Château La Mission Haut-Brion
Encyclopedia
Bordeaux wine
A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world...
from the Pessac-Léognan
Pessac-Léognan
Pessac-Léognan is a French wine appellation, within the Graves subregion of the Bordeaux wine region. Both red and white wine is produced within the appellation, which consists of 10 communes: Cadaujac, Canéjan, Gradignan, Léognan, Martillac, Mérignac, Pessac, Saint-Médard-d'Eyrans, Talence and...
appellation
Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée
Appellation d’origine contrôlée , which translates as "controlled designation of origin", is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut National...
, classed among the Grand Crus in the Graves classification of 1953
Classification of Graves wine
The wines of Graves in the wine-growing region of Bordeaux were classified in 1953 by a jury appointed by Institute Nacional des Appellations d'Origine, and approved by the Minister of Agriculture in August of that year. The selection was revised with a few additions in February 1959...
. The winery
Winery
A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, bottling lines, laboratories, and large expanses of...
, located in close vicinity of the city of Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, belongs to the wine region Graves
Graves
Graves is an important subregion of the Bordeaux wine region. Graves is situated on the left bank of the Garonne river, in the upstream part of the region, southeast of the city Bordeaux and stretch over...
, in the commune of Pessac
Pessac
Pessac is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.It is the second-largest suburb of the city of Bordeaux and is adjacent to it on the southwest. It is a member of the metropolitan Urban Community of Bordeaux...
with additional property in Talence
Talence
Talence is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.It is the third-largest suburb of the city of Bordeaux, and is adjacent to it on the south side...
.
The château also produces a second wine
Second wine
Second wine is a term commonly associated with Bordeaux wine to refer to a second label wine made from cuvee not selected for use in the Grand vin or first label...
from younger vines, La Chapelle de la Mission, since the 1991 vintage, and the dry white wine Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc since the merger of Château Laville Haut-Brion
Château Laville Haut-Brion
Château Laville Haut-Brion was a Bordeaux dry white wine from the Pessac-Léognan appellation, which was ranked among the Premiers Crus in the Classification of Graves wine of 1953...
.
History
In the early 16th century, the land belonged to the family de Rostaing, of the house of de la Tour d'Esquivens, then called Arrejedhuys, planted with vines before it was passed to the Lestonnac family in 1540. It remained under family ownership until 1654 when it was willed by Madame de Lestonnac to the Pères LazaristsLazarists
Congregation of the Mission is a vowed order of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron...
, priests of the Mission of Saint-Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul was a priest of the Catholic Church who became dedicated to serving the poor. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He was canonized in 1737....
. The priests cultivated grapes for nearly 130 years, until the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, leaving behind monastic foundations that were expropriated
Confiscation
Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...
by the state. It was acquired by Martial-Victor Vaillant in November 1792 for 302,000 livres, and for nearly one hundred years it was owned by the Chiapella family.
In 1919 it was sold by Victor Coustau to Fréderic Otto Woltner. Woltner's sons, Fernand and Henri, considered innovators of viticulture
Viticulture
Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture...
, restructured the vineyards to yield better grapes. Henri Woltner who became manager of the estate in 1921, in addition to being credited as having pioneered the use of glass lined tanks in the vinification process in 1926, came to be known as a "wine-maker genius".
For many years considered the chief challenger to its historically more significant close neighbour Château Haut-Brion
Château Haut-Brion
Château Haut-Brion is a French wine, rated a Premier Cru Classé , produced in the Gironde region. It differs from the other wines on the list in its geographic location in the north of the wine-growing region of Graves...
, La Mission Haut-Brion sold wines at high prices, but this was considered justified as they "produced some remarkable bottles". The prolific Woltners ran operations at the neighbouring Château La Tour Haut-Brion
Château La Tour Haut-Brion
Château La Tour Haut-Brion was a Bordeaux wine estate from the Pessac-Léognan appellation within Graves, and was ranked as a Cru Classé for red wine in the Classification of Graves wine of 1953 and 1959...
for the widow Marie Coustau since her husband's death in 1923, who upon her death in 1933 left the chateau to the Woltner family in her will, and in 1931 the Woltners had acquired the nearby Château Laville Haut-Brion where they produced a dry white wine considered one of the best in Graves.
After the death of Henri Woltner in 1974 and his brother shortly after, the estate was run by Françoise Woltner and Francis DeWavrin, daughter and son-in-law of Fernand Woltner. Though standards were maintained, family discord led to the sale of the estate, along with La Tour Haut-Brion and Laville Haut-Brion in 1983, to Domaine Clarence Dillon
Domaine Clarence Dillon
Domaine Clarence Dillon SAS is a French company that owns two Bordeauxwine estates, Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion. It was first founded on June 1, 1935...
