1990 Château La Tour Haut-Brion, Pessac-Léognan Cru Classé de Graves

One bottle available. From an estate that no longer exists.

Château La Tour Haut-Brion made its last vintage in 2005. From 2006 the fruit went into La Mission Haut-Brion and its second wine, and the name came off the market for good. It was the smallest vineyard in the 1953 Graves classification, about five hectares producing two thousand cases, and there will never be another bottle of it.

Where this bottle came from

We know the person who owned this before us. At this age that is not a small thing, and it is the reason we were willing to buy it at all. Checked by hand, then straight into temperature-controlled storage.

In the glass

Jeff Leve, tasting it in 2020 and scoring it 92, called it concentrated, powerful and beefy, leaning slightly rustic in its tannins, with a nose of cigar box, tobacco, smoked meat, cedar and spice over a jumble of red fruits. His summary was the useful part: this is not a delicate wine, it is old-school. If you like Pessac-Léognan for its savoury, smoky, tobacco-and-gravel register rather than for fruit, this is squarely that.

The details

• Producer: Château La Tour Haut-Brion (Domaine Clarence Dillon)
• Appellation: Pessac-Léognan, Graves, Bordeaux, France
• Classification: Cru Classé de Graves, classified for red wine in 1953
• Vintage: 1990
• Plantings: 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Cabernet Franc, 23% Merlot. The Cabernet Franc share is unusually high for the Left Bank and is part of why the wine tastes the way it does.
• Score: 92 points, Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
• Format: 750ml
• Drinking window: at or just past peak. Drink over the next few years.

Serving and pairing

Decant about an hour ahead, off the sediment, and serve at 62°F. Roast lamb, duck, mushrooms, or anything with a bit of char on it.

The 1990 vintage

One of the great post-war Bordeaux years and the strongest vintage of that decade. The second-hottest year of the century after 1947, with the hottest August then on record, an earliest-of-the-decade harvest starting 12 September, and a perfectly timed rain on 15 September that saved the ripening. Quality was high across every appellation.

The estate's story

Vines here go back to the sixteenth century. The Woltner family took the property over in the 1920s and sold it in 1983 to the Dillon family, owners of Haut-Brion. Before 1983 many people treated it as La Mission's second wine, but it held its own 1959 cru classé rank, which no second wine could. The 1990 falls inside the independent Dillon-owned window, 1983 to 2005, when it was made as a standalone wine with its own identity.

Common questions

Why can I not buy a newer vintage?
There isn't one. 2005 was the last. Domaine Clarence Dillon folded the vineyard into La Mission Haut-Brion from 2006, which is why prices on the remaining stock have held.

One bottle left, shipped from Florida in protective packaging. Browse more rare and limited vintages.