While Bordeaux’s Left Bank was classified in 1855, the Right Bank didn’t establish an equivalent ranking until the 1950s. There are classifications for the Graves, Sauternes and Barsac, as well as the Médoc across the Gironde, but it is only Saint-Emilion that has been classified on the Right. How does Saint-Emilion’s classification work?  The classification was first established in 1955, dividing the appellation’s properties into three levels of quality based on a scoring system. The top wines are classified as Premier Grand Cru Classé A, followed by those that are Premier Grand Cru Classé B and then the Grand Cru Classé.  From the beginning, the idea was to try and create a more democratic system that rewarded estates’ efforts and avoided complacency. While the 1855 Classification was assigned to the château – essentially the brand, rather than the wine or specific vineyards (meaning properties could expand and shrink, yet their status wouldn’t change), the Saint-Emilion classification is judged both on terroir and the château’s performance. The classification is also reassessed every 10-15 years, with the most recent update in 2022. How are properties in Saint-Emilion classified?  As mentioned, the ranking of estates is based on a scoring system, out of 20.  For the Premiers Grands Crus Classés, the score is based on: a tasting of 15 vintages (representing 30% of the score); the property’s national and international reputation, its promotion and distribution (35%); the quality and consistency of the terroir (30%); and the property’s approach to viticulture, vinification and traceability (5%). To sit within this bracket, estates must earn 16 out of 20, with the best earning Premier Grand Cru Classé A status.  For the Grands Crus Classés, the score is based on: a tasting of 10 vintages (representing 50% of the score); the property’s national and international reputation, its promotion and distribution (20%); the quality and consistency of the terroir (20%); and the property’s approach to viticulture, vinification and traceability (10%). In essence, there is more focus on the tasting and the property’s practices, and less on terroir or