2009 La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Leognan)

Robert Parker:

La Mission Haut-Brion has made so many great wines over the last 100 years, it would be stupid to say the 2009 somehow exceeds this estate-s great classics, such as 1929, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1998, 2000, or 2005. Certainly it will take its place in the pantheon of all the great La Mission Haut-Brions ever made. There are 6,000 cases of it, made from a blend of 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 47% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Franc. The natural alcohol hit 14.7%, which far exceeds the perfect wines of 1982, 1989 and 1990. Opaque purple in color, with an extraordinary nose of blueberry liqueur intermixed with camphor, charcoal, hints of burning embers and truffles, and loads of black berry and black currant fruit, the wine has sublime concentration and purity, a finish that goes well past 60 seconds, and not a hard edge to be found in this sumptuous, almost over-the-top, full-bodied wine of enormous power and massive density and richness. An immortal effort, it should drink