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Viinin Kuvailu
The Story
La Mission Haut Brion is situated in Bordeaux' southern suburb, Talence. From 1919 and until 1983, it was Woltner family, who had owned this property. Under Woltner's reign, La Mission Haut Brion experienced one of its greatest period with string of fine vintages and was considered then as fully on the level with First Growths and sometimes even better than these. In 1983, owners of Haut Brion purchased La Mission Haut Brion and today its Jean Philippe Delmas, who's responsible for this property.
La Mission-Haut-Brion's vineyards (Cabernet Sauvignon 48%, Merlot 45%, Cabernet Franc 7%) lie on a large (up to 18 metres deep in places) gravel bank interspersed with clay. The wine is fermented in temperature-controlled, stainless steel vats and then matured in oak barriques (100% new) for 18 months. The wines of La Mission Haut Brion are rich, oaky and powerful and need at least 10 years of bottle ageing before they should be broached.
Wine Information
Created by the noble Lestonnac family in the early years of the sixteenth century, the vineyard of La Mission Haut-Brion owes its name and its reputation to the Prêcheurs de la Mission, the Bordeaux branch of the Congrégation de la Mission de Sainte-Lazare, who held the property from 1682 until the French Revolution. The estate was first time awarded with the Gold Medal at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.
The signature of the estate wines are complex flavours of mixture of red fruits, cigar. dark chocolate, roasting and cedar wood. On palate, wine shows always fine and silky tannins.
Vineyard: 26.6 hectares (65.7 acres)
Varietals: 42.7% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10.3% Cabernet Franc
Average time spend in oak: 18-22 months (80% new oak)
Annual Production: 6,000-7,000 cases
VINTAGE 1989
Sum of temperature: 3408°C
Rain: 355mm
Days of temperature above 30°C: 24 days
Harvest: 29/08/1989 to 20/09/1989
Historically an early vintage. The growing season was particularly hot, sunny, and dry providing ideal conditions for budding, flowering, veraison, maturity and harvest. An exceptional year produced an exceptionel wine.
TASTING NOTES
The wine has a handsome color deep and mature. The nose finds that the perfect maturity of the fruit is dominating the tasting. One even finds the softness of the wine in the nose. In the mouth the subtleties of the aromas evolve bit by bit. THe ripe tannins make up a taut and fleshy base. Nevertheless all is harmoniously melded together. One notes the scent of cigar, cedar wood, an unusually exotic touch of vanilla, cloves and orange peel, ending with a storng whiff of truffle. All these evolve together and give a sensation of silky unctuosity. This is a legendary wine.
To taste rather between now and 2030.
Vuosikerta 1989
Bordeaux: The 2nd in a trio of great vintages and which produced a large harvest of ripe, rich and fleshy wines which generally possess soft, silky tannins, accompanied by a high alcohol level. It was the hottest summer since 1949 and the harvest began on August 28, the earliest since 1893. The grapes were harvested in dry conditions, the only concern being that some acidity levels were low, which which has led to suggestions that some wines would not be suitable for long-term aging. Ten years later, these fears have proven to be largely unfounded, as the best wines are now showing extremely well, showing concentration and great complexity.