Monsieur Touton Selection, Ltd.
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Chateau Haut-Brion2005

RED WINE

PUBLIC
April 2025
Prices and availability subject to confirmation
Chateau Haut-Brion label
  • Producer Chateau Haut-Brion
  • Country France
  • Region Bordeaux
  • Appellation Pessac-Leognan
  • UPC 0 15643 60033 3

Reviews

James Suckling 100

This is a wine that makes you dream. The nose is packed with flowers, sweet tobacco, iodine, spices, raspberries, blackberries, and great freshness. The texture is perfection, pure silk and the fruit is wonderfully complex and subtle. Currants, fresh mushrooms, flowers, and stones fill the mouth and make way to a delightful finish. Please leave this alone until 2020.

by JS, James Suckling , 2011

Wine Advocate 100

The mineral-laced 2005 Haut Brion (56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc) is exquisite. With its elegance and finesse, it is not as powerful as La Mission, but the nobility and complexity of the aromatics, incredible fragrance (subtle smoke and blue, red, and black fruits) that persists in the glass, full-bodied mouthfeel (though very light and delicate on its feet), and incredible length characterize this great Haut-Brion. It is just starting to drink well, and should continue to do so for at least another three decades. It is a tour de force in winemaking, but only 9,000 cases were produced.

by RPJ, Wine Advocate , 2015

Wine Spectator 100

This is incredible on the nose, showing coffee cake, blackberry, floral, coffee bean and vanilla bean, with Chinese spices. A very complex, full-bodied red, with seamless, hyperpolished tannins that caress every millimeter of the palate. Lasts for minutes. So beautifully balanced, I'm left speechless. Is it even better than the 1989? Best after 2017.

by JS, Wine Spectator , 2008

Vinous Media 99+

The 2005 Haut-Brion is a deep, meaty wine. Black cherry, game, smoke, tobacco, licorice, gravel and scorched earth saturate every corner of the palate. The 2005 is inky, creamy and voluptuous right out of the gate. It is also very young and in need of time in bottle. Most wines I tasted for this report started to lose a little steam after 24 hours, but the Haut-Brion kept getting better and better. It's a magical wine, if a bit less accessible than most other 2005s at this stage.

by AG, Vinous Media , 2021

Wine Enthusiast 96

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.

by RV, Wine Enthusiast , 2003

Technical Details

A very exceptional year

The color is so dense that the wine seems almost black. The nose has an intensity of aromas that are mind-blowing. It can never disavow its origins as we find all the complexity that is so well known for characterizing Haut-Brion: its notes of smoke, of cigar and roasted coffee grains. The whiff of fresh fruit is also present: currants and cherries. From the first approach this wine startles one with its density. It is long in the mouth plus creamy, big, powerful and fresh. It takes a hold of you and penetrates your senses. Power and harmony are the distinctive traits of this vintage. The aromatic persistence is incredibly long. This perfectly balanced wine will without a doubt become one of the biggest successes of our Domaine.

Current vintage notes

2005 will remain in our memories as a historically dry year. This characteristic showed up already in winter when an important deficit of humidity was noted. In spite of a wet month in April, rain remained scarce right up to the vendanges. All year long the temperatures stayed on the high side. 2005 had climatic conditions very similar to the legendary vintage of 1949. Because of these elements the vines were able to produce small grapes of an extraordinary concentration, actually never before achieved, that would be harvested in a perfect condition. The vendanges started on August 24th for the whites and on August 31st for the reds, placing the vintage alongside other years with unduly early harvests.

Weather conditions

Sum of temperatures : 3492 Celsius
Rain : 229 mm
Days where temperature above 30 Celsius : 32
Harvest : from 24/08/2005 to 26/09/2005