2021 has once again shown magic of La Mission Haut-Brion's terroir: after a cool Spring, its gravelly soils provide the vines with indirect sunshine, by their capacity to reverberate. In August, thanks to a warm, dry turn in the weather and cool temperatures at night, eagerly awaited ripeness gradually reaches all the early-ripening plots of La Mission Haut-Brion. Every year, it is a decision-making process that takes into account the grapes’ ripeness and weather conditions which determines the date for the start of the harvests. In 2021, after a season of changeable weather, these two factors reach a fine balance and enable us to pick the grapes serenely. The berries are healthy with lower quantities of sugar than in previous years, predicting quite a different alcohol/acidity balance to the past solar years, recalling too, from an analytical point of view, Bordeaux’s classic vintages of the 1990s. Ultimately, 2021 is positively and most definitely a surprising year.