Château Haut-Brion: Earliest References

Incredibly, even in these early days as the estate passed from Pierre de Bellon to the Pontac family there was already a flourishing and seemingly profitable vineyard here. For many years it was believed that the earliest reference to the wine of Château Haut-Brion dated to the 17th century, but in 2014 the results of a scholarly competition launched by the estate’s 21st-century proprietor, Prince Robert of Luxembourg, proved otherwise. Historians and academics pored over relevant archives, no doubt tempted by the thought of the prize (a collection of wines from the estate) and the earliest reference to the wine of the property (perhaps, being pedantic, wine from the seigneurie of the same name) now dates to January 21st 1521.

The document in question was an acte notarié held in the Archives Départementales de la Gironde, which recorded the sale of a perpetual annuity in wine between seigneur Jean de Monque and the bourgeois merchant Guilhem de Mailhois, a sergeant of Bordeaux.

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