A road and a tram line are all that separate La Mission Haut-Brion from Haut-Brion itself. The two estates face each other across the gravel of Pessac, and for most of the twentieth century they were rivals rather than stablemates. La Mission belonged to the Woltner family from 1919 until 1983, and Henri Woltner ran the cellar with a technical obsessiveness that was well ahead of its time.
1958 was wet and difficult across Bordeaux, and few estates escaped it. La Mission is one of the properties whose record in awkward years beats its neighbours', partly because Woltner picked ruthlessly and partly because the deep gravel here drains fast once the rain stops.
What a bottle like this offers is not a famous vintage but a specific one: a real wine, from a named year, made under a named owner, that has spent sixty-eight years lying underground. For a 1958 birth year there is very little else at this level still in circulation, and that scarcity is what the price reflects.
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Producer: Château La Mission Haut-Brion
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Vintage: 1958
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Appellation: Pessac-Léognan AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Bordeaux, France
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Style: Red
Where it is likely to be now. From a modest vintage at nearly seventy years, this is likely to be fragile and is sold as a collectible without a guarantee that it is still drinking.
Who it suits. For a sixty-eighth birthday, particularly for someone who would rather have a bottle from their own year than a better wine from someone else's.
Condition. The label is slightly damaged, which is the usual cost of decades in a cellar; the fill and capsule are not flagged, and we check all three before dispatch.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
