Haut Brion – a 500 year story and a great wine

Haut Brion – a 500 year story and a great wine

Famous stories and personal anecdotes regarding  Haut Brion, the only  Chateau out of  Medoc to be Premier Cru Classé since 1855

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
The recently found documents date the fame of the wine from the famous chateau as far back as 1521. It is true that in 1660 bottles of Haut Brion were already on Charles II King of England’s table and were considered very innovative “new French claret” because of a maceration technique which enabled the wine to age at length. A story full of great characters and frequent changes in ownership up until 1935 when Haut Brion was acquired by the American Dillon family that still owns it today. Not far from Bordeaux, it is on a flat piece of land of about 51 hectares covered in stones.
At first sight it doesn’t excite but then you taste it and fall in love with it!
My first memory of Haut Brion is very particular and slightly funny. Lets just go back a bit in time, to when I created my estate, in 1998,  when I felt the need to learn, to get up to date on wine, ands so I took part for three consequent  years in some full immersion courses, regarding red wines organized by ARSIA Toscana in the fabled Faculté d’OEnologie  at the Université Segalen Bordeaux 2. The most

sought after lessons were those by Professor Yves Glorie the genius who had taught the world the importance of the poliphenolic ripening of the grapes. He had just recovered from an accident where he had broken several bones, and he would sit or stand in odd positions like a contortionist but so that he would suffer less. His direct and ironic way of expressing himself made those lessons so full of information easier to follow. As many other teachers of the faculty he too had as clients high level wineries, among which Haut Brion where we were able to see form the inside the magical world of a Premier Cru Classé.

The funny shaped vats, with a chute like a pikes mouth, that enable the extraction of the green grape seeds during fermentation were news to everyone  just like the care and attention: everything was shiny, new, of high quality. Then we visited the barrel ageing area where the cellar staff were decanting the wine from one barrel to another, and we were surprised to see that they were washing the barrels with cold water and then were a sulphurized wick was burned. Here, already at that time, so about 15 years ago, the more important wineries had machines producing vapour to wash the barrels well, and so the use of cold water seemed to us old fashioned.  The next morning, just like Dennis the menace, one member of our group asked Professor Glories if a winery such as Haut Brion should not be equipped with a more modern pressure washer. He looked at us, smiled and changed the subject. We got our reply in the afternoon during the wine tasting. These tastings were memorable events, with bottles for millionaires coming from the Faculty wine cellar; I have never had such extraordinary wines to taste in my whole life. The last wine was winner of the TOP 100 by Wine

Spectator. We tasted it, speechless and Glories sat on the desk << du you smell the bret?>> The smell of wet fur was strong, impossible to deny. <<Yes>> we all said somewhat doubtfully and Glories replied <<it is a defect, n’est-ce pas? But this is Number 1 for Wine Spectator … et alors, vous pouvez laver les barriques avec l’eau froide>>.
What a lesson! This is the French superiority in French luxury wines: the defects become peculiarities.