2021 Laville Haut Brion

The 2021 La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc has a nuanced, understated bouquet with yellow plum, Anjou pear and hints of honeysuckle—very low key and tightly knit, yet very well-defined. The palate is beautifully balanced with a tangy entry and a citric bead of acidity, revealing orange rind and kaki fruit toward the finish that is full of tension. This is neck and neck with the Haut-Brion Blanc at the moment, yet may surpass it in the long-run.

The 2021 La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc marries the natural energy of this cool year with lovely mid-palate creaminess and texture. Understated yet persistent, the 2021 presents a gorgeous display of pear, white flowers and mint, along with a subtle touch of oak that frames the finish. Today, the 2021 is quite a bit less expressive than it was en primeur. It was also bottled in May 2022 (versus May 2023 for the reds) and may be in a closed period, which is not unusual for wines from cold years. We shall see.

A fresh, incipiently complex bouquet of pear, grapefruit, freshly baked bread and wet stones prefaces the 2021 La Mission Haut-Brion, a medium to full-bodied, fleshy wine with a satiny attack that segues into a taut, structured mid-palate built around chalky dry extract, which lend this a more tightly-knit, mordant profile than the broader, fatter and more enveloping Haut-Brion Blanc.