Château Haut-Brion

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The castle building of Château Haut-Brion.

The Château Haut-Brion in Pessac near Bordeaux is one of the world's most famous wineries.

location

The estate used to be on the outskirts of Bordeaux; In the meantime, the winery is enclosed by the city due to the growth of the urban area and therefore enjoys an individual microclimate, which is ultimately reflected in the unmistakable character of the wines.

Wines

The vineyard area of ​​Haut-Brion is 42.5 ha and is planted 45% with Merlot , 40% with Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% with Cabernet Franc . The estate produces around 200,000 bottles a year from its first and second wine (“Bahans Haut-Brion”, since 2007 “Le Clarence de Haut-Brion”). White wine is also produced, Haut-Brion Blanc, which is marketed as a rarity with around 8,000 bottles a year. The château owes its reputation to its red wines:

The 1989 vintage deserves a special mention, the wine of which the wine critic Robert Parker rated with 100 points . The wines from 1945, 1959 and 1961 were also rated with 100 points.

The bottles from Haut-Brion have a special feature: they are not kept in the normal Bordeaux bottle type. They are more compact and conical; upwards, towards the neck, getting a little thicker. On the one hand, this makes them unmistakable, on the other hand, because of the different crate format, wine lovers who store them regularly have little difficulties stowing them in common cellar storage systems.

history

Jean de Pontac - also called Jehan de Pontac - (1488-14 April 1589) married the 37-year-old Jeanne de Bellon, who brought plots of land from Haut-Brion into the marriage. The first written mention of viticulture on the usable areas dates back to 1423.

Jean de Pontac built an estate building on the site in 1550. In his long life he was a notary, Conseiller du Roi and President of the Parlement of Bordeaux. After his death, Château Haut-Brion went to his fourth son, Arnaud II de Pontac (1530-1605). Arnaud was a priest and was ordained bishop of Bazas at the age of 27. Arnaud II de Pontac was very popular among the population, as he invested a large part of his fortune in combating poverty among the rural population.

Geoffroy de Pontac (1576–1649), nephew of Arnaud II, took over the fortunes of the winery after his death. Geoffroy loved the pomp and built the Maison Daurade in Bordeaux, in whose rooms large amounts of gold were processed. The splendor of this house already reports on the success of the sales activities of Haut-Brion. His son Arnaud III de Pontac (1599–1681) also lived a life in pomp. His marriage to Louise-Gabrielle de Thou, the daughter of the President of the Parlement of Paris, opened many doors for him in the state capital. Despite the conflicts, Arnaud III recognized the importance of the English market for wine and steadily expanded business relationships with London .

His successor, François-Auguste de Pontac (1636-1694), was President of the Parlement of Bordeaux in 1653. However, he often stayed in London. We learn from the writer Samuel Pepys that he had a Ho Bryan in the Royal Oak Tavern. He commented on this on April 10, 1663 with the words and here drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most perticular taste that I never met with ... In 1666, François-Auguste opened the tavern “Enseigne de Pontac ”.

He left the official business on the winery to Bertrand Dubut. His lavish lifestyle was incompatible with the winery's income; at least twice he almost lost his property and was only able to save it through his own influence and the intercession of his wife Marie-Félicie de Crussol d'Uzès . Since the marriage remained childless, two thirds of Haut-Brion went to his sister Thérèse and the other third to his nephew Louis-Arnaud Lecomte, Baron von Tresne .

Thérèse de Pontac had married Jean-Denis d'Aulède de Lestonnac on September 30, 1654. De Lestonnac was the owner of the famous Château Margaux winery. He died just 18 days after the transfer of Château Haut-Brion to his wife. His son François-Delphin d'Aulède de Lestonnac eventually ran both estates.

When the unmarried François-Delphin died in 1746, the successors of his sister Catherine d'Aulede de Lestonnac inherited the wineries, which also included Château de Pez in Saint-Estèphe . Catherine had married François-Joseph de Fumel on August 30, 1682. However, he was murdered in La Réole in 1688 at the age of 28, and Cathérine died in 1694.

Château Haut-Brion thus went to the son, Louis de Fumel († 1749), but he died shortly after the inheritance.

Joseph de Fumel (1720–1794), Louis' third son, inherited the property unexpectedly early. He added a beautiful park to Gut Haut-Brion and had an orangery and various manor buildings built. He also consolidated the reputation of wine in England and through the de Richelieu family at the French royal court.

At the beginning of the French Revolution , activities were hardly affected. Fumel ceded a small estate called Château Trompette to the people . However, his international trade ties made him suspicious. Joseph was eventually captured and beheaded in 1794.

After a period of uncertainty, the well-known statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord bought Château Haut-Brion in 1801 and used the good quality of the wine in the interests of diplomacy. However, his political business gave him too little time and he parted with his winery in 1804.

From 1804 to 1836 the estate belonged to a banker and later a wine merchant. On March 12, 1836, Joseph-Eugène Larrieu (1777-1859) bought the property on the occasion of a public sale and in 1841 reinserted the missing third of the property. The Parisian banker was rarely there, but he had a capable team in Pessac.

In the evaluation of the Bordeaux wineries on the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 , the outstanding position of Haut-Brion was crowned with the rank of Premier Cru Classé , although it was the only one of the then newly classified wineries not directly on the Médoc peninsula, but in the Outskirts of the city of Bordeaux, in today's Pessac-Léognan appellation .

This rating as Premier Cru was based on the ranking lists that have been kept in trade circles for many years, according to the achievable sales prices of the wines.

Apart from Haut-Brion , the official classification of 1855 only included the estates Château Lafite-Rothschild in Pauillac , Château Latour in the same place and Château Margaux as Premier Cru wineries. In 1973 this group of Premier Crus was expanded to include the Château Mouton-Rothschild , which had previously been classified as second .

Later, the trained lawyer Amédée Larrieu (1807–1873) took over the fortunes of the estate, but also spent little time in Bordeaux. Since he spent two years in the United States after graduating, he continued to expand the English-speaking market.

His son Eugène Larrieu (1848-1896) subsequently struggled with the vine diseases phylloxera and powdery mildew. When Eugène died childless, several nephews tried to run the estate, but could not prevent the financial crash. In 1923 the Banque d'Algérie took over the estate and in the same year passed it on to André Gibert with the Golden Parachute . The eccentric Gibert refused to market the wines through the Bordeaux wine trade, putting himself in the role of an outsider. In 1934 he offered the property to the city of Bordeaux as a gift. The only condition was that the city of Bordeaux would not give up the estate. The negotiations were finally delayed, so Gibert sold Château Haut-Brion to C. Douglas Dillon .

The Haut-Brion estate has been owned by an American banking family since 1935, as has the La Mission Haut-Brion winery opposite . In France, premier goods are specially protected by law as national cultural goods: any purchaser must be French. Since the ownership of Haut-Brion has not changed since the 1930s, the Dillon family is not affected by this.

The Dillon family relied on the loyalty of the Delmas family in day-to-day business. In addition, Haut-Brion was included in the list of Crus Classés des Graves on the occasion of the classification of Graves wines in 1959. In contrast to other classified Graves, this classification only applies to red wine; the white wine from Haut-Brion is not classified.

Prince Robert of Luxembourg, son of Joan Dillon, has been in charge of the house since 2008.

See also

literature