2010 Chateau Lynch-Bages Pauillac Grand Cru Classe

While technically ranked as a Fifth Growth, Château Lynch-Bages is in a small group of over-performing estates that reach well beyond their placement in the Classification of 1855. This major under-ranking is good news for you because wines of this caliber that ranked higher in the classification usually fetch much higher prices, especially from esteemed older vintages. This Pauillac estate has shown its pedigree in recent decades as a muscular, Cabernet-dominated Bordeaux with nuanced black fruits, tobacco, cedar, and crushed graphite aromas vintage after vintage. Lynch-Bages is the quintessential scholar athlete, performing at high levels across domains of both power and intelligence.

       While the estate has been known for its hard-edged power, since 2009, precision viticulture has been carried out. They have spent millions mapping the vineyards to meticulous detail with drones, satellites, and GPS. This allows the estate to farm up to 350 smaller plot sizes and get into a truly crazy level of detail with geo-located fertilizing tractors that can adapt ratios of organic and mineral fertilizers based on vineyard needs with a specificity as tiny as five meters. The wines are archetypal examples of Pauillac's dominating power, and excellent examples like these are reliable for over 30 years. We have a number of special vintages available tonight, including some gorgeous 1995 back vintage and the revered and highly collectible 2010 that had all the critics raving. These wines are in it for the long haul and can be cellared for decades - BRANDON KERNE, MASTER SOMMELIER

97 Points From William Kelley of Wine Advocate

"Still a saturated ruby-black in hue, the 2010 Lynch-Bages offers up aromas of rich cassis fruit mingled with hints of pencil shavings, loamy soil and cigar wrapper. Full-bodied, deep and muscular, it's rich and layered, with a concentrated core of fruit that's framed by firm, powdery tannins and lively acids. The most brooding, backward Lynch-Bages of the decade and one of the real successes of the vintage, this is a vibrant, tightly wound wine that is still an infant at age 10. Readers with bottles in their cellars might try one now out of curiosity, but this 2010 won't begin to hit its stride until age 20. (February 2022)"