Château Haut-Brion Graves 1855 1er Cru 1963

The intensity of the first nose is surprising, and not entirely welcome – waves of smoked earth, soy, iron filings and iodine. This was a challenging vintage, with mildew and rainfall that lasted off and on throughout the growing season, and many estates didn’t bother to bottle all of their crop under their label (I have seen several Haut-Brion bottles with different labels, making it a particularly tough vintage in terms of bottle variation). We were lucky in that this one did open up to show a more generous side, with campfire smoke and traces of cassis fruit, but it is not one to cellar further. Made by one of the great winemakers of the 20th century, Jean-Bernard Delmas, who had just taken over from his father two years earlier, in 1961, and had already at this point begun to install stainless steel vats in the cellars.