Nick Jackson, MW | March 27, 2025
In the southern suburbs of the city of Bordeaux lies a constellation of properties with the name Haut Brion in their titles. Ancestrally related, and by ownership too, some of them; yet displaying marked differences in wine style.
The outlier is Carmes Haut Brion, a property that has chosen to go its own way in recent years under the visionary Guillaume Pouthier. Here, a predominance of Cabernet Franc and the use of whole cluster fruit creates wines of spicy, aromatic depths and silky textures. They are slightly fresher and more supple than Haut Brion or La Mission.
First Growth Haut-Brion and its second wine, Clarence, articulate the full potential of this terroir. These are wines of velvety richness and huge reservoirs of dark, tobacco-scented fruit. La Mission, across the road, tends to slightly more obvious tannic power and dryness, but resolves equally as gloriously as its better-known sibling. Vintages like 2009 and 2010 are already stunning today.
Finally, a word for a sleeper white wine from these two estates: La Clarté, an exuberant, expressive Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend, packed full of zesty fruit with a glorious creamy texture.
