La Mission Haut-Brion 2020

100 points - Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, April 2023 The 2020 La Mission Haut-Brion is a brilliant effort that exhibits a level of balance and integration that are impressive in such a powerful young Bordeaux. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries and plums mingled with burning embers, pencil shavings, violets and smoked black tea, it's full-bodied, deep and concentrated, with a layered, elegantly muscular profile, its brooding core of fruit framed by a generous endowment of powdery tannin that tempers the ripeness of the vintage. Checking in at 14.7% alcohol, it's nonetheless more classically styled than the more flamboyant 2019 vintage or even the slowly maturing 2010 which I re-tasted alongside for context. “First, we had to manage with the very humid spring—we had to fight against mildew,” Deputy Managing Director Jean-Philippe Delmas of Domaine Clarence Dillon informed me. “It was challenging. Regardless for whether you were using natural products or not. So, yields were already lower than in 2019. Then we had almost two months without a drop of water—mid-June to mid-August. We decided for the first time not to do the leaf thinning. It was not so much because of the heat, but it was SO dry. Not so many bunches were dropped in July. This year there was less intervention in the vineyards. When you intervene, you modify the profile of the wines. We started to harvest the whites very early. What is rare this year is that we finished the whites in August. It was a very early year for the whites. For the reds, the maceration was a bit shorter. We used more Cabernet Franc for all the grand vins. This was definitely a Cabernet Franc year! For La Mission Haut-Brion and Haut-Brion, the proportion reflects exactly the proportion we have in the fields.” - William Keeley