Château Pape Clément Blanc Grand Vin Pessac-Léognan 2017

Utter charm, pedigree, and elegance in a Bordeaux Blanc, with 97 points and over $100 in savings! The first harvest of Château Pape Clément dates to 1252, and for more than 750 years, the property has produced wine on the same Pessac terroir. Bertrand de Goth received a Pessac vineyard around the turn of the 14th century, and after his election as Pope Clement V in 1305, the domaine took his name. He was also something of an innovator, credited with helping advance "modern" winegrowing in the 13th century by planting vines in rows to ease harvests and vineyard work.

Classified a Grand Cru Classé in the 1953 Graves classification, the estate has, since 1983, belonged to Bordeaux businessman Bernard Magrez, whose meticulous, almost obsessive approach helped restore it to the top rank of Pessac-Léognan. The white is made in tiny quantities and vinified with unusual craft – the grapes are whole-cluster fermented with stems in new French oak, with no malolactic fermentation, then aged on the lees before bottling.

The 2017 is a stellar expression of the estate’s pedigree. A blend of 50% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Sémillon, and 10% Sauvignon Gris and aged 14 months in barrel, it opens with a rush of exotic fruit – ripe pineapple, guava, and passion fruit, lifted by mandarin peel and crushed stone. It feels both weightless and substantial at once, airy and inviting, with tangerine, passion fruit, white flowers, and cooling mint, giving way to honeyed melon, green fig, and a saline spine brings energy and focus. With gorgeous concentration and vivid acidity, it drinks beautifully with a few years of age and can even lay down in the cellar for up to a decade or more. It wears seven centuries of history lightly, tasting less like a monument and more like a bright, sunlit afternoon in Pessac.