1995 Château Haut-Bailly

A beauty, this deep ruby-colored wine offers a classic, smoky, cherry, red and black currant-scented nose, sweet, lush, forward fruit, medium body, true delicacy and elegance (as opposed to thinness and dilution), perfect balance, and a lovely, long, supple, velvety-textured finish. This is a ballerina of a claret, with beautiful aromatics, lovely flavors, and impeccable equilibrium.

Author: Robert Parker

A chewy, burly wine for aging. Big Haut-Bailly. Vivid berry and grape aromas. Full-bodied and tough, with masses of tannins and a long, wet earth and fruit aftertaste. Best after 2001

Author: James Suckling

Deeper red-ruby color. Less expressive, less obviously ripe aromas of redcurrant, blueberry, smoke and game. Then silky and soft in the mouth, with insinuating flavors of plum, raspberry, woodsmoke, minerals and flowers. Firm but perfectly integrated acidity gives this wine good shape and cut. Finishes with tongue-coating but supple tannins and subtle flavor. In the more typical feminine style of Haut-Bailly, notes Sanders.

Author: Stephen Tanzer

Issue: May/June 1998

Transparent. Nourishing. Quite high acidity. Graphite finish. Lively. Very very fresh. Long. Very very slightly inky.

Author: Jancis Robinson