2000 Château Haut-Bages Libéral, Pauillac 5ème Cru Classé

Two bottles available. A Fifth Growth from a great vintage.

Haut-Bages Libéral takes its name from the Bages hills and from the Libéral family, eighteenth-century wine brokers who owned it. Thirty hectares in three plots, and the detail that matters: some of those parcels border Château Latour. The rest sit up on the Bages plateau. Deep gravel over clay and limestone, and it is the limestone that gives the estate its signature freshness.

Where this bottle came from

Every rare bottle we list came out of somebody's cellar, bought from a collector we know rather than through a broker. We inspect each one in person before taking it, and it sits in temperature-controlled storage from that day on.

In the glass

Jeff Leve, scoring it 90, called it a solid example of classic Left Bank Bordeaux: crisp, bright red fruits with some strictness in the tannins, and all the cedar, forest leaf, cigar box and peppery herbs you want from mature Pauillac. At twenty-six years old the fruit has moved to the savoury side and the tannins have softened without disappearing.

The details

• Producer: Château Haut-Bages Libéral
• Appellation: Pauillac, Médoc, Bordeaux, France
• Classification: Cinquième Cru Classé, 1855
• Vintage: 2000
• Score: 90 points, Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
• Format: 750ml
• Drinking window: now through around 2030, well-stored bottles. No upside left in holding.

Haut-Bages Libéral is well known today for biodynamic farming and for ageing part of the wine in concrete ovoids and amphorae. None of that applies to a 2000. The amphorae arrived in 2018 and Demeter certification in 2019. In 2000 this was a conventionally farmed Pauillac under Taillan ownership, with Claire Villars managing and the cellar being modernised that very year.

The 2000 vintage

One of the genuinely great modern Bordeaux years, and the strongest vintage on this page. Wine Spectator rates it 95 across the Left Bank; The Wine Cellar Insider puts it at 99, calling it a stunning vintage that produced great wines with opulent character, freshness and purity across every red appellation. The honest caveat: at twenty-six years the lesser classed growths have arrived, so buy this to drink rather than to keep.

Serving and pairing

Stand upright a day ahead. Decant off the sediment an hour before serving at 62°F. Lamb, roast beef, or aged hard cheese.

Two bottles left, packed for transit and shipped from Florida. Browse more Bordeaux.