Mission Complete: La Mission Haut-Brion 1928–2011
BY NEAL MARTIN |
One of my most memorable tastings took place in central London a few years back, on a morning devoted to 50-some vintages of La Mission Haut-Brion and Laville Haut-Brion Blanc. I vividly recall entering The Square and setting eyes upon the who’s who of wine. Michael Broadbent was over there, among the bustling sommeliers, inspecting the bottles through his half-moon spectacles. Prince Robert de Luxembourg was deep in conversation with Jean-Philippe Delmas. Steven Spurrier, dapper as ever, laughed at something or other with David Peppercorn. Before the first flight was poured, I was asked if I would comment on one of the flights. Me, an expert in front of these mavens? Still, I was excited, not only by the mind-boggling number of vintages stretching back to the 1920s, but also by the fact that we would taste every vintage from 1957 onward, including rarities such as 1963, 1965 and 1977– vintages that most châteaux are loath to show because Mother Nature nixed any chance of making a half-decent wine. This was going to be La Mission “Complete.”
Well, almost. For some inexplicable reason, there was no 1997 La Mission Haut-Brion, and it remained a gap waiting to be filled in. “Mission incomplete.”
Fast-forward a few years, and at the tail end of 2018, I participated in two magnificent La Mission Haut-Brion–themed dinners. Unfortunately, neither included the 1997. One took place at Amuse Bouche restaurant in Hong Kong, my final soirée before returning to the UK as typhoon Mangkhut bore down on the island. Subsequently, I accreted tasting notes from various private dinners and at the château, and opened off-vintages picked up in the days when La Mission Haut-Brion cost a few pennies. I delayed publishing any notes, thinking that maybe the elusive 1997 would show up somewhere, but it did not. Finally, it was time to pull the trigger and present what remains a comprehensive overview of this château, enhanced by insights from Jean-Philippe Delmas himself. I hope it will give readers a deeper understanding of one of the finest Bordeaux wines.
The façade of La Mission Haut-Brion.
History
As you would expect given its name and propinquity, the history of La Mission Haut-Brion is entwined with that of its First Growth neighbor, Haut-Brion. If one goes back several centuries, it might be assumed that the land comprising La Mission Haut-Brion was part of Haut-Brion, though Clive Coates MW asserts that it was always treated as a separate entity. In his book Wayward Tendrils of the Vine, published in 1945, Ian Maxwell-Campbell mentions a scurrilous rumor of La Mission Haut-Brion being subsumed into Haut-Brion. Thankfully, it was idle gossip.
La Mission Haut-Brion’s early history consists of a succession of rather itinerant owners. At the beginning of the 16th century, the land was known as “Arregedhuys” and belonged to the Rostaings, lords of the house of La Tour d’Esquivens. It then passed through members of the De Lestonnac family, commencing in 1584 with Arnaud de Lestonnac, who married Marie de Pontac (sister of Jean de Pontac, owner of Haut-Brion at the time). De Lestonnac endeavored to convert much of the land to vine when, of course, it lay beyond the city’s perimeter. Arnaud de Lestonnac was followed by Pierre (1548); Olive (1607), wife of parliamentarian Antoine de Gourgue, who donated enormous sums of money to charity; and then Pierre (1652). Two years later, in 1654, ownership passed to Catherine de Mullet, but in 1664, the property, consisting of approximately 10 hectares of vines as well as a winery and farmhouse, was bequeathed to the clergy.
The garden at La Mission Haut-Brion, with the chapel at the left of the picture.
Jean de Fonteneil ran the property and was succeeded by Monsignor Louis de Bourlemont, who in 1682 transferred the estate to a missionary order, Les Prêcheurs de la Mission, founded in 1634 by Saint-Vincent de Paul and based at the College Lazare in Paris, and commonly known as Lazarites. They were dab hands at this winemaking lark, and they enlarged the vineyard named La Mission Haut-Brion, constructing both a small chapel known as Notre Dame de la Mission in 1698, and the château building in 1713. According to the château’s records, “The Mission Congregation accounts, drawn up on February 13, 1729, counted eight priests, four brothers and five servants. At that time, the estate produced 24 barrels of wine, the equivalent of 21.6 hectoliters.”
The château’s reputation grew throughout the 1700s, and unlike Pape-Clément, whose wines were reserved for the clergy, La Mission Haut-Brion was traded on the Bordeaux market. The estate was confiscated and declared a bien national during the Revolution and subsequently acquired on November 14, 1792 by Martial-Victor and Adelaïde-Marie Vaillant for 302,000 livres, a considerable sum commensurate with its standing. It then passed through the Ledoux and De Catalan families before falling into American hands in 1821– namely, the hands of a New Orleans–born repatriated colonel, Célestin Coudrin-Chiapella. From 1867, together with his son Jérôme, Coudrin-Chiapella managed and enhanced the reputation of several other Bordeaux properties, including Cos d’Estournel.
Given its trajectory, one would have expected La Mission Haut-Brion to be considered for the 1855 Classification, at the very least as a Deuxième Cru. In Cocks’s classification of 1846, it appears among the Fourth and Fifth Growths. Alas, while its neighbor was given special dispensation due to its history and anointed as one of four Premier Crus, La Mission Haut-Brion’s location outside the Médoc meant that it was left out of the classification. After 1855, the state of the château building and the volume of production both appear to have declined, though quality seems to have been maintained, since market prices kept pace with those of other Deuxième Crus. In 1884 La Mission Haut-Brion was purchased by Établissements Duval in Paris, which in turn sold it in 1895 to Léon-Ferdinand de Constans of Bordeaux négociants Schröder. In 1903 it changed hands yet again when it was acquired by Victor Coustau.
The cross, the emblem of La Mission Haut-Brion, can be found all around the château and indeed on the bottles themselves.
The Woltner Era
One gets the impression of a jewel that, until this point, never settled down with a single proprietor. That changed in 1919. Finally, the property found a man who would dedicate his life to the vineyard: Frédéric Otto Woltner, who, together with his wife Agnès, revitalized the estate. Born in Riga in 1865, Woltner already had a connection with La Mission, since he worked for Schröder and was acquainted with the De Constans. Victor Coustau had purportedly promised Woltner first refusal if he ever decided to sell, and he kept his word when he retired in 1916. The deal was signed three years later, presumably postponed until after World War I.
Frédéric Woltner took charge in the first years of his family’s reign. There was a lot to do. The vineyard had been neglected for many years, and the winery was in poor condition. Woltner rolled up his sleeves and in 1926, installed revolutionary glass-lined steel fermentation vats instead of orthodox wooden vessels. This enabled his team to control fermentation temperatures more easily, as well as improving sanitary conditions. Upon Frédéric Woltner’s passing in 1933, he was succeeded by his son Henri, who had studied oenology at the nearby University of Bordeaux. His scientific learning inspired him to introduce cooler alcoholic fermentation, capping the temperature at around 28°C instead of letting it rise to 35°C and inviting volatility. This pioneering approach is commonplace, but back then it essentially rewrote the rules of winemaking and led to fewer faulty wines.
