Château Carbonnieux Blanc 2023, Pessac-Léognan: Wine Enthusiast 96, Wine Spectator 95, James Suckling 94. Its second Wine Spectator Top 100 and its highest rank yet. Our 60 bottles arrive in February in original six-bottle wooden cases.

• Pre-Sale · Only 60 Bottles · Arriving February 2027

A Personal Note

Dear Artisans,

Not really a fan of white wines? Great. We recommend this one even more.

Yes, you read that right. Château Carbonnieux Blanc has always been our most-suggested “white for red drinkers,” and it has converted a large majority of the clients willing to try it. This white Bordeaux has the most enveloping texture, it is delicious young, and it ages beautifully, as if it were a red.

This morning, Wine Spectator named the 2023 its #8 Wine of 2026.

Its Second Wine Spectator Top 100. Its Highest Rank Yet.

This is not the first time. The 2018 Carbonnieux Blanc was #13 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 of 2021, at 94 points and $44. Five vintages later, the 2023 climbs five places to #8, with 95 points from James Molesworth: “Live-wire acidity keeps everything focused and mouthwatering. Lovely.”

In 38 years of Wine Spectator Top 100 lists, those are the only two times Carbonnieux has made it, red or white. Both times, it was this white.

Wine Enthusiast keeps a separate Top 100 of wines to cellar, and this white is a regular there too: the 2017 was #4 of 2020, the 2019 #64 of 2022 and the 2021 #26 of 2024. Roger Voss gave the 2023 96 points and another Cellar Selection. Counting both magazines, that is five Top 100 placings in seven years.

Sources: Wine Spectator Top 100 lists, 1988–2026; Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Cellar Selections.

Wine Spectator once headlined a feature on the estate “Château Carbonnieux Punches Above Its Price.” It still does. Wine Spectator lists the 2023 at $55, with just 2,000 cases imported for the whole country. Ours is $49.99.

Why It Wins Over Red Drinkers

Here is where the texture comes from. Sauvignon Blanc brings the lift and Sémillon the body, from white vines averaging 30 years old on a gravel ridge laid down by the Garonne, over clay and limestone. The 2023 is 68% Sauvignon Blanc and 32% Sémillon, fermented in tank and barrel plot by plot, then aged 10 months in barrels and large casks.

Wine Advocate calls it “enveloping and juicy”; Wine Enthusiast, “crisp and rounded.” And 2023 was a white-wine year: Wine Spectator titled its report “A Perfect Starter Vintage,” and iDealwine found that “the quality of the white wines is high, and more uniform than that of the reds.”

Eight Centuries In Léognan

Carbonnieux is one of the oldest estates in Bordeaux, with roots in the early 13th century: nearly eight centuries of history. Its great early winemakers were the Benedictine monks of Sainte-Croix Abbey, who owned it in the Middle Ages and again from 1740 until the Revolution.

Legend has it that in the 18th century the monks got their crystal-clear white into the palace of the Sultan of Constantinople by calling it “Carbonnieux mineral water.” Thomas Jefferson came to taste it in 1787.

Today it is a Grand Cru Classé de Graves for both its red and its white, in the same Pessac-Léognan appellation as Haut-Brion, with Haut-Bailly and Malartic-Lagravière among its neighbors.

Four Generations Of Perrins

Marc Perrin bought Carbonnieux in 1956; Wine Spectator notes the family are distant cousins of the Perrins of Château de Beaucastel. His son Antony ran it from 1982 until 2008, and today Antony’s sons Eric and Philibert Perrin run it, with Eric’s son Andréa as oenologist and cellar master.

The estate covers 500 acres, half under vine, split nearly equally between red and white. The late Denis Dubourdieu began guiding the white in 1988, and after a devastating frost in 1991 the white vines were replanted on the cooler, north-facing side of the property, where limestone and clay dominate. The vineyard has been farmed free of pesticides and herbicides for almost 20 years.

How We Serve It

Decant it. Yes, there are whites you should decant. We give young bottles one to two hours, give or take, so the wine softens and opens up its perfume and its many layers of texture and flavor. Older vintages need very little, just enough to leave the sediment behind.

Serve it at 55 to 60°F. Cool, almost cellar temperature, gives it more freshness and lift than fridge-cold.

Give it time, or don’t. Young, it charms with citrus freshness, purity, mineral drive and floral intensity. Five to seven years in bottle is the sweet spot where it really starts to sing, and its peak runs from about 9 to 17 years after the vintage, when it turns to dried and preserved lemon, honey and almonds.

60 Bottles, Arriving In February

We took all we could get: 60 bottles, packed in the château’s original six-bottle wooden cases, arriving in February 2027. That is not enough to go around, especially since we keep drinking it here at Artisan.

Reserve yours now at $49.99 a bottle, or a full wooden six-pack at $299.94, and it will be waiting for you when it lands. Please order promptly.

James Tran

Artisan Wine & Spirits

Why This Matters

The Wine · Pre-Sale · Only 60 Bottles

Château Carbonnieux Blanc 2023. #8 In The World.

Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon from a Grand Cru Classé de Graves in Pessac-Léognan.

WS #8 of 2026Pre-Arrival · Feb 2027White Bordeaux

Château Carbonnieux Blanc 2023

Pessac-Léognan · Bordeaux · 750 mL

Wine Spectator finds tarragon, fleur de sel and oyster shell; Wine Enthusiast, grapefruit and honey with crisp and rounded textures. James Suckling calls it a very typical top white from Pessac, and Jeb Dunnuck says it will shine on the dinner table over the coming decade.

• Pre-Sale · Only 60 Bottles · Arriving February 2027

More From This Year’s List

Wine Spectator reveals one or two more of its Top 10 every day this week. Every 2026 Top 100 wine we can get goes on one page.

The Bottom Line

The white that converts red drinkers is #8 in the world.

Five Top 100 placings in seven years across Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast. Six critics from 91 to 96. A texture red drinkers love and the cellar life to match, at $49.99, below the $55 Wine Spectator lists.

Only 60 bottles, arriving in February 2027 in original wooden six-packs. Reserve yours now.

Santé,

— James Tran

Artisan Wine & Spirits

• Pre-Sale · Only 60 Bottles · Arriving February 2027

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