A High Time with Haut-Brion

When the email from my old friend Alan dropped into my inbox I read it, and then re-read it, with a gradually increasing level of interest.

“We’re celebrating the one-hundredth tasting at Chester Claret Club with a couple of mini-verticals of Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion, and I wondered if you would like to come along?”

Chester Claret Club was where I cut my teeth on the first growths of Bordeaux, getting to grips with the very upper echelons of the 1855 classification. These bottles came along occasionally, in amongst a multitude of tastings of various left- and right-bank châteaux. Indeed, a number of my earliest profiles such as those for Château Rauzan-Ségla, Château Léoville-Barton and Château Pavie were based around tastings I attended in Chester. And there was more than the occasional old bottle of Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie and even Champagne, although remaining true to its name, Bordeaux dominated.

It would be good to see some old faces in Chester again, I thought to myself, even if just for an hour or two. And I also recognised that broadening my experience with some older vintages from these two châteaux would be no bad thing. Checking my diary I saw I was free of commitments on the day in question, and a quick peek at a train timetable suggested the journey shouldn’t be too traumatic (railway enthusiasts should refer to my report on the Château Bahans Haut-Brion 2002 for more detail on that). It seemed as though there was good reason for me to attend.

Do I really need to rationalise my decision in this manner though? This is a tasting of old vintages from Haut-Brion! And La Mission Haut-Brion too! I booked the tickets, and set about finding a hotel room.

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