Chateau Haut-Brion, Blanc, Pessac-Leognan 2014

A magnificent wine, the 2014 Haut-Brion Blanc is drop-dead gorgeous. Ample, broad and intense, but with remarkable freshness, it captures the best of what the season had to offer. Lemon oil, white flowers, white pepper and slate burst from the glass in an extraordinary display of tension, class and pedigree. This is remarkable wine by any measure. Best of all, it should drink well for years and perhaps even decades to come.

More closed and reticent than the La Mission Haut Brion Blanc, the 2014 Haut Brion Blanc is a blend of 68% Sémillon and 32% Sauvignon Blanc all brought up in barrel, with no malolactic fermentation. It reluctantly gives up notes of citrus, orange marmalade, and mint, with a liquid rock-like minerality emerging with time in the glass. Concentrated, medium to full-bodied, with bright acidity, a stacked mid-palate, and a great, great finish, it’s all promise at this point, but should start to sing in 2-3 years. It’s an insanely good dry white from Pessac that’s going to keep for two to three decades.

The 2014 Haut Brion Blanc has a very pure bouquet with scents of peach skin, Cornice pear and those resinous/candle wax aromas that I remarked upon during en primeur. This has more sophistication than the La Mission Haut Brion Blanc, a little more tension. The palate is medium-bodied with a silky smooth entry, perfect acidity, wonderful tension and energy. Notes of orange pith, a squeeze of lime, flint and smoke are conveyed on the finish that demonstrates outstanding persistence. This is a great Haut Brion Blanc, but it will require a decade in the bottle before it will show what it can really do.