Château Haut-Brion

Pessac-Léognan 1er cru classé de Graves
All starts in 1525 with the marriage of Jean de Pontac, the bride bringing the vines. Pontac family take more than 2 centuries over "to invent" the wine of Bordeaux such as we know it: racking and personalization of their wine they introduce with the name of haut-brion.
Their action crosses the English Channel; in April 1663, Samuel Pepys writes in his famous newspaper: "I drunk a kind of French wine called Ho-Bryan" which had a good taste I never met. For the first time a wine is called with its name of mark or vineyard, and not with its appellation (Graves, Medoc...). Château Haut-Brion will change several times hands until its acquiring by the American financier Clarence Dillon in 1935. The duchess of Mouchy, his daughter, takes care today on the domain, and too on the next castle La Mission Haut-Brion.