Tasting 20 years of Château Haut-Bailly: 1998-2018

Chris Wilmers brings an unusual skillset to his role as co-owner and president of Château Haut-Bailly.

Where his father Bob Wilmers, who bought Haut-Bailly in 1998 had a successful career as a chairman of M&T bank back home in Buffalo, New York, Chris has spent his career as an ecologist.

He is now professor on the subject at Santa Cruz University in California. His particular speciality is on how climate change and habitat change affects animal behaviour and population dynamics – and more specifically wildebeest, deer and mountain lions, also known as the American puma or cougar.

Scroll down to see Jane Anson’s Château Haut-Bailly tasting notes and scores

You’ll have to go a long way to find a mountain lion in France (La Guyane in fact, a French territory in South America), but the idea that climate change is threatening habitats is something that is of great interest to winemakers worldwide, and no doubt makes his insights an interesting addition to the experiences of managing director Veronique Sanders and technical director Gabriel Vialard.

Haut-Bailly Factfile

Total vineyard plantings: 30ha

Grape varieties: 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot (these plantings do not account for the estate’s historic 4ha plot of 19th century grapes (or genetic material from those grapes) planted to Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot)

Managing Director: Véronique Sanders

Owners: Wilmers family

Consultant: Axel Marchal

Haut-Bailly has long been guided by the idea of preservation of landscapes, with the oldest plot of vines dating back to the 1890s and a new cellar being built that heads 10m underground, making use of geothermal energy, natural light and recycled materials, all covered by a hanging garden to minimize impact on the surrounding environment and encourage biodiversity.

I asked him recently how the two sides of his life fit together: ‘As an ecologist you learn that all living things are connected and impact each other… depending on a multitude of interactions that propagate from soil to plant to higher level consumers.

‘These are in turn affected by the genetics of organisms themselves, climate, elevation, soil structure and so on. The problem for the viticulturist/winemaker is how to deal with such complexity and produce a beautiful wine each year?

‘The first step is to recognise your limits and embrace complexity. Much like an ecosystem, wines aren’t a product to tame and control. But through experience and experimentation they can be gently coaxed to express their full potential. In life and in wine it is remarkable how far the application of good sense and science applied by good people can take you.’

This vertical, which celebrated the 20 years of Haut-Bailly under the stewardship of Bob Wilmers, underlined just how far this is a wine that has always embraced complexity, and good sense.

It has a reputation for conservatism at times, entirely producing red grapes, for example, when its neighbours such as La Louvière and Carbonnieux make both red and white. And yet that single-mindedly pursuit of excellence and a determination to play to its strengths has given the appellation of Pessac-Léognan a wine that stands among the very best of the region, and that sets a benchmark for long-living, perfectly balanced Bordeaux.

It’s a wine that I am lucky enough to taste fairly regularly, but not usually such an extensive vertical as this, with a full 21 wines.

Consistent excellence is what you hope for at Haut-Bailly, and it certainly showed it here. Last time I tasted the 2009 (at the 10 Years On tasting in London) I gave it 100 points, this time around that score was ceded to the 2010, which has the advantage I think of being a better reflection of the spirit of the estate.

But both vintages certainly show how impressive Haut-Bailly had become a decade on from the arrival of Bob Wilmers, who proved an extremely important owner in both his understanding of what made Haut-Bailly such a special terroir, and his willingness and ability to invest in what was needed to bring its potential out.

Clear proof of this comes in the estate’s ability to produce excellence in the less celebrated vintages, and I thoroughly recommend the 2004, 2007 and 2011 for drinking now; three years that are often underestimated but that have given finely-boned, beautifully constructed wines that are full of pleasure.

See Jane Anson’s Château Haut-Bailly tasting notes and scores

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