La Mission Haut Brion 2018

An extremely fine Mission, just beginning to say its piece. It's dense, gorgeously velvety in texture and bursting with fruit and energy. On the palate you get liquorice and dark chocolate notes, showing clear generosity while easily walking the line of balance. The longer it sits in the glass, the more the minerality takes hold on the mid-palate, doling out its tiny sparks of electricity and holding your attention. The subtle smoke, freshly cut herbs and tight tannins steal up on you, planting their flag in the finish. Harvested 10 September to 2 October, giving a 44hl/ha yield. 1% Petit Verdot completes the blend. IPT 75.8. The 3.76pH is the highest since 1989.Drinking Window 2023 - 2032

Tasted blind. Fresh, non showy but classically styled. Some dark-chocolate notes together with a saline edge. Very long indeed. Leathery finish. 14.5%Drink 2028 – 2050

Deepest crimson with very dark core. Intense, pure aromatic cassis and a hint of cassis leaf, though fully ripe. Smells very Cabernet. And the tannins are upright and structured but extremely lithe and supple. No thickness here. Agile. Just a little chewy on the finish. So seemingly approachable and full of energy. Drink 2026-2040

(53.5 Merlot, 42.9 Cabernet Sauvignon, 4.4 Cabernet Franc) | 62% new oak | 14.2 – 14.4% alc | 76 IPT | Harvested between 10th September and 2nd October This is a blunt and tough La Mission with muscle and power and it is not showing much fruit, preferring to lead with skin tannin and oak notes. The dryness and intensity of the skin derived flavours are rather arresting and this dents the flow of the wine across the palate. There are slight coffee bean notes and some tobacco details here, but overall this is a square, monolithic wine which needs a lot of time and also some serious softening of the tannins to fall into balance.

The 2018 La Mission Haut-Brion was picked from 10 September to 2 October at 44hL/ha. It has a perfumed and wonderfully delineated bouquet with blackberry, briary, pressed violets and graphite aromas, perhaps even more precise than the Haut-Brion at this stage. The palate is medium-bodied with silky smooth tannins. This is almost clinical in terms of precision, symmetrical, with a powerful, almost Burgundian finish that reveals amazing persistence. This is a fabulous La Mission Haut-Brion and a contender for one of the wines of the vintage.2024 - 2060

A tight and linear red with fantastic oyster-shell, iodine and crushed-stone character, complementing the currants and blackberries. Extremely long and fresh.

The 2018 La Mission Haut-Brion is composed of 53.5% Merlot, 42.9% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3.6% Cabernet Franc, harvested September 10 to October 2. Deep purple-black in color, it slowly unfurls to reveal a beguiling nose of earth and soft-spoken fruit, opening with wild blueberries, wet slate, pencil lead and fresh black cherries giving way to a serious core of blackcurrant cordial, baked plums and wild sage, and then exposing delicate wafts of rose hip tea and candied violets. Full-bodied, the palate is very tightly wound and super intense with amazing restraint and energy focused around very firm, exquisitely fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing incredibly long and fantastically multilayered. Extraordinary wine.

The 2018 La Mission Haut-Brion checks in as 53.5% Merlot, 42.9% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Cabernet Franc that, like the La Chappelle de la Mission Haut-Brion, was harvested between September 10 and October 2. Straight up awesome notes of black raspberries, smoked earth, melted licorice, and tobacco all emerge from this deeply colored 2018, and it develops a beautiful violet and floral quality with time in the glass. Rich, full-bodied, and concentrated on the palate, with subtle background oak and sweet tannins, it's one sexy yet also seamless 2018 that does everything right.