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100 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a perfect wine that takes you to a different place. Just the most beautiful bouquet you can imagine, effortless and natural, with woodland, red-berried fruits, a minerally quality and a faint touch of leafiness and with time to settle it develops a lovely gamey note. The palate is medium- rather than full-bodied with sublime balance, upholding that effortless grace with an elegant, bittersweet, dried orange peel finish. One of the most harmonious wines that I have ever consumed
94 points Vinous
The 1945 La Mission Haut-Brion is more floral, lifted and savory than the Haut-Brion. Hints of kirsch, grilled herbs and crushed flowers wrap around the subtle finish. Next to the Haut-Brion, the La Mission comes across as a bit more aromatically expressive. Wild flowers, spices and tobacco add the final layers of nuance. This is another delicate, sensual La Mission. What a flight. In 1945, World War II had barely come to an end, London was ravaged and yet somehow, these wines were made and have survived, intact, to this day. The 1945 La Mission is striking today. Well-stored bottles will offer plenty of pleasure over the next handful of years, perhaps longer.
Wine Description
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
Château La Mission Haut-Brion 1945
Château La Mission Haut-Brion’s tasting notes :A historic wine marking the end of a tyrannical period. An outstanding vintage. But now the events belong to the past.The bottle shows some of the past richness still, but the wine is not quite as clean due to its age. It is still a remarkable bottle.
Weather conditions
Sum of temperatures : 3361 °C
Rain : 253 mm
Current vintage notes
The Victory Year. Early vine growth, and there was snow on May 2nd in Bordeaux, causing a dramatic freeze which destroyed 80% of the crop.The very hot and also very dry summer produced extremely concentrated grapes.
Vintage 1945
The best vintage in the world – 1947 or 1945? Tastingbook has tasted all the best wines from these two great vintages.
If wine producers from different regions were asked to name the best vintages in their wine history, most would name 1947 or 1945 as one of the greats. If we then compared them, there would probably only be one vintage that most, if not all, producers had named on the list – 1947.
We wanted to test this theory and we tasted them against each other and the winner was 1947 – by a long shot.
The 1947 vintage was a magical vintage. It goes down in history as one of the only vintages that all the well-established quality wine regions in the world were blessed with superb weather conditions. Heatwaves have been experienced all over the world and, for example, all of Europe was blazing under the blazing sun and experiencing a heatwave during the summer. This resulted in very concentrated and very ripe grapes. Growers found it difficult to handle very ripe grapes with high sugar levels because there was a constant risk of bacterial contamination in less hygienic wineries that did not have artificial cooling systems. Since there was no technology to use, many relied on huge blocks of ice to cool the room temperature and even put ice in their fermentation tanks.
This vintage has proven to produce very long-lasting wines from around the world. The wines are marked by a sweet, ripe fruit character and warming alcohol. Due to unhygienic winemaking facilities, many wines exhibit volatile characters. Some might find this a flaw, but for many mature wine lovers, this feature is even a favorite character. However, when purchasing wines from this vintage one should be aware that there is a high level of bottle variation and the risk of having highly volatile wines is remarkably high.
1945 was an exceptional year throughout France, from Côte-Rôtie to Bordeaux. Due to the hot and dry conditions, the grapes were very concentrated and produced an extraordinary, but unfortunately low, yield. The 1945 harvest was an early harvest, beginning on the same date as 1982, September 13. The wines started life with massive levels of tannin and took several decades to develop. Due to the high levels of tannins, many wines still show well today.