2014 Michel Lynch Médoc Reserve 750 ml

Jean-Michel Cazes’ Gift to Wine Lovers

Lovers of regal Pauillac power have always gravitated towards Château Lynch-Bages — Robert Parker’s  “quintessentially hedonistic Pauillac.” Under the expert stewardship of Jean-Michel Cazes, whom The New York Times rightly calls “one of the most highly regarded figures in Bordeaux,” the estate has racked up multiple 97- to 99-point scores. This outstanding performance has come with steeply rising prices, with Lynch-Bages bottles from top vintages commanding upwards of $300. But for Bordeaux bargain-hunters, there is a way in: Cazes’ Michel Lynch, which is overseen by the same crackerjack team at Lynch-Bages, yet offers Medoc brilliance at a fraction of the price. For $19.99/bottle exclusively from Wine Access, the 2014 Michel Lynch Médoc Reserve is easily one of the finest values of a stellar Bordeaux vintage.

2014 was framed as the best vintage since the landmark 2010 in the pages of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Conditions that year led Michel Lynch to turn out a colossal Médoc red with a plush fruit core and stunning aromatic bouquet. Spring was beautiful, warm, and promising; summer cool, wet, and dreary, dampening expectations. Then came the most epic Indian summer in recent memory, one of the driest and hottest Septembers ever recorded. The Left Bank’s red varieties benefited the most, as the grapes’ slow and even ripening through to harvest made for harmonious tannic structure and deeply concentrated wines.

The 2014 vintage is also being hailed as the year in which many Bordeaux estates finally returned to their senses, after a stretch of inflationary pricing had begun to paralyze the market. Vinous’ Antonio Galloni declared 2014 to be a no-brainer vintage to buy, “an ideal vintage for consumers who buy wines to actually drink them.” Take Galloni at his word and lock in a case of this extraordinary value masterminded by Château Lynch-Bages’ Jean-Michel Cazes.