2004 Haut-Brion

The big news at Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion is that La Tour Haut-Brion will no longer be made after the 2005 vintage. The six hectares of vines will in theory be available for La Mission, although in 2006 this juice also went into La Chapelle Haut-Brion, La Mission's second wine. "La Tour Haut-Brion was not our most-demanded wine," explained estate manager Jean-Philippe Delmas. "During the ownership of the Woltners, this used to be the second wine of La Mission, but then my father created La Chapelle in 1991 as a second wine. La Tour Haut-Brion never really existed as a cru, so it's a disappearance that's not really a disappearance." As in so many recent vintages, Haut-Brion and La Mission benefited from their protected, warmer microclimate within the city limits of Bordeaux: the merlot here was harvested concentrated and rich during the second week of September, with one cuve reaching nearly 16% potential alcohol. "We then waited from September 15 until September 21 to start bringing in the cabernet sauvignon," said Delmas. "The cabernet had a bit less sugar than the merlot but was as rich in tannins and still as high in alcohol as the 2005 had been." Enologist Jean-Philippe Masclet told me that he was very careful about extraction in 2006, keeping the fermentation temperature of the merlot to 26oC and doing a shorter-than-normal cuvaison of just 15 days for the cabernet. The '06s will be bottled with alcohol, acid and tannin levels similar to those of the 2005s, he added, but with higher pH. By the way, the two white wines made here are potentially extraordinary; the fruit was picked in a leisurely fashion between August 29 and September 12, mostly in very warm, dry weather.

According to enologist Jean-Philippe Masclet, 2005 was a drought year but the vines really weren't overly stressed. The estate carried out a nearly normal eclaircissage and pulled leaves. "The vines really worked in 2005," he explained. "Although we actually began harvesting some merlot on clay soil at La Mission on August 31, we really took our time picking this year," Masclet went on. "We picked on the basis of taste, to privilege the fruit. There was no cooked aspect to the fruit in 2005." Still, at roughly 14% alcohol, the 2005 Haut-Brion and La Mission are the richest vintage to date for both wines. "We need to go back to 1961 to find such density of sugar," said Masclet, who then noted that the '61 Haut-Brion was still only 13.3% alcohol. The fermentation was carried out at lower temperature than usual (no more than 27oC), with less pumping-over than normal. At the time of my visit here, neither Haut-Brion nor La Mission contained any press wine. "We already had big material, an unusually strong combination of coloring matter and tannins," Masclet explained. "Adding press wine would have made the finishes too tannic." The 2005 Haut-Brion is a monument in the making; La Mission also holds out great promise, but was a bit less forthcoming in the early going.

Based on the high quality of the 2004s I tasted during my early morning visit to Haut-Brion and the mixed quality of much of the rest of the Graves appellation, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the area of Pessac was more successful than the Bordeaux suburbs around Leognan. Haut-Brion's various red grapes were all harvested between September 16 and October 6, enjoying extremely favorable weather conditions (the white grapes were picked from September 6 through 20). The fruit was very ripe and high in tannins, and the team accordingly carried out shorter macerations than usual, with fewer pumpovers. The pHs, noted enologist Jean-Philippe Masclet, were virtually as high as those of the previous year, but the wines are fresher than the analysis suggests, with the tannins supplying the structure.