70% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot

Food pairings: Roast lamb, duck breast, pork loin with prunes, veal, grilled ribeye, mushroom risotto and aged cheeses.

Winemaking: The 2021 was picked from September 27 to October 11 and was the first vintage made in Haut-Bailly's new cellars. Each parcel is sorted and vinified separately in temperature-controlled, truncated-cone concrete and stainless-steel vats with gentle pump-overs. The wine then aged in fine-grained French oak barrels, 30% new.

Vineyards and terroir: Haut-Bailly sits on one of the highest ridges of the left bank, south of Bordeaux. Its soils are sand mixed with clay and gravel over a subsoil of falun, a shelly marine sediment. This year more Merlot, set aside from the grand vin, went into the second wine.

Family: Haut-Bailly has made a second wine since 1967, long known as La Parde de Haut-Bailly before becoming Haut-Bailly II. The estate has belonged to the family of American banker Robert G. Wilmers since 1998 and is run by Véronique Sanders, whose family owned it from 1955, with winemaker Gabriel Vialard. The modern label brings back the red dot used on Haut-Bailly labels until 1985.

In the pictures: Vines at Château Haut-Bailly in Léognan (photo: Ken Case, public domain), and an early-1900s postcard of the château (Marcel Delboy, public domain).