In this final quarter of the year 2008, the illustrious family of Bordeaux classified growths is missing one member. There will be no bottles of La Tour Haut-Brion 2008 released next year and traditional buyers of the château's production will have to content themselves with the last vintage of this great estate, 2005 or previous vintages from existing stocks.
The label of Château La Tour Haut-Brion (5 hectares of red in appellation contrôlée Pessac-Léognan) has ceased to exist.
No tsunami or earthquake is responsible for this, merely a strategic choice on the part of the owners.
This historical estate is owned by the company Domaine Clarence Dillon S.A. which is also proprietor of the neighbouring Pessac properties of Châteaux Haut-Brion (red and white wines), La Mission Haut-Brion (red only) and Laville Haut-Brion (white only). These estates represent a total of 80 hectares of planted vines, 77 of which are in production (71 ha of red and 5,5 ha of white).
This impressive collection of celebrated properties forms the largest concentration of classified growths (of both the 1855 classification and the more recent 1959 Graves classification) in the Bordeaux area.
The story of the disappearance of the La Tour Haut-Brion label shows that although châteaux can be born or reborn thanks to successive purchasing or take-overs, they can also die.
Even the most prestigious...This also means that names, even when they become well-known brand-names are not necessarily attached to an eternal landed heritage.
A cellar story : Jean-Philippe Delmas, estate director for Domaine Clarence Dillon S.A., relates the story behind this rather unusual decision :
"At the beginning of the last century, in an era when the wine business was in difficulty, the then owners of Château La Tour Haut-Brion bought the neighbouring property, La Mission Haut-Brion. The production of both properties was vinified at La Mission and, in time, La Tour Haut-Brion became the second wine of La Mission."
In 1983 the family of Clarence Dillon (New York bankers), owner of nearby Château Haut-Brion since 1935, bought both La Mission and La Tour Haut-Brion (forming a total of 30 hectares of vines) from the Woltner family.
" The vintage 1991 saw the birth of a second wine, specific to La Mission Haut-Brion, called La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion. We wanted to bring La Tour Haut-Brion back to life," continues Jean-Philippe Delmas. It is true that for a classified growth to be reduced to second wine status is upsetting to say the least. However, the new owners had another problem. In order to revive La Tour Haut-Brion, they needed to recover and rehabilitate the building which was previously the 'château' of La Tour Haut-Brion, since then transformed into a retirement home for this urbanised western suburb of Bordeaux. After many years of negociation, this operation proved impossible.
The result : No specific cellar available for La Tour Haut-Brion.
This, coupled with the difficulty of finding a suitable space to build one on site, plus the fact that this estate remained very much overshadowed by its two big brothers, resulted in 2005 being the last vintage in the unsettled history of La Tour Haut-Brion. However, the owners have decided to keep the name. Who knows what opportunities the future might bring? Since 2006 the plots of ex-La Tour Haut-Brion (awaiting better days perhaps) have been supplying La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion.
Clarifying the offer : the strategy of Domaine Clarence Dillon S.A., with its policy of clarifying the offer, may well lead to a second disappearance act, in the shape of Château Laville Haut-Brion, another classified growth of Graves (planted with only 2,5 ha of vines) which produces exclusively white wine. This small vineyard could be used to produce La Mission Haut-Brion white wine, a label which actually used to exist. The idea is being discussed at the moment.
Château Haut-Brion's second wine's new name however, decided earlier in the year, has already come into being. From the 2007 vintage onwards Le Bahans du Château Haut-Brion is re-christened "Le Clarence de Haut-Brion", in honor of Clarence Dillon, purchaser of Haut-Brion in 1935. This second wine will benefit from the same shape bottle as its big brother.
In the end, the Dillon heirs may well find themselves managing just two 'Formula 1' properties : Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion in both red and white, together with their second wines. The moral of the story? Perhaps that this is a good example of a sensible commercial policy of brand name management.
César Compadre
doc@sudouest.com
S.O. 11/11/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.
maxine.colas@gmail.com