Served at the table of King Charles II in 1660, Château Haut-Brion has never stopped writing history since. This blend is made up of 45% Merlot, 44% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Cabernet Franc with a hint of Petit Verdot. The harvests are manual, and the grapes are sorted several times throughout the process. Limited yields and a long maturation of 22 months in new oak barrels contribute to the production of this magnificent wine. Haut Brion develops velvety notes of ripe blackcurrant and has a mineral profile with legendary finesse. In its best vintages, it can be aged for several decades. Some of its vintages, such as the 1961 and the 1989, demonstrate how Château Haut Brion can figure among the best red wines in the world.
Jean de Pontac began constituting the Haut-Brion vineyard, in the Graves region, in 1525. His descendants went on to produce “New French Claret”, the precursor of today’s great red wines. Their efforts enabled Arnaud III de Pontac to sell his wine under the estate’s name as early as 1660. It gained a fine reputation and enormous success in London. The first of the Bordeaux great growths was born!
Haut-Brion’s history has been marked by many famous men: Count Joseph de Fumel (Field Marshal, Governor of the Province of Guyenne, and Mayor of Bordeaux), Talleyrand (Foreign Minister of Napoleon I, Emperor of France) and, more recently, C. Douglas Dillon (American ambassador to France and US Secretary of the Treasury during the Kennedy administration).
In 1961, Haut-Brion was the first of the great growths to use stainless steel fermentation vats, and continues to be in the forefront of innovation thanks to the meticulous selection of the ideal clones for each grape variety used at the estate.