Chateau Haut-Brion 1er Grand Cru Classé 1989, 0,75l.

Château Haut-Brion 1er Grand Cru Classé 1989 – Pessac-Leognan

Château Haut-Brion in Pessac near Bordeaux is one of the world’s most famous wine estates.

The history

Jean de Pontac – also known as Jehan de Pontac – (1488-14 April 1589) married the 37-year-old Jeanne de Bellon, who brought parcels of Haut-Brion into the marriage. The first written mention of viticulture on the land dates back to 1423.

Jean de Pontac built a manor house on the site in 1550. During his long life, he was a notary, Conseiller du Roi and President of the Bordeaux Parliament. After his death, Château Haut-Brion passed to his fourth son, Arnaud II de Pontac (1530-1605). Arnaud was a priest and was consecrated Bishop of Bazas at the age of 27. Arnaud II de Pontac was very popular with the population, as he invested a large part of his fortune in fighting poverty among the rural population.

Geoffroy de Pontac (1576-1649), nephew of Arnaud II, took over the fortunes of the estate after his death. Geoffroy loved splendour and built the Maison Daurade in Bordeaux, in whose rooms large quantities of gold were processed. The splendour of this house already testifies to the success of Haut-Brion’s sales activities. His son Arnaud III de Pontac (1599-1681) also lived a life of splendour. His marriage to Louise-Gabrielle de Thou, the daughter of the President of the Parlement of Paris, opened many doors for him in the capital. Despite the conflicts, Arnaud III also recognised the importance of the English market for wine and constantly expanded business relations with London.

His successor, François-Auguste de Pontac (1636-1694), was President of the Bordeaux Parliament in 1653. However, he was a frequent visitor to London. We learn from the writer Samuel Pepys that he drank a Ho Bryan in the Royal Oak Tavern. He commented on this on 10 April 1663 with the words and here drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most perticular taste that I never met with… François-Auguste opened the “Enseigne de Pontac” tavern in 1666.

He left the running of the estate to Bertrand Dubut. His lavish lifestyle was not compatible with the estate’s income; he almost lost his property at least twice and was only able to save it through his own influence and the intercession of his wife Marie-Félicie de Crussol d’Uzès. As the marriage remained childless, two thirds of Haut-Brion went to his sister Thérèse and the other third to his nephew Louis-Arnaud Lecomte, Baron de Tresne.

Thérèse de Pontac had married Jean-Denis d’Aulède de Lestonnac on 30 September 1654. De Lestonnac was the owner of the famous Château Margaux vineyard. He died just 18 days after transferring Château Haut-Brion to his wife. His son François-Delphin d’Aulède de Lestonnac ended up running both estates.

When the unmarried François-Delphin died in 1746, his sister Catherine d’Aulede de Lestonnac’s successors inherited the wine estates, which also included Château de Pez in Saint-Estèphe. Catherine had married François-Joseph de Fumel on 30 August 1682. However, he was murdered in La Réole in 1688 at the age of 28, and Cathérine died in 1694.

Château Haut-Brion thus passed to her son, Louis de Fumel († 1749), who died shortly after inheriting it.

Joseph de Fumel (1720-1794), Louis’ third son, inherited the estate unexpectedly early. He added a beautiful park to the Haut-Brion estate and had an orangery and various estate buildings built. He also consolidated the reputation of the wine in England and at the French royal court via the de Richelieu family.

At the beginning of the French Revolution, his activities were hardly affected. Fumel ceded a small estate called Château Trompette to the people. However, his international trade connections made him suspect. Joseph was eventually captured and beheaded in 1794.

After a period of uncertainty, the well-known statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord bought Château Haut-Brion in 1801 and utilised the good quality of the wine for diplomatic purposes. However, his political business left him too little time and he parted with his vineyard in 1804.

From 1804 to 1836, the estate belonged to a banker and later to a wine merchant. On 12 March 1836, Joseph-Eugène Larrieu (1777-1859) bought the estate at a public sale and added the missing third of the estate to the property in 1841. The banker from Paris was rarely on site, but had surrounded himself with a capable team in Pessac.

When the Bordeaux wine estates were assessed at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1855, Haut-Brion ‘s outstanding position was crowned with the rank of Premier Cru Classé, although it was the only one of the newly classified wine estates at the time that was not located directly on the Médoc peninsula, but on the outskirts of the city of Bordeaux, in what is now the Pessac-Léognan appellation.

This classification as a Premier Cru was based on the ranking lists that had been maintained in trade circles for many years, according to the achievable sales prices of the wines.

Apart from Haut-Brion, only Château Lafite-Rothschild in Pauillac, Château Latour in the same town and Château Margaux were classified as Premier Cru estates in the official classification of 1855. In 1973, this group of Premier Crus was expanded to include Château Mouton-Rothschild, which had previously been classified second.

The trained lawyer Amédée Larrieu (1807-1873) later took over the fortunes of the estate, but also spent little time in Bordeaux. As he spent two years in the United States after completing his studies, he continued to expand the English-speaking market.

His son Eugène Larrieu (1848-1896) subsequently had to struggle with the vine diseases phylloxera and mildew. When Eugène died childless, several nephews tried their hand at managing the estate, but were unable to prevent the financial collapse. In 1923, the Banque d’Algérie took over the estate and passed it on to André Gibert by golden parachute in the same year. The eccentric Gibert refused to market the wines through the Bordeaux wine trade, putting himself in the role of an outsider. In 1934, he offered the estate to the city of Bordeaux as a gift. The only condition was that the city of Bordeaux would not give up the estate. In the end, negotiations were delayed and Gibert sold Château Haut-Brion to C. Douglas Dillon.

The Haut-Brion estate has thus been owned by an American banking family since 1935 (the only Premier Cru, incidentally), as has the La Mission Haut-Brion vineyard opposite. Premier estates are specially protected by law in France as national treasures: any buyer must be French. As the ownership of Haut-Brion has not changed hands since the 1930s, the Dillon family, who own the estate, are not affected by this.

The Dillon family relied on the loyalty of the Delmas family for the day-to-day running of the business. Haut-Brion was also included in the list of Crus Classés des Graves when the Graves wines were classified in 1959. However, unlike other classified Graves, this classification only applies to the red wine; the white wine from Haut-Brion is unclassified.

Prince Robert of Luxembourg, son of Joan Dillon, has been at the helm of the estate since 2008.

Location

The estate used to be located on the outskirts of Bordeaux; now, due to the growth of the urban area, the vineyard is surrounded by the city and therefore enjoys an individual microclimate, which is ultimately reflected in the unmistakable character of the wines.

The wine

The Haut-Brion vineyard covers 42.5 hectares, 45% of which is planted with Merlot, 40% with Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% with Cabernet Franc. The estate produces around 200,000 bottles a year of its first and second wines (“Bahans Haut-Brion”, since 2007 “Le Clarence de Haut-Brion”). White wine is also produced, Haut-Brion Blanc, which is marketed as a rarity with around 8,000 bottles per year. However, the château owes its reputation to its red wines:

In particular, the 1989 vintage, which was awarded 100 points by wine critic Robert Parker. The wines from 1945, 1959 and 1961 were also awarded 100 points.

The bottles from Haut-Brion have a special feature: they are not of the normal Bordeaux bottle type. They are stockier and conical, becoming somewhat thicker towards the top, towards the neck. On the one hand, this makes them unmistakable, but on the other hand, wine lovers regularly have difficulties storing them in standard cellar storage systems due to the different box format.