Chateau Batailley 5eme Cru Classe, Pauillac 2009

Ideal with a 2-hour carafe

This is one of my secret weapon wines, that I know will make everybody happy when it is served. Signature Pauillac, generous but still with muscular tannins, loaded up with pencil lead, slate, cassis, cedar and mint leaf, with waves of liquorice and rose aromatics that keep you coming back for more. Ready to drink but with life ahead of it.

Drink 2022 - 2036

The finest Batailley I have had in many years, the dense purple-coloured 2009 exhibits a boatload of tannin as well as sweet, caramelized, black currant fruit intermixed with hints of charcoal, cedarwood and smoke, a full-bodied mouthfeel and the aforementioned high, but sweet, well-integrated tannin displaying no jaggedness. Batailley often requires considerable patience as it can be one of the longest-lived Pauillacs. Atypically for Batailley, the 2009 should be ready to drink in 5-7 years and keep for three decades.

Drink 2017 - 2047

A rich yet dry Pauillac that's now very attractive to drink and has a good harmony in spite of the generous alcohol. Long, supple finish. 

Drink or hold

The 2009 Batailley seems a little closed on the nose at first and needs more encouragement than its peers, eventually unfurling with cedar and graphite-infused black fruit, slightly earthy in style. The palate is medium-bodied with fine definition, quite linear and poised with a touch of cracked black pepper on the finish. Excellent.

Drink 2020 - 2038

Inky ruby. Red fruits, liquorice, dried herbs and cedary oak on the nose. Then dense and fine-grained in the mouth, with a distinctly cool quality to the blackcurrant jelly, red cherry and candied violet flavours. This rich, smooth wine boasts a lovely depth of flavour and finishes with a strong herbal aftertaste and mounting, mouthcoating tannins. A very successful Batailley to forget about in your cellar for 6 to 8 years, and then enjoy for another 15 to 20 after that.

Rich, rewarding, deep aroma of ripe black fruit. Good natural fruit and middle sweetness with tannins well hidden beneath layers of satiny, luscious fruit. Suspect this is closing up now and it needs a good few years to unfurl.

Drink now to 2040