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  • Country ranking ?

    685
  • Producer ranking ?

    33
  • Decanting time

    4h
  • When to drink

    from 2018
  • Food Pairing

    roasted Beets with Goat Cheese

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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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.

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Wine Information

2014 was marked by an extraordinary Indian summer that saved the vintage. Fine spring weather was conducive to a good start to the growing season. However, challenging summer conditions seriously slowed down ripening. Fortunately, the month of September was absolutely beautiful, with dry, extremely sunny weather accompanied by highs of close to 30°C. This superb weather, with cool night-time temperatures, enabled the grapes to ripen beautifully, and they were able to be brought into the vat house having reached a perfect level of ripeness.

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Vintage 2014

Bordeaux Vintage 2014 - is not a great vintage like 2005, 2009 or 2010 but it will be able to secure a position as one of the very good vintages of Bordeaux.

Generally scheduled between the end of March and the beginning of April, Primeur Week in Bordeaux is always an exciting time because it allows a first glimpse of the latest vintage. The sheer number of wines available for tasting is impressive and a week almost seems short. This is why the Union de Grands Crus offers a well-organized blind tasting for the press every morning of the week. The previous weekend, the Grand Cercle des vins de Bordeaux organizes blind tastings of more than 200 samples. These impressions are supplemented by tastings in different Châteaux and tastings organized by the Bordeaux trade. Therefore, some wines may be tasted twice or even more often during this week to check quality and style.

 

An interesting fact is the weather situation. Low weather pressure means wines can close, while high weather pressure presents wines in a more open and flavorful style. This year the wheat was pretty bad during the first few days of the tasting week, but improved a lot in the second half of the week. This had an influence on the tasting notes in general which must be taken into account. Another effect was the late harvest in 2014, which shortened the period between harvest and early tastings by up to a month. A month less time for maturation has effects on the tasting results, which is another aspect to consider, always keeping in mind that each tasting result remains a snapshot and is not an absolute judgment and definitive.

 

The year 2014 started early with bud burst about 10 days before the average of the last 10 years. At the end of May, flowering began on the first terroirs in heterogeneous conditions, while the later grape varieties such as Cabernet-Sauvignon and Franc as well as the later terroirs benefited from a warm and sunny period at the beginning of June. July and August were quite cool and wet and in the second half of August the winegrowers prepared for an even worse vintage than 2013 but at the end of August everything changed. A splendid Indian summer in September and October saved the quality. The harvest began for the white grapes three days later than in 2012 but two weeks later than in 2011. For the red grapes, the harvest began with the Merlot at the end of September and ended with the Cabernets in the second fortnight of October. The cool climate during summer provides higher acidity, the Indian summer is responsible for good ripening.

 

The dry white wines are of very good quality showing crisp acidity and ripe flavors. Noble sweet white wines also benefit from the higher acidity balancing the opulent sweetness. Therefore, this vintage looks more elegant. The presentation of red wines depends a lot on the grape varieties and terroirs. Overall, the red wines are at a higher level of quality than the previous three vintages. Saint-Emilion is excellent on the limestone plateau and generally shows very good wines.

In Pomerol, the center of the plateau was advantageous over the surrounding areas. Fronsac was a very positive surprise for 2014. In the Médoc, the southern part turned out to be more heterogeneous than the northern part, where especially Saint-Estèphe was homogeneous and excellent. South of Bordeaux, Pessac-Léognan presented a very homogeneous image of a very good level of quality with exceptional wines from Haut Brion and La Mission Haut Brion.

One final observation: this vintage digests oak wonderfully. Oak is not even evident in wines with 100% new oak barrels for maturation. Now there are about twelve months left for the maturation of the 2014s until bottling in 2016. A lot can happen during this period. Let's see how the wines will present themselves after bottling, it will again be a very interesting tasting. 2014 is not a great vintage like 2005, 2009 or 2010 but it will be able to secure a position as one of the very good vintages of Bordeaux.

by Markus del Monego MW

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Tasting note

color

Deep and Ruby red

ending

Long, Pure and Flavorful

flavors

Mint, Voluptuous, Truffles, Cassis, Chocolate and Spice

nose

Youthful, Complex, Ripe and Seductive

taste

Average in Acidity, Balanced, Youthful, Medium-bodied, Focused, Elegant, Perfumed and Silky tannins

Verdict

Sophisticated and Fine

Written Notes

Deep colour. Fresh dark berry, blackcurrant, mulberry aromas with cedar graphite notes. Sweet fruited almost plush with generous blackcurrant pastille, dark plum flavours, loose-knit chocolaty textures and plentiful vanilla grilled nut notes. Chocolatey finish with a long tannin plume. Elemental with great potential. 96 points

  • 96p
Tasted in March 2015. A bit lighter and more elegant than Haut Brion. Also here cherry flavor everywhere. Very impressive too.
  • 95p
Deep purple red colour with violet hue and almost black centre. Well structured with aromatic fruit, blackberries, blackcurrants and hints of black cherries, vanilla, liquorice and chocolate. On the palate excellent structure with good weight and length, well structured and balanced tannins, complex fruit in the finish.
  • 95p
Good looking normal size bottle. Colour is ruby red and deep. On the nose it is open, intense, youthful, complex, refined, ripe and seductive. The taste is focused, elegant, refined, perfumed, with silky tannins, and average in acidity, medium-bodied, with balanced structure and youthful. On the palate it is layered and has chocolate, mint, spice, cassis, truffles and violet flavours. The finish is long, lingering, flavorful, vibrant and pure. This wine is sophisticated and fine. Perfectly stored bottles are still very worthy and will last well for another 10-15 years and decant at least over 4h before tasting.
- (Tasting note created by Tb's AI)
  • 91p
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Information

Origin

Pessac-Leognan, Bordeaux

Vintage Quality

Above Average

Value For Money

Very good

Investment potential

Below Average

Fake factory

None
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