La Mission Haut Brion 2023 (750ML)

96-100 JD / 97-98 JS / 96-98+ WI / 97 DE / 94-96 WA / 93-95 VM

#4 Jeb Dunnuck Top 25 2023 Bordeaux En Primeur

One of the finest wines in the vintage, the 2023 Château La Mission Haut-Brion is based on 52.7% Merlot, 29.6% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Cabernet Franc. It's one hell of a gorgeous wine offering a massive nose of black raspberries, graphite, liquid flowers, scorched earth, and chocolate-like aromas and flavors. It delivers remarkable purity, full-bodied richness, no hard edges, and fine-grained, sweet tannins. The overall balance paired with opulence here is something to behold, and it’s incredible to find this level of quality in the vintage. - Jeb Dunnuck

The classy mouth-feel and length to this is really gorgeous, and it seduces you with its texture of fine silk and finesse. Lasts for a long, long time. Medium body with medium, creamy and round tannins and a layered, textured finish. Shows blackcurrants, lead pencil and crushed stone at the end. 52.7% merlot, 29.6% cabernet sauvignon and 17.7% cabernet franc. - James Suckling

A blend of 52.7% Merlot, 29.6% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 17.7% Cabernet Franc, La Mission Haut-Brion 2023 has a pH of 3.7 and a deep garnet-purple color. It slowly emerges from the glass with fragrant notes of ripe plums, boysenberries, and Morello cherries, opening out to a wonderfully evocative nose of Indian spices, fragrant soil, iron ore, and rose oil. The full-bodied palate is laden with ripe, opulent black fruit and exotic spices layers, lifted by red berry accents and ferrous sparks, framed by velvety tannins and finishing with epic length. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Independent

A generously scented nose, very floral and perfumed, lovely high aromatics and fully expressive. Blue fruits, red cherries and some plum. Weighty and full, this really leaves a lasting impression on the palate, juicy but not too much, a tiny hint of sourness in the back gives the zing while the structure and the tannins do most of the talking, really putting the structure at the fore with a powdery, chalkiness that lingers. It’s serious, but in no way austere. Weighty but still streamlined. Chocolate, cherry and blackcurrant, feels very calm and confident, polished and sophisticated. It’s not trying too hard and feels settled in the glass. Delicious. 3.8pH. 4.4 acidity. 80 IPT. 47% grand vin production. - Georgina Hindle, Decanter

The 2023 La Mission Haut-Brion unwinds in the glass to reveal aromas of ripe red fruits, dark wild berries, spring flowers, burning embers and lilac. Medium to full-bodied, rich and concentrated, it’s layered and textural with a dense core of fruit underpinned by youthfully firm structuring tannins. This blend of 52.7% Merlot, 29.6% Cabernet Sauvignon and 17.7% Cabernet Franc its likely to become fleshier and more enveloping with barrel maturation. - Yohan Castaing, Wine Advocate

The 2023 La Mission Haut-Brion was picked between September 5 until October 5, a relatively long picking, at 50hL/ha. It has a wonderful bouquet with brightness and verve: very well-defined red and black fruit, a little floral in style, maybe not as rambunctious as recent vintages. The palate is medium-bodied with lithe tannins. A perfect line of acidity counterbalances the creamy texture, turning quite plush toward the finish, but it is amazingly well-focused. This is a generous La Mission Haut-Brion that will probably drink earlier than say, the 2022, as winemaker Jean-Philippe Delmas agreed. It’s very fine and very delicious, but I would not place it within the canon of top vintages. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media