Ch. Batailley
5th Growth Grand Cru Classe
Pauillac
2016

The producer

The name “Batailley” derives from the “Bataille” (Battle) that took place between the French and English on the same estate in 1453. The French also recaptured Château Latour this very same year, marking the end of the Hundred Years’ War. Château Batailley is one of the oldest estates in Pauillac.

Vines have been planted on this rich piece of land since the 17^th century. In the 18th century, three siblings of the Pauillac-based Saint-Martin family bought the estate. In 1791, the two sisters sold their shares to Guillaume Pécholier, a Bordeaux wine merchant.

In 1816, Daniel Guestier, from the company Barton & Guestier, bought the Château, modernising it, increasing the area of the vineyard and improving the quality of the wine. His son then took over the estate 1847.

The Guestier family asked Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, a landscape architect serving Napoleon III, to design the six-hectare estate. The Parisian banker Constant Halphen acquired the property in 1866.

This is very good Bordeaux at an agreeable price.

The wine

A well-located vineyard in Pauillac, known for producing consistently classic Medoc-style wines with exceptional pedigree. Recent vintages have shown remarkable quality, while prices remain reasonable. The Chateau has introduced a second wine, Lions de Batailley, which is expected to enhance the quality of the grand vin and reduce its quantity by approximately 30-40%.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.