, owners of Château Haut-Brion since 1935 while the DeWavrins moved on to run Chateau Woltner
Chateau Woltner
Chateau Woltner, formerly Nouveau Medoc Vineyard, was a California wine estate located near Angwin, California in the Howell Mountain AVA within Napa Valley, which in the modern era was operational between 1980 and 2000 before its sale and merge into Ladera Vineyards.-History:The estate was...
in Howell Mountain AVA
Howell Mountain AVA
The Howell Mountain AVA is an American Viticultural Area located within Napa Valley AVA. Howell Mountain is located in the Vaca Mountains on the northeast side of Napa Valley around the town of Angwin, and overlooks the town of St. Helena, California....
. Although the historical competition between Haut-Brion and La Mission has been absent in recent years, through the supervision of manager Jean-Bernard Delmas, and later Jean-Philippe Delmas, the original terroir
Terroir
Terroir comes from the word terre "land". It was originally a French term in wine, coffee and tea used to denote the special characteristics that the geography, geology and climate of a certain place bestowed upon particular varieties...
of the vineyards has been upheld and La Mission has remained distinctive.
American wine critic Robert Parker
Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. is a leading U.S. wine critic with an international influence. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter The Wine Advocate, with his particular stylistic preferences and notetaking vocabulary, have become very influential in American wine buying and are...
awarded the maximum one hundred points for the 2006 La Mission Haut Brion, making it six occasions Parker has given the estate this score. Jancis Robinson
Jancis Robinson
Jancis Mary Robinson OBE, MW is a British wine critic, journalist and editor of wine literature. She currently writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and writes for her website jancisrobinson.com...
, MW
Master of Wine
Master of Wine is a qualification issued by The Institute of Masters of Wine in the United Kingdom...
describes La Mission as "the quintessential insider's wine" while David Peppercorn
David Peppercorn
David Peppercorn is a British Master of Wine, French wine importer and author, known for his books about the wines of Bordeaux and long experience in his field, having collected tasting notes since the late 1950s. He is married to fellow MW and wine writer Serena Sutcliffe. They were the first...
, MW holds the estate's consistent performance over the last century as justification to classify La Mission as a Premier Cru, as was done to Château Mouton Rothschild
Château Mouton Rothschild
Château Mouton Rothschild is a wine estate located in the village of Pauillac in the Médoc, 50 km north-west of the city of Bordeaux, France. Its red wine of the same name is regarded as one of the world's greatest clarets. Originally known as Château Brane-Mouton it was renamed by Nathaniel...
in 1973. In 2009, the Liv-ex Bordeaux Classification
The Liv-ex Bordeaux Classification
The Liv-ex Bordeaux Classification is a classification of Bordeaux wine compiled by the British internet and phone-based wine exchange, London International Vintners Exchange in March 2009, with an aim to recreate the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 in a modern economic context, 154...
considered Château La Mission Haut-Brion as a potential First Growth along the five estates classified in 1855, château Haut-Brion, château Margaux, château Lafite-Rothschild, château Latour et châton Mouton-Rothschild.
Estate mergers
With an aim to simplify the number of wines produced, Domaine Clarence Dillon decided that the grapes from the La Tour Haut-Brion vineyards would be blended into La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion starting with the 2006 vintage, and as the vinesVitis
Vitis is a genus of about 60 species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus is made up of species predominantly from the Northern hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, both for direct consumption of the fruit and for fermentation to produce...
become older, use them for the production of the grand vin.
In March 2010, it was announced that the wine of Château Laville Haut-Brion would cease to be bottled under that label, and instead produced under the name Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, beginning with the 2009 vintage.
Production
Situated on uniquely stony soil, the vineyard area extends nearly 21 hectares (51.9 acre) between the two portions in Pessac and Léognan, with a grape variety distribution of 48% Cabernet SauvignonCabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...
, 45% Merlot
Merlot
Merlot is a darkly blue-coloured wine grape, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name Merlot is thought to derive from the Old French word for young blackbird, merlot, a diminutive of merle, the blackbird , probably from the color of the grape. Merlot-based wines...
, and 7% Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone - as in the Loire's Chinon...
.
The estate annually produces on average 6000 winecase of its grand vin La Mission Haut-Brion. For the second wine La Chapelle de la Mission, from the vineyard's youngest vines, there is produced on average 4000 winecase. The white Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc, previously the wine of Château Laville Haut-Brion, has an annual production of 500 winecase.