value. The eight hectares of Haut de la Becade average around 35 years of age and are planted roughly 70% to Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% to Merlot and the rest to Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot and the wine here is made exactly as it is at their neighbors- hand-harvesting, three- or four-weeks vatting and around 15 months in wood, about 40% of which is new. What they can’t afford to do is produce a Second Label wine so every precious grape on the property goes into their Grand Vin. 2020 was, of course, a terrific vintage- a harvest known for its overall high quality and potential longevity. Pauillac is known to produce the best-balanced wines in the Northern Medoc- wines that are less burly and tannic than either of its neighbors, Saint Julien to the south or Saint Estephe to the north. The best have pronounced blackberry and black currant fruit, just the right amount of complex, herb and bramble-based aromatics (without getting too green) and tannins that, while firm, don’t define the palate of the wine. This is that wine- a wine we could show to a group of Bordeaux lovers as a textbook example of the commune. And it’s showing beautifully right now, though you could put this deep in the darkest part of the cellar with your Premier Grand Cru Classe Medocs and someday, a decade from now or longer, congratulate yourself on what a nice buy this was…..

Decanter: Beautiful nose of blackberries, black cherries, cloves, black pepper, and a little dark chocolate. The wine has a compelling intensity of bramble fruits on the palate, energetic, and mouth filling, with elegance and finesse. Juicy, long finish. 95 points