La Mission Haut Brion

Complex, full-bodied and rich… Château La Mission Haut-Brion red invites the most flattering descriptions. The blend adapts according to the vintage, but Château La Mission Haut-Brion red wine always retains its unparalleled charisma.

Winemaker notes

Deep colour with purple highlights. The bouquet starts off very aromatic and powerful, with superb richness. Swirling in the glass confirms the initial impression and brings out complex notes. Starts out soft, caressing, broad-based, smooth, and fruity on the palate, before revealing rich, juicy, and fresh tannin. The aftertaste is long and full of flavour.

2000

Wine Advocate 100: One of the wines of the vintage, the 2000 has barely budged in its evolution since it was bottled and released in 2002. After ten years in bottle, it still reveals a dense opaque purple color along with a potentially sensational bouquet of blueberries, black currants, graphite, asphalt and background oak. Extremely powerful, full-bodied and superbly concentrated with good acidity and high but round tannins, this massive La Mission-Haut-Brion should take its place among this estate’s most hallowed vintages when it hits full maturity in another one to two decades. I was surprised by just how youthful this wine tasted at age 12. If tasted blind, I would have guessed it to be around 4 to 5 years old. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2050.

James Suckling 95: This is tight and beautiful, with a firm tannin structure and a beautiful silky texture. Full and concentrated, with a destiny. In the glass it keeps evolving, notes of iodine, spices, cedar, and earth tempt the senses. This still needs some time to come together.

Vinous 96: The 2000 La Mission Haut-Brion is consistent with my most recent note, although I must admit that I felt there was a touch more brett on the nose than the previous example. Black cherries and iodine to the fore, with some undergrowth and Provençal herbs, it is very complex. The palate is medium-bodied, well balanced and still peppery with a saline finish. Excellent, but I'm going to detract a point for that brett. Tasted at the château.

Decanter 97: Compared to the 1990, this is clearly a much more 'modern' wine with deep, youthful colour, dark cassis, kirsch and black olive notes on the palate. Powerfully built with firm tannins suggesting this still has a long way to go. Earthy, meaty characters, and a dryness to the tannins confirming the lack of rainfall during the growing season. Likely to flesh out and add richness over the next 15+ years. After a mild winter, spring was very hot and warm, before the onset of extremely dry conditions lasting into September. A very fine, long-living La Mission.

2017

Wine Advocate 96+: Composed of 56% Merlot, 4.4% Cabernet Franc and 39.6% Cabernet Sauvignon, the deep garnet-purple colored 2017 La Mission Haut-Brion is a little reticent on the nose to begin, slowly unfurling to reveal notes of crushed blackcurrants, Black Forest cake and Morello cherries with suggestions of cigar box, pencil shavings, charcoal and fertile loam. Medium-bodied, the palate has fantastic intensity with loads of mineral layers and a rock-solid line of firm, grainy tannins, finishing very long and with great energy.

James Suckling 97: A tight, solid red with crushed-berry, sandalwood, stone and cement flavors. It’s full-bodied, yet very tight and compact with excellent depth and intensity. Closed and austere, but there’s both energy and levity to it at the same time. Try after 2023.

Vinous 96: A positively stunning wine, the 2017 La Mission Haut-Brion is all class. Sweet floral notes give the 2017 striking freshness, nuance and energy. Rose petal, mint, blood orange, red cherry, pomegranate and mocha are all laced together. In 2017, La Mission plays very much in the red fruit and floral end of the spectrum. Effortless, gracious and wonderfully nuanced, the 2017 simply has it all. What a wine!

Decanter 92: This is a lovely fragrant wine, less dense and concentrated than the last two vintages but extremely accomplished. It has beautiful aromatics, gorgeous red fruits and an overall feeling of brightness and cohesion. It's fresh, succulent and easy to recommend. Frost only affected 0.3% of the vineyard area, leading to yields of almost 50hl/ha across the two estates in 2017. It was the third earliest harvest on record at Haut-Brion, commencing on 24 August for the whites and 31 August for the reds, with the only real difficulty to overcome being the low levels of sunshine over the summer. 22% of production went into this wine.

2023

Wine Advocate 94-96: The 2023 La Mission Haut-Brion unwinds in the glass to reveal aromas of ripe red fruits, dark wild berries, spring flowers, burning embers and lilac. Medium to full-bodied, rich and concentrated, it’s layered and textural with a dense core of fruit underpinned by youthfully firm structuring tannins. This blend of 52.7% Merlot, 29.6% Cabernet Sauvignon and 17.7% Cabernet Franc its likely to become fleshier and more enveloping with barrel maturation.

James Suckling 97-98: The classy mouth-feel and length to this is really gorgeous, and it seduces you with its texture of fine silk and finesse. Lasts for a long, long time. Medium body with medium, creamy and round tannins and a layered, textured finish. Shows blackcurrants, lead pencil and crushed stone at the end. 52.7% merlot, 29.6% cabernet sauvignon and 17.7% cabernet franc.