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Château Haut-Brion Pessac Léognan 2000
Wine Advocate
It will always be tempting to compare the 2000 Haut-Brion with the perfect 2000 La Mission Haut-Brion. However, it is not as fat, unctuous, flamboyant, or voluminous as La Mission. Yet, like a great diplomat, it is a wine of intensity, authority, and measured restraint. A supremely elegant offering, its dense ruby/purple color, and burgeoning perfume of scorched earth, liquid minerals, plums, black currants, cherries, lead pencil, and subtle spicy oak are followed by a delicate yet powerfully flavorful, multi-layered, highly nuanced, and extraordinarily pure and seamless wine. There have been so many recent classics from Haut-Brion, it is premature to suggest the 2000 is better than the 1998, 1995, 1990, or 1989, but it is certainly a prodigious wine of dazzling persistence, length, and complexity. A blend of 51% Merlot, 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 7% Cabernet Franc, it should prove to be uncommonly long-lived, even by the standards of Haut-Brion. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2040.
Score: 98.
—Robert Parker,
April
2003.
Wine Enthusiast
For an Haut-Brion, this is huge. Every characteristic suggests power, from the dark color, through the knock-out perfumes, full of dark, brooding fruits. The flavors are black, intense and ripe. It is a delicious wine, surprisingly ready to drink. And yes, just at the end, there is a small hint of the delicacy and elegance that is true Haut-Brion.
Score: 96.
—Roger Voss,
June
01,
2003.
Wine Spectator
Beautiful tobacco, berry, cedar and plum aromas in this one. Full-bodied, yet very fine and reserved, with silky tannins and a medium finish. I still prefer the 1998, but this is very, very fine indeed. An Haut-Brion with lots of finesse. Best after 2010
Score: 94.
—James Suckling,
March
31,
2003.
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