2022 Chateau Haut-Brion Premier Cru Classe, Pessac-Leognan 6x75cl

Producer Profile

Château Haut-Brion

Château Haut-Brion is a legendary and historic Premier Grand Cru Classé wine estate. Winemaking here can be traced back to 1521 for sure, but there is conjecture that the Romans of Emperor Claudius’s reign taught the local Gallic tribe, the Bituriges Vivisques, the art of viticulture on this gravelly hillside.

However, it was English King Charles II’s entry into his cellar book, and his contemporary Samuel Pepys’ tasting notes, that first brought wider attention to this château’s wine. Thomas Jefferson furthered its appeal by importing the first ever first-growth wine to the United States in 1787.

Located just outside Bordeaux in Pessac, just north of Graves, it is the only wine in the Pessac-Léognan appellation of the five first growths, and is generally considered to be the ancestral grandfather of this classification.

With 51 hectares consisting of vines that are elevated up to 27 metres, the vineyard produces Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot for its reds and Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc for its whites.

Innovative Jean-Bernard Delmas passed the winemaking stewardship to his son Jean-Philippe in 2003.

OUR VERDICT
Arguably the most complex and identifiably fragrant wine among the first growths. The long and glorious history of Haut Brion continues apace in the current era, with several legendary recent releases in the last 20 years to match 20th-century landmarks like 1989 and 1990.