What a blockbuster effort! Atpically powerful, one day, the 2009 Haut Brion may be considered to be the 21st century version of the 1959. It is an extraordinarily complex, concentrated effort made from blend of 46% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 14% Cabernet Franc with the highest alcohol ever achieved at tihs estate, 14.3%. Even richer than the perfect 1989, with similar technical numbers although slightly higher extract and alcohol, it offers up a sensational perfume of subtle burning of ambers, unsmoked cigar tobacco, charcoal, black raspberries, wet gravel, plums, figs and blueberries. There is so much going on in the aromatics that one almost hesitates to stop smelling it. However, when it hits the palate, it is hardly a letdown. This uncfuously textured, full-bodied 2009 posesses low acidity along with stunning extract and remarkable clarity of a wine with a pH close to 4.0. The good new is that there are 10,500 for a cases of the 2009, one of the most compelling examples of Haut-Brion ever made. It requires a decade of cellaring and should last a half century or more. Readers who have loved the complexity of Haut-Brion should be prepared for a bigger, richer, more massive wine, but one that does not lose any of its prodigious aromatic altractions.

| Robert Parker