Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: The slightly higher proportion of Sauvignon Blanc gives the nose different aromatic nuances: more yellow fruit (apricot) than white. The wine is magnificent and once again in a class of its own, with noble intensity, texture, and length on the palate. 19/20

John Gilman: Haut-Brion Blanc is a very ripe example of the vintage and is quite a powerful wine. The bouquet is absolutely superb, despite its high-octane level, as it soars from the glass in a complex melange of green apples, figs, lime peel, a fair bit of petrol, gentle notes of cut grass, wonderful, chalky soil tones, smoke, and vanillin oak. On the palate, the wine is deep, full-bodied, and very complex, with an intense and absolutely seamless attack, excellent mid-palate depth, but a rather disjointed finish that displays both aggressive acidity and a fair bit of alcoholic burn. It is really hard to see how these disparate elements are going to come together in perfect harmony, since there is an awful lot of alcohol here, and the acids really seem to have a mind of their own at the present time. I love the aromatic and flavor complexity in the wine, but it is currently disjointed enough on the finish to make one seriously wonder how this will pull itself completely together. In any case, given the high alcohol and the very ripe flavors, I cannot imagine that a strategy of drinking this wine on the younger side will not be the most fruitful course. 2013–25+? 15.5/17.5

Michael Schuster: Fresh, ripe, vivid, beautifully projected Sauvignon aromas touched by oak cedar; rich, generous, powerful, and concentrated wine, all defined by an excitingly vigorous acidity; a first-rate, long-term constitution; dry but very ripe; intense, vivid, lemon-edged flavor; dense, close-grained, aromatic, very long and exhilarating to taste. Hugely complex, with wonderfully projected flavors and great fruit and aroma length. The minerality of the terroir remains very clear to taste, if shaded for now by the lavish fruit presence. A magnificent blend of fruit, flesh, grace, power, and scope. About as impressive as it gets: a very great Haut-Brion Blanc. 2020–40+. 19.5/20