While the 2010 Château La Mission Haut-Brion started out slightly closed, it just about explodes with air and has an incredible perfume of sweet cigar, tobacco, scorched earth, graphite, and minty herbs with that classic, smoky dark core of currant-like fruits. Beautifully textured, seamless, and full-bodied, it brings remarkable intensity, a concentrated, layered mid-palate, and one hell of a gorgeous finish. I’d probably have rated this one point higher had I not tasted it beside the 2010 Château Haut-Brion. This absolutely sensational La Mission will evolve for another 40-50 years. Drink 2025-2075.

The 2010 La Mission Haut-Brion is a terrific wine. Evoking aromas of prune, blackberries, flowers, pencil shavings, cedar, cassis and licorice, it’s layered and concentrated with a deep, elegant mid-palate and powdery tannins. Concluding with a long, penetrating finish, this sumptuous wine can age for another 15-30 years, thanks to its mineral structure and incredible freshness.

Quality 990 | Brand 989 | Economics 940 | buzz brand, investment staple
Quality: The 2010 vintage has the #10 Quality score on Wine Lister, at 990/1000 Brand: Strong restaurant presence, featuring on 33 of the world's top wine lists, including The River Café at Brooklyn Economics: Above its peer group average price of £89 for the 2010 vintage Production: Lower production than its peer group average of 92,455 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

Deep, saturated ruby-red. Sweet, brooding aromas of cassis, coffee, minerals and licorice. Superconcentrated, voluptuous and seamless, with outstanding density of fruit and noteworthy precision to the compellingly sweet dark berry and mineral flavors. The broad, ripely tannic finish features extraordinary length and lingering violet and flint flavors. The best young La Mission I remember tasting at a similar stage of development. This is one of my three or four top wines of the vintage.

Deep, saturated ruby-red. Sweet, brooding aromas of cassis, coffee, minerals and licorice. Superconcentrated, voluptuous and seamless, with outstanding density of fruit and noteworthy precision to the compellingly sweet dark berry and mineral flavors. The broad, ripely tannic finish features extraordinary length and lingering violet and flint flavors. The best young La Mission I remember tasting at a similar stage of development. This is one of my three or four top wines of the vintage.

Vibrates with life, still barely unfurling at 14 years old, with evident muscular construction to the tannic frame. A little subdued on the first nose, quickly opening to show notes of black pepper, cinnamon and black truffle alongside liquorice, baked raspberries and blueberry fruits, concentrated, vivid and sculpted, architectural as all the best 2010s are. Drawn out finish, riven with spiced cocoa beans and pulses of fresh acidity, and the drumbeat of interest is going to keep playing for decades. 75% new oak for ageing, harvest September 8 to October 8.

Luxurious, rich and ripe in the mouth, there are fragrant violet notes on the nose, a smoothness to the tannins and supple oak which indicate many years of drinking pleasure ahead. A very dry year, 2010 was the driest since 1949 between April and late-September. Vines were dehydrated and concentrated, but very cool nights encouraged freshness and accumulation of anthcyanins in the grapes. Despite the lack of rainfall, and the initial monolithic character of many 2010's, La Mission has matured beautifully.

More subdued on the nose but with striking cinnamon and black pepper notes alongside the blackberry and spiced dark chocolate, this is concentrated and velvety and extremely high quality. Again it is the texture, the construction, that grabs you. There is a similar feel to Haut-Brion, in its weight and power, just a little less elongated stretching out of the tannins through the final furlong. But believe me, you'll enjoy this too. Drinking Window: 2025 - 2050
Tasted by: Jane Anson (at BI London, 30 Jan 2020)
Part of Bordeaux 2010: The top rated wines tasted 10 years on

Intense and engaging. Despite showing lots of heft and tarry grip, the singed apple wood and alder notes are well-defined in this red, accentuating a core of roasted fig, blackberry coulis and macerated red and black currant fruit. The long, bramble-edged finish sports showy ganache and Lapsang souchong tea notes, while the structure refuses to yield until everything has finally played out. Muscular and vivacious. Best from 2019 through 2040. 5,100 cases made.

– James Molesworth (WineSpectator.com, March 2013)

Tasted blind at the Southwold Bordeaux 2010 tasting. The Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion 2010 is beginning to really show its class. Strangely, here it is more introspective and broody on the nose: intense blackberry and boysenberry aromas, fine mineralite, quite feminine and symmetrical. After 10 minutes it develops more intensity and volume. The palate is medium-bodied with firm and taut tannins. This is very linear and focused, very intense and backwards, with a compelling sense of symmetry and precision on the mineral-laden finish. Aristocratic. Tasted January 2014.

– eRobertParker.com, Mar 2014

(62% cabernet sauvignon, 37% merlot and 1% cabernet franc; 15.1% alcohol) Deep ruby-purple. D eep, refined aromas of blackcurrant, cedar, minerals and wet stone on the reticent, cabernet sauvignon-dominated nose. Then very dense and powerful on the palate, with pristine blackberry, mineral and forest floor flavors and a supple touch that Haut-Brion doesn't yet show. The tannins are amazingly fine and polished, indeed among the noblest of the year, but this otherwise great wine lacks the sheer massive concentration of Haut-Brion. At 10,000 vines per hectare, La Mission almost always has 0.2% or 0.3% more alcohol than Haut-Brion, according to Jean-Philippe Delmas. But the exact measure of La Mission's success in 2010 is that its 15.1% alcohol is not at all obvious.

(62% cabernet sauvignon, 37% merlot and 1% cabernet franc; 15.1% alcohol) Deep ruby-purple. D eep, refined aromas of blackcurrant, cedar, minerals and wet stone on the reticent, cabernet sauvignon-dominated nose. Then very dense and powerful on the palate, with pristine blackberry, mineral and forest floor flavors and a supple touch that Haut-Brion doesn't yet show. The tannins are amazingly fine and polished, indeed among the noblest of the year, but this otherwise great wine lacks the sheer massive concentration of Haut-Brion. At 10,000 vines per hectare, La Mission almost always has 0.2% or 0.3% more alcohol than Haut-Brion, according to Jean-Philippe Delmas. But the exact measure of La Mission's success in 2010 is that its 15.1% alcohol is not at all obvious. Ian D'Agata

Cru Classé Pessac Léognan (47% harvest,42hl/ha, 15.1%) [62CS 37M 1CF] Full bodied, vivid, fairly potent wine with a fine, firm, long term tannin; very ripe and powerful flavour, long across the palate, but whilst the wine doesn’t lack freshness, it does lack the characteristic Graves, ‘gravelly’ aromatic character; the fresh-to-vital acidity prevents it from being heavy, but you cannot escape the warmth and weight of 15% alcohol. Long and sweet cored aftertaste, dominated by fruit rather than aroma. This may change with bottle age, when the terroir often comes to the fore in hotter vintages, and you can indeed taste the minerality in the Chapelle de La Mission, but I wouldn’t bet on it! Very atypical. 2022-40+ [M.Schuster, Bordeaux Mar/Apr 2011]

Very dark crimson. Intense and voluptuous on the nose. Really out there! Like an essence of La Mission. Full and rich and lively with massive mineral influence. Sui generis . Pretty demanding and a bit warm on the end. Like licking glacé bricks (because it has more sweetness than usual). You may need knowledge of La Mission in the past to appreciate this but it is truly an amazing wine. The gravelly bit stops it being too sweet and rich. Lots of tannin still there. But such energy! (JR)

73% Sémillon, 27% Sauvignon Blanc. Fermented and aged in 50% new oak barrels for 8 – 10 months. Waxy, creamy nose. Lovely jasmine complexity plus candied citrus, lemon juice, straw and a hint of cream. The finish has palpable warmth, which tips the balance a little too much towards the alcohol on the length. (RH)

This is crazy. The nose is so unique with the iodine, stones and currant aromas with wet earth and mushroom. Aromas like this don't usually come out until 10 years or so in the bottle. Classic nose for this estate. Full-bodied, with an amazing palate of firm yet polished tannins and a solid palate. So dense and gorgeous. It is really stunning. Try in 2020.

– jamessuckling.com, November 2013

Deep garnet colored, the 2010 La Mission Haut-Brion has a commanding, profound nose of baked blackberries, boysenberries and warm cassis plus suggestions of candied violets, red roses, chocolate box, cedar chest and smoked meats with a waft of iron ore. Full-bodied, powerful and hedonic, the palate bursts with expressive black fruits and floral sparks, framed by exquisitely ripe, grainy tannins and beautiful freshness, finishing with epic length. A real head-turner, this beauty is already very impressive, but for that full WOW experience I would give it another 3-5 years in bottle to blossom. LPB