1981 | Chateau la Mission Haut Brion

Reveals plenty of incense, blueberry, blackcurrant and crushed rock notes intertwined with a restrained, smoky character.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 1981 exhibits a more youthful purple hue to its dark plum color than any vintage back to 1970. Somewhat narrowly constructed for a La Mission-Haut-Brion, it reveals plenty of incense, blueberry, black currant and crushed rock notes intertwined with a restrained, smoky character. The wine is medium-bodied, fresh and crisp with good concentration as well as a surprising youthfulness. However, the vintage’s deficiencies – a lack of heat and maturity – show up in the wine’s modest power and concentration. The 1981 does not possess the great richness, depth and intensity of the finest vintages, but it is still an outstanding effort that has aged extremely well. It could hold up for another two decades, but there is no point in deferring gratification.

• John Gilman: The 1981 La Mission is a very strong example of the vintage and the wine is drinking at its apogee at age thirty-five. The bouquet offers up a fine, complex blend of cassis, dark berries, cigar ash, a touch of new leather, a fine base of dark soil tones and a touch of La Mission’s medicinal overtones. On the palate the wine id deep, full-bodied and quite powerful in personality for an ’81, with broad shoulders, a superb core, fine soil signature and a long, still modestly chewy and tangy finish. This is not the most elegant example of La Mission, but it has depth and stuffing and delivers plenty of enjoyment. Ironically, I like the ’81 La Tour Haut-Brion almost as much as the La Mission in this vintage, though in its early years, the ’81 La Mission was much more elegant than it is today and was clearly the more interesting bottle.

Producer Information

Château La Mission Haut-Brion is an estate in the Pessac-Léognan appellation in the northern Graves, a few miles southwest of Bordeaux's city center. Its near-neighbor and sister estate Château Haut-Brion was the only estate from the region featured in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification, but La Mission Haut-Brion (rated a Graves Grand Cru in the 1959 rankings) is often judged and priced as the equal of Haut-Brion and the other first growths. The wine is particularly known for its fruit intensity, rounded, generous texture and silky tannins, and has received multiple 100-point ratings from American critic Robert Parker. La Mission Haut-Brion sees 18-22 months aging in barrel, with 80 percent new oak. Between 6000 and 7000 cases are produced each year. La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion has been the second wine since 2006, when it replaced Château La Tour Haut-Brion. The estate also produces two Semillon-based white wines: La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc (formerly Laville Haut-Brion) and, since 2009, La Clarté de Haut-Brion. The latter acts as a combined second wine for La Mission Haut-Brion and Haut-Brion Blanc. The estate takes its name from the Lazarite missionaries who owned it from 1682 until the French Revolution. It has been owned since 1983 by Domaine Clarence Dillon, the owner of Haut-Brion.

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