Description
Winemaker Notes
This wine is a deep purplish-red in the glass, with brilliant highlights. Initially slightly reserved on the nose, it develops a fascinating complexity on aeration. Fresh red-berry fruit is accented by hints of warmer aromas, such as cocoa. The initial impression is very soft and soothing on the palate, but the tannic structure gradually affirms its presence, combining firmness with great finesse. This wine confirms the assessment from recent vintages that Le Chance de Haut-Brion can certainly be considered a great wine.
Professional Ratings
95James Suckling
Coffee and currants with hints of sweet tobacco and vanilla bean. Subtle yet intense. Full body, with sexy tannins and a sweet fruit coating around it. Very fine and linear. Direct. Gorgeous. Better than I remember.
93Wine Spectator
Intense, with a bold, roasted apple wood note out front and anise-infused plum and blackberry fruit surrounding the core. Lots of bramble, tar and warm stone accents course through the finish. Displays impressive range and grip.
93Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
The second wine of Haut-Brion is now called Le Clarence de Haut-Brion, and the 2010 is among the finest I have tasted there. It is a broad, powerful and more muscular wine than its cross-street rival, La Chapelle de la Mission, but all the same, it is wonderfully fresh and precise, with notes of blueberry and boysenberry as well as hints of smoke and wet stones. Endowed with gorgeous fruit, texture, purity and elegance, this relatively dense second wine demonstrates how draconian the selection process has become for the top estates in Bordeaux in recent years. The blend of this wine is 52% Merlot, 36% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest mostly Cabernet Franc with just a touch of Petit Verdot. I would expect it to last at least 20 years, which is remarkable.
92Wine Enthusiast
Smoky acidity and juicy, very fresh fruit. The wine certainly has dry tannins, along with this delicious waft of black berry fruit juice.
91Decanter
Fine aromatic red fruits over velvety texture, harmonious ripeness and structure, very fine.
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