Château La Mission Haut-Brion
Château La Mission Haut Brion, Cru Classé, Pessac Léognan, 2005
98/100
Inside Bordeaux
100/100
Robert Parker Wine Advocate
100/100
The Wine Independent
96/100
Vinous
Available Vintages
Broking
2005
12x75cl
DP
£5,326.25
Justerini & Brooks Tasting note
A blend of 69% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Cabernet Franc, this is a wonderfully seductive wine that nevertheless has huge structure behind its flamboyant façade. The nose is quite closed to begin with but then yields huge fruit concentration, depth and complexity: gunpowder, almost tropical hints, liquorice and very ripe cassis. There is an immediate impact of ripe bramble and blackthorn fruit on the palate, unbelievably smooth, silky tannins, and great power. Alcohol and acidity levels are high, both analytically (14.2% and 3.67pH) and organoleptically, but there is sense of total control and direction, with amazing finesse on the finish. An outstanding wine.
delivery information
GUARANTEED PROVENANCE
DELIVERY
How much is delivery
Delivery is free to mainland Great Britain and other bonded warehouses for orders over £200 (inc. VAT) in value. For orders under the value of £200 destined for mainland Great Britain there is a delivery charge of £18 (inc. VAT).
All deliveries to mainland Great Britain coming from Cellarers will incur a delivery charge of £24 (inc. VAT). Cellarers Storage Charges.
Where are the wines stored and are they fully insured whilst in storage?
We store clients’ wines with a subsidiary company called Cellarers (Wines) Ltd, which is wholly owned by Justerini & Brooks but where clients’ wines are segregated from our own stock. The wines are stored at Octavian's industry-leading underground cellars in Corsham, Wiltshire, UK. All wines stored with Cellarers are individually labelled with clients’ details and are insured to current market value.
Can I ship outside of mainland Great Britain?
We offer regular shipments to Hong Kong from £90 per 9L case and £62 per 4.5L case. A discounted rate of £72 per 9L case may apply when shipping five or more cases to one address. Deliveries usually take approximately three weeks.
For deliveries to destinations other than mainland Great Britain or Hong Kong, please contact the Customer Relationship Team via email on justbrooksorders@justerinis.com for a quote.
Why can’t I request delivery of certain wines?
Most often, the reason you cannot request delivery of certain wines is that they are still ‘En Primeur’ and not yet in the country. Once they land in the UK, they will be available for Duty Paid Delivery. Click here for more information on buying En Primeur.
GUARANTEED PROVENANCE
Provenance in fine wine
When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of utmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.
Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.
We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.
We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.
The Journey
Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.
This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.
While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.
Further Reassurance
Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.
Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.
Critic Reviews
96/100
Neal Martin,
Vinous
The 2005 La Mission Haut-Brion has an engrossing bouquet of medicinal-tinged red fruit, blood oranges, eucalyptus and sage that blossoms in the glass. There is wonderful delineation, and gravelly scents manifest with continued time in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with bold tannins and plenty of grip and density, maybe a bit rustic compared to today's wines, but you can feel your tongue tingling with allspice and cumin notes on the finish. The 2005 is just rolling up its sleeves and getting down to some "serious business." Tasted at the château.
drinking window 2025 - 2055
date of review 06/2025
98/100
Jane Anson,
Inside Bordeaux
A little more approachable than the Haut-Brion at this moment in time, but still at the very beginning of its drinking life, with decades ahead of it. Expect your senses to be drenched in pulses of electricity running through the palate, studding the waves of loganberry, blackberry and red cherry fruits. Feels carefully delineated and in balance, luscious and sculpted, with peony floral notes as it opens up. A classic Mission Haut-Brion, exceptionally impressive. 100% new oak.
drinking window 2022 - 2055
date of review 09/2022
100/100
Lisa Perrotti-Brown,
The Wine Independent
The 2005 La Mission Haut-Brion is a blend of 69% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-brick in color, it slowly grows on the nose to offer earthy suggestions of damp soil, wild mushrooms, and crushed rocks, over a flamboyant core of warm cassis and fruitcake, plus a hint of Sichuan pepper. Medium to full-bodied, with an electric backbone of energy and firm, ripe tannins supporting the generous fruit, it finishes with incredibly persistent earth and mineral layers. This evocative beauty is just entering its drinking window, yet has the stamina and stuffing to give a further 40 years+ of pleasure. Purchased by Domaine Clarence Dillon in 1983, the vineyard is smaller than Haut-Brion, at 75 acres. It is very close to Haut-Brion - about a 5-minute drive - with some of the vines located near the Chateau, but there are sections of vineyard located further away in Talence, to the east of Pessac, and thus with a very different terroir / style, with sand, gravel, chalk, and clay soils. The planting density is very high at 10,000 vines per hectare. La Mission Haut-Brion tends to be more gregarious, opulent, and rich than Haut-Brion, as demonstrated by this 2005.
drinking window 2022 - 2062
date of review 07/2022
100/100
Robert Parker,
Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2005 La Mission Haut-Brion is pure perfection. It has an absolutely extraordinary nose of sweet blackberries, cassis and spring flowers with some underlying minerality, a full-bodied mouthfeel, gorgeously velvety tannins (which is unusual in this vintage) and a long, textured, multi-layered finish that must last 50+ seconds. This is a fabulous wine and a great effort from this hallowed terroir. Drink this modern-day legend over the next 30+ years. Only 5,500 cases were produced of this blend of 69% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Cabernet Franc.
drinking window 2015 - 2045
date of review 06/2015
product details
Specifications
allergen information
This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.
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