critic reviews
The 1997 La Mission Haut-Brion has a garnet core and light bricking on the rim. The bouquet is mature and leafy, developing touches of hickory and clove, and revealing suggestions of freshly picked mint in the background. It is actually very endearing for a 1997 and has held up well over the past 24 years. The palate is also fully mature, offering leafy, red berry fruit, quite piquant in style, and hints of tobacco, peppercorns and cracked black pepper toward the pinched but nevertheless engaging finish. Is it the best La Mission Haut-Brion ever made? No. Did I finish the bottle? Yes. Job done. Tasted at home over dinner.
This dark ruby/plum-colored wine offers a big, spicy, tobacco leaf, and black fruit-scented nose, lots of structure and tannin, good depth, medium body, and enough accessibility to be consumed now (although it will improve for 5-7 years and last for a dozen or more).