Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE
Apologies if I bang on one more time about familial comparisons with ageing wines. I promise this will be the last one for a while. Children in the same family can be complete opposites in their youth and evolve at different paces in their early adulthood. Then, sometimes, the dark horse pulls ahead of the Most Likely to Succeed. I still recall that stylish line in "The Great Gatsby" about Tom Buchanan, the glamorous schoolboy football star: "One of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax".
I won't dwell too much on my own sons, suffice to say that they certainly show few signs of living in harmony for the moment. Doubtless a modus vivendi will eventually be reached which doesn't involve verbal humiliation and physical violence--anyway, we can but hope.
We received a worrying telephone call from one of them recently: "Bad news Mummy, X has just been expelled--he tried to murder Matron." (Apparently this involved using a scarf as a tourniquet around her neck after his iPod was confiscated.) I am sure by the time X finds his way (admittedly the next school asked him to leave too after he called his maths master "a big fat fool" and made a break for the rail track) he will end up being a rocket scientist.
Wines can follow the same fitful progress. Haut-Brion is one of the "Famous Five" first-growths of Bordeaux (Lafite, Latour, Mouton, Margaux are the others) while La Mission, its neighbour, and family member since 1983, though called a "super second", is not even technically a second growth. Until they came under joint ownership, they fought each other with all of the finesse of teenagers--accusing one other of being savage, and over-manipulated, respectively. Parents will immediately comprehend the drift of this dialogue.
The wines of Graves, or Pessac-Léognan as the appellation is now officially known, have their own convoluted classification system, within which La Mission is one of 13 classified wines. Despite this nomenclature quibble, it is easily the most highly regarded non-first-growth, and if there weren't so much venality and self-interest involved, would be upgraded under any reasonable system.
La Mission is certainly more surly in its youth than Haut-Brion, but when it graduates, at age 25 or beyond, it can be more highly regarded than Haut-Brion itself. (Robert Parker gives only two pre-1982 Haut-Brions a perfect 100 points, but five La Missions, the highest of any wine that Parker rates).
La Mission is a more boldly structured wine than Haut-Brion, which accounts for its amazing longevity. Also, in common with Latour, La Mission can produce outstanding wines in lesser vintages; it made one of the few drinkable 1960 wines.
Graves has what I can only describe as a taste of "tarbacco" (my first published stab at a new word)--a mixture of tar and tobacco tastes, with a bit of cigar box thrown in. It comes from the unique gravelly soil in the appellation, and, once experienced, is hard to forget.
Here I have to confess that Graves and Pomerol have become my favourite Bordeaux in recent years--with Pomerol often showing signs of being slightly burnt or roasted, so at least there is a consistency in my prejudices. Anybody in any doubt as to what on earth I am talking about should try an '03 Domaine de Chevalier, or, if your pockets are a touch deeper, a Pape-Clément '61.
The other good news about La Mission is that, at least until recently, it cost only two-thirds (or less) the price of Haut-Brion en primeur, but could equal or surpass Haut-Brion in the long stretch. For the lucky few who bought it, the '05 La Mission has already more than doubled in price, from £1,850 to £4,000 a case, which is still one-third less than Haut-Brion's £6,400.
The madness begins when you consider that the '04 La Mission, a highly regarded vintage by everyone save Parker (that said, he still gave it 90 points) is shuffling around the marketplace for less than £600 a case, below half the cost of the Haut Brion '04 and one-seventh the cost of the '05. So invest in the greatest vintages by all means, but remember to drink only the others.
The other factor which prompts immediate action is that, for the '06 vintage, Domaine Clarence Dillon, which owns both La Mission and Haut-Brion, released them at an identical price (‚¬330 per bottle in Bordeaux), along with their two prestigious whites, Haut-Brion Blanc and Laville Haut-Brion. This has puzzled and alarmed many in the wine trade. Were they taking advantage of a higher Parker score for La Mission than for Haut-Brion, or did they just throw their hands up in despair? Are they going to play this trick every vintage? And what about the whites? Haut-Brion Blanc is as profound as dry white Bordeaux can ever be; Laville Haut-Brion is a racy competitor, but it rarely if ever surpasses its big brother. Plus, the unsurpassable '98 is only one-third the price of the prenatal '06. Go figure.
On top of this, the proprietors announced last year the end to production of La Tour Haut-Brion, a gem of a wine that in future will be absorbed into Chapelle la Mission, the second wine of La Mission Haut-Brion. So far Domaine Clarence Dillon's website hasn't had the courage to acknowledge this act of fratricide. It even has the cheek to say, "The wines of La Tour are measurably different from those of La Mission." I went to a vertical tasting of La Tour H-B a few months back: the '82 and '78 were as delineated as anything you could find in those vintages. Enough of this sniping, but the wine world is in deep mourning for this cruel end to a significant minor chateau.
As part of its annual wine jamboree, Decanter magazine recently arranged a master class with La Mission. It was in that strange London hotel which rather rashly calls itself The Landmark. There are however two genuine landmarks quite close by: Dorset Square is where the Marylebone Cricket Club was born, and just behind the hotel is Marylebone Railway Station, surely the most Metrolandish station of all.
This was the largest such gathering I have ever been to: row upon row of eager tasters in what I suspect was once the ballroom. The wines started with La Chapelle de Mission '05, and ended with the '93 La Mission, annoyingly with no sign of the 2000, perhaps because the 2000 currently costs around £600 a bottle.
I confess that I turned up late, after fruitlessly adjudicating between our sons' different interpretations of each other's behaviour. OK, there weren't any great wines such as La Mission '89, or '82, but even an amateur like me recognised the company of greatness. There was something far more profound and assured with every one of these glasses than you would find with other non-first-growth wines. It is not only the intensity, but the purity, and consistency of quality, despite the different tones bestowed by the vintages themselves.
How much of my feeble attempts to describe the vintages can you put up with? I should start by immediately declaring that the Chapelle La Mission '05 was the star performer, despite being a second wine, and at least a childhood away from maturity. It had that glorious soaring tarbacco taste, with far more ripeness than the straight '04--spectacular for a second wine, and only £25 a bottle. Then again, it is all in the bones, as '05 remains the landmark vintage of our generation, and will be appreciated far after this particular hotel has had yet another brand rethink.
I will race through the rest to avoid boring you too much, but for more measured opinions you would do well to read Messrs Parker, Martin and Broadbent and Ms Robinson.
'04: closed, tight, years away from maturity
'03: more explosive (a very hot vintage) tannic, but with more at the beginning than the end
'01: elusive, low-key, but fabulous silkiness with a complete aftertaste. This is a serious alternative to the fabled 2000 and only one-eighth the price
'99: prickly on the mid-plate, but complete--though not amazing
'98: elegant, radiant, chocolatey with immense power--a great wine in the making, but still too much tannin for current pleasure.
'94: Old socks, slightly decayed taste, doubt if it has long to go, not inspiring
'93: tricky vintage--abrupt, no follow through, so avoid
I haven't tasted the '90, '89 or '82--all outstanding wines according to those I respect. I had the '75 nearly a decade ago but it was far from ready. Simon Hopkinson kindly shared his last bottle of the '66 with us, which was fully mature a good ten years ago, so now will have peaked.
It will be interesting to see what Domaine Clarence Dillon tries as a pricing policy for the '07 vintage: we will have to wait at least until Easter for that. But just remember that, even if they halve the price, it will still not be worth buying, so long as the '04, '01 and even the '98 remain such relative bargains in the weird world of wine pricing.
