chateau la mission haut brion cru classe pessac leognan

Château La Mission Haut Brion, Cru Classé, Pessac Léognan, 2005

Name: Château La Mission Haut Brion, Cru Classé, Pessac Léognan
Brand: Château La Mission Haut-Brion
Price: 5326.25 GBP

98/100

Inside Bordeaux

100/100

The Wine Independent

97/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 1990 1996 1997 1998 2003 2005 2010 2022 2023 2024

delivery

in bond

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.

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GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost 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

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

97/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2005 La Mission Haut-Brion is a wine that I have had the pleasure of tasting on several occasions. The most recent bottle, included in a 2005 horizontal, puts it in a very favorable light even against strong competition. The bouquet bursts from the glass with intense blackberry, cedar and tobacco scents, plus background aromas of fig and damson, as you would expect from a warm summer. The palate is structured, yet the Merlot content (at 69%, the highest in many years) renders this Pessac-Léognan much more pliant than others from this vintage. A mélange of red and black fruits vie for attention, followed by warm gravel and black olives. Quite rich and yet not grippy; with decanting, you could broach this now, though personally I would prefer to leave it for several more years. Outstanding.

drinking window 2025 - 2060

date of review 09/2021

product details

Specifications

Country:

France

Region:

Bordeaux

Appellation:

Pessac Léognan

Producer:

Château La Mission Haut-Brion

style:

Red Wine

Grape Variety:

Cab Sauvignon Merlot

abv:

13%

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.