Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: A colossal wine, characteristic of the Dillon family style, from a vintage that favors wines of this type. The tannins are more dense than Mission, slightly more austere on the finish, but without even a hint of aggressiveness. The sensation of concentration in the wine is impossible to translate into words. A grandiose wine, but it may need a half-century to become less intimidating! 19/19.5

John Gilman: The 2010 Haut-Brion is one of the lowest- alcohol wines in the entire Dillon stable in this vintage, at a mere 14.3%. The Merlot arrived here from September 8; the Cabernet Sauvignon, from the first week of October. Despite being lower in alcohol than the 2010 La Mission, it seemed even riper, with a distinct (and troubling) note of surmaturité on the finish. The bouquet is deep, complex, very ripe, and very vivid (from the wine’s revved-up acidity?) as it soars from the glass in a blaze of cassis, dark berries, Cuban cigars, coffee bean, lovely soil tones, and plenty of new oak. On the palate, the wine is deep, full-bodied, broad-shouldered and rock-solid at the core, with hard, tough tannins, coarse acids, and a very long, chewy, discordant finish. Perhaps this was just an awkward time for the wine, but no one at the château seemed concerned with how this wine was showing—in fact, quite the contrary—so maybe this oddly balanced showing is really how the wine is. After the very forcefully styled 2009 Haut-Brion, this powermonger 2010 is hardly reassuring for those of us who prize past vintages of Haut-Brion for its unabashed elegance and hauntingly profound expression of terroir. One has to hope that this wine will eventually pull itself together in the cellar, but it seems to be a profound departure from the past, and one has to ask why. One would certainly expect that an estate of the stature and historical legacy of Haut-Brion would be above point-chasing, but how does one reconcile the much more elegant renditions of the 2010 vintage at estates such as Domaine de Chevalier and Pape Clément with these super-sized Dillon wines, if not by assuming that the team here is consciously aiming to produce much more powerful wines? I have to assume that this wine will eventually place itself at the higher end of my score, but it was nonetheless rather a sad showing for this fan of traditional Haut-Brion. 2025–75? 13.5/17.5?

Michael Schuster: Sweet, fine, fragrant, ripe blackberry nose; rich, elegant, refined balance, fairly concentrated, with a vital defining acidity, and very firm, if also very fine, dry tannin; rich and remarkably fleshy given the proportion of Cabernets in the blend; powerful, ripe, elegant and ample; very sweet and flattering in flavor, mouth-coating, long, spicy, and warm, with the characteristically super-fine tannic texture; a bit difficult to tell just how complex this is, simply because of the overall weight, warmth, and indeed the high level of acidity. That said, there is a clear underlying minerality, though it is not the pronounced, fine, gravelly character it usually is. All this followed by a fine, sweet, warm length. While not exactly spirity, the style conjures up the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic Seaboard! Firm if fine tannins suggest a 15-year wait at least. As with the La Mission, atypical, and hard to see quite how this will turn out. 2025–50+. 18/18.5+