Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion (Futures Pre-Sale) 2021

Professional Ratings

• 95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  The 2021 La Mission Haut-Brion unfurls in the glass with a complex, detailed bouquet of plums, cassis, flowers, spices, licorice and loamy soil. Medium to full-bodied, rich and concentrated, its fleshy, layered core of fruit is framed by beautifully velvety tannins. In bottle, much as en primeur, this blend of 48% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Cabernet Franc is a charming, sensual rendition of La Mission.
• 95 Decanter
  Rose, violets and peonies on the nose, with dark chocolate and cassis, smells like liqueur chocolates, perfumed and aromatic. A crystalline quality to the fruit, so driven and pure on the palate. Energetic and lively filled with strawberry, raspberry, red cherry and plum - direct with a vein of exotic spice - cinnamon and clove, as well as touches of orange, bitter grapefruit, dark chocolate and crushed stone. Such a lot going on here, but so well delivered with intensity and direction with racy acidity that keeps everything lifted the whole way through. Lovely minerality on the tongue, the graphite lingering with the juiciness that is still so mouthwatering even on the finish. Compelling and charming.
  Barrel Sample: 95
• 95 James Suckling

  Lots of sea-salt, iodine and purple-fruit aromas and flavors to this. Turns to bark and forest floor. Powerful. Full-bodied and muscular.

  Barrel Sample: 94-95

• 94 Jeb Dunnuck
  Black raspberries, dried flowers, tobacco, violets, and a beautiful spicy character emerge from the 2021 Château La Mission Haut-Brion, a pure, medium-bodied, incredibly polished, elegant Péssac-Léognan that has fine tannins, an utterly seamless, graceful mouthfeel, no hard edges, and a gorgeous finish. It plays in the more elegant, fresher style of the vintage yet brings ample depth and richness, has good mid-palate depth, and is already just about impossible to resist. Give bottles just 4-5 years and enjoy over the following two decades.