Château Haut-Batailley 2022 Pauillac 5e Grand Cru Classé

Jeb Dunnuck
(94-96+)/100 punten
The 2022 Château Haut-Batailley is much more structured and darker than the Verso [Colaris: de 2e wijn van Haut-Batailley], offering classic Pauillac cassis, currant, tobacco leaf, melted chocolate, and espresso nuances, with an almost iron-like hint that emerges with time in the glass. Full-bodied, concentrated, and powerful, it's nevertheless balanced and textured. It's a brilliant wine, if not the finest vintage I've tasted from this château.

Jeff Leve (The Wine Cellar Insider)
(94-96)/100 punten
Dark in color, the wine is equally dark on the palate with its layers of black, red, and blue fruits, nuances of pepper, spice box, flowers, and currants. Deep, long, chewy, creamy and intense, there are gorgeous layers of fruit here waiting to be tasted. The wine is powerful, tannic, and long. The finish sticks with its fruit, and minty edge to the endnote. The wine was made from blending 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot.

Neal Martin (Vinous)
(93-95)/100 punten
The 2022 Haut-Batailley is matured in 65% new oak for a planned 16 months. It has a very intense and almost untamed bouquet that explodes from the glass, and only after five or ten minutes does it begin to show some restraint. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy, fresh and multi-layered tannins, not dissimilar to the Mouton-Rothschild that I tasted a couple of hours earlier. With a satin-textured finish, this will need a decade in the cellar and some taming during élevage. Like a young tiger at the moment.

Falstaff:
96/100 punten
Deep dark ruby colour with purple reflections, subtle brightening on the rim. Nuances of cassis with delicate floral notes in the background, red heart cherries, fresh tangerine zest, attractive bouquet. Juicy, red currant, red cherry, some nougat, fresh acidity, mineral and salty finish, lively, animating style, good ageing potential.

James Suckling
(94-95)/100 punten
Classy and very focused with blackberry and blackcurrant character. The tannins nicely melt into the wine with finesse and weightlessness. Elegant. 70% cabernet sauvignon and 30% merlot.

Decanter
93/100 punten
Ripe, dark bramble fruits, concentrated and intense on the nose and on the palate but with such juicy acidity. This is quite serious though, the fine but filling tannins have tension and give a sense of strictness to the palate which is nicely countered by the generous, fruity, juicy fruit profile. Well made, almost chewy but still cool and refreshing with blueberries, graphite, liquorice and tobacco edges. Nice and easy, but still intense with depth and cool minerality on the finish.

The Wine Independent (Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW)
(92-94)/100 punten
The 2022 Haut-Batailley, 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot, is deep garnet-purple in color. It gallops out with bold notions of warm cassis, blackberry pie, and black raspberries, followed by hints of clove oil, tilled soil, and lilacs. The medium to full-bodied palate has a rock-solid backbone of firm, grainy tannins and plenty of freshness to support the taut, muscular fruit, finishing long and minerally.

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
(91-93+)/100 punten
A blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot, the 2022 Haut-Batailley offers up aromas of sweet berries and plums mingled with licorice and pencil shavings. Medium to full-bodied, firm and structured, it's a serious, rather muscular and extracted wine that begins to nod toward its stablemate Lynch Bages in style.

Jancis Robinson
17,5/20 punten
Fragrant Cabernet nose. Juicy on the palate with plentiful but polished tannins. Builds to a long, persistent finish. Elegance and power combined.

Jane Anson
93/100 punten
Sculpted plum and raspbery puree fruits, fresh lift through the palate, this is a lovely wine that has intense liquorice and bilberry fruit, a little austere in its tannic structure on the finish, more so than in recent vintages at this sculpted fruit-forward Pauillac, but there is great spice here, and has the phenolic richness and density of the year. 3.73ph, 65% new oak.