La Mission Haut Brion 1975

This is undisputably the wine of the vintage, a year that was clearly over-exposed and over-rated, largely because it was better than the four vintages that preceded it. However, it was not terribly exciting in the final analysis. The 1975 La Mission-Haut-Brion, which consistently received perfect scores in its first thirty years of life, remains a vibrant, vital wine. While there are some still gorgeous 1975s (i.e., Petrus, l'Evangile, Trotanoy, Lafleur, and Haut-Brion) that came on much later in life, La Mission possesses enough evidence of greatness to stand alone as the finest 1975. From a cool year with a tiny crop, most 1975s are tannic, dense and out of balance. La Mission's extraordinary terroir, with its well-drained, gravelly soils fared unbelievably well, and the 1975 was a blockbuster for its first 20-30 years of life. While much of the fat has faded away, the wine still possesses a vitality and vigor that belies its 37 years of age. The color is a dark garnet with just a touch of lightening at the rim. Notes of camphor, wood charcoal, black fruits, plums, cedar, damp earth, truffles, asphalt and smoke result in a fabulous set of aromatics that are nothing short of compelling. Based on the aromatics alone, this offering would merit a perfect score, but some of the nasty tannins in this vintage are beginning to make their presence known on the palate. Nevertheless, this is a freak for the year - very concentrated, dense and remarkably youthful. It will undoubtedly provide extraordinary drinking for another 30-50 years. Nothing about this wine indicates it can't keep going, although its one-time perfection has faded ever so slightly. This amazing effort is a truly profound wine in another disastrous vintage in Bordeaux!

The 1975 La Mission-Haut-Brion has been the most consistent wine of the vintage. Super-concentrated, and now beginning to shed enough tannin so that it can be fully appreciated, this enormously constituted La Mission-Haut-Brion has developed that fabulous Graves set of aromatics - tobacco, black fruits, minerals, roasted herbs, and cedar. Huge, massive, thick, and succulent, with moderate tannin, and some amber notes at the edge, this wine will reach full maturity by the turn of the century and last for 30-40 years. An extraordinary La Mission-Haut-Brion, it comes closest in style to resembling the 1945, with a hint of the sweet, ripe 1959. The notes for this wine are taken from the description of Series I of the 1995 tasting conducted in Munich by Helga and Hardy Rodenstock.