CHATEAU HAUT BRION, 1996

Located in Pessac, a few kilometres away from Bordeaux. Château Haut-Brion is the oldest wine estate of the region. Founded in 1533 by the Pontac family who kept innovating and improving viticultural techniques, especially by developing the wine ageing potential. Wines were sought-after by monarchs and many writers extolled the virtues of them, such as Samuel Pepys who wrote: “And there, drank a sort of French wine, called Ho-Bryan, that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with …”. The first branded wine was born.

It was in Château Haut-Brion, in the middle of the 17th century, that a new style of wine was made, “the new French Claret”, behind the actual great long-keeping wines, which marked a real winegrowing turn. It was at this moment that they started to bottle at the château.

While he was visiting, Thomas Jefferson, the next third president of the United States would have written to his brother in law: “I cannot deny myself the pleasure of asking you to invest in a parcel of wine I have been choosing for myself. I do it the rather as it will furnish you a specimen of what is the very best Bordeaux wine. It is of the vineyard of Obrion.”