CHATEAU LA MISSION-HAUT-BRION Rouge. Pessac-Leognan 2006 Bottle

Description

La Mission Haut-Brion 2006 is a remarkable wine praised for its exceptional quality, receiving 96 points from Wine Enthusiast and 95 points from both The Wine Advocate and Vinous. Wine Enthusiast describes it as having wonderful sweet fruit and a velvety texture, with concentrated ripe fruits and red berries, culminating in a fresh and perfumed finish. The Wine Advocate highlights its expressive aromas of blackberries, blackcurrants, and nuances of smoke and truffles. Vinous notes the wine's lush character, stuffed with fruit, presenting a seamless mouthfeel and a long finish with fine-grained tannins. This outstanding vintage can be enjoyed from 2026 to 2056, promising an exceptional drinking experience that showcases its impressive complexity.

*****

WINE ENTHUSIAST 96 points
Wonderful sweet fruit, velvet in texture, with concentrated ripe fruits and red berries. This is a wine that rolls sumptuously around the mouth, the tannins certainly dense but full of the same sweetness as the fruit. The final flavor is perfumed and fresh. Deceptively attractive, it will profit from many years' aging. — Roger Voss

THE WINE ADVOCATE 95 points
Drink Date 2026 - 2056
Reviewed by William Kelley, Issue Date 28th Feb 2022, Source Issue 259 End of February 2022, The Wine Advocate
"The 2006 La Mission Haut-Brion is showing very well at age 15, and even though it's still five or six years away from the beginning of its plateau of maturity, it is already quite expressive, wafting from the glass with aromas of blackberries and blackcurrants mingled with notions of smoke, cigar wrapper, black truffle and loamy soil. Full-bodied, fleshy and muscular, with a richly layered core of fruit framed by an abundance of ripe, powdery tannin, in a blind tasting I suspect many would confuse it with a 2005."

VINOUS 95 points
From: 2007, 2006 and 2005 Bordeaux (May 2008)
(a relatively high 14.3% alcohol) Saturated ruby-red. Knockout nose melds black plum, minerals, hot stones, tobacco and caramel. Lush, sweet and stuffed with fruit; a round, utterly seamless wine that offers superb palate coverage and an impressive mounting finish featuring sweet, fine-grained tannins and wonderful fullness of texture. This is remarkably explosive today considering that the 2006s here have recently been fined. Interestingly, enologist Jean-Philippe Masclet noted that the pHs of La Mission and Haut-Brion were higher in 2006 than in either 2007 or 2005-a testament to the advantages of the warm microclimate here and the ability to pick ripe fruit early. Even better than I thought it was a year ago. - By Stephen Tanzer on May 2008

JANCIS ROBINSON 17++ points
Magnum. Relatively light in concentration, but the tannins are still firm and the acid quite high. There's an angular, tight crunch to it. Plenty of flavour too – very tart cassis, leather, cigar smoke and slate. Leave this for many more years. (RH)