Every time get through a horizontal of the wines of Pessac Léognan I come away thinking I need more of these complex wines in my cellar. Aside from the obvious stars of the appellation, Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion, which come with a healthy price-tag, Château Haut-Bailly, Château Smith Haut-Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier and more recently Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion, often make some of the best reds across all Bordeaux in any given year, and in the case of Château Smith Haut-Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier and the Haut-Brions, the best whites. But the value drinkers amongst you should also keep an eye on the likes of Château Bouscaut and Château Malartic-Lagravière [both in the notes below], but also the likes of Château La Louviere, Château Carbonnieux, Château Olivier, Château de Fieuzal and Chateau Latour-Martillac whose wines were not shown by the MW Institute last November. All these make super reds and whites and are worth stocking up on in most vintages. So how did the Pessac-Léognan appellation fair in 2021?

I don’t mean to stick the boot in to 2021. It’s always a bit glib to cast off an entire vintage, especially given the effort the vignerons make year in, year out. The real problem for the 2021 reds is that they sit amid a sea of much better Bordeaux at comparable prices. Unless you find 2021s priced well below better recent vintages [2022, 2019 & 2018], 2021 is not a terribly appealing purchase right now for the reds. It is also a heterogeneous vintage. As I said in my earlier post, quite a few of the red wines tasted at the MW Institute’s Annual Bordeaux tasting in November 2025 finished a bit short, often showing some rusticity to the tannins. While there are many genuine successes, there are also quite a few misfires. A number also seem to have retreated in bottle too, shutting down such that the fruit has dipped and the structure remains exposed, with noticeable acidity and tannin on the palate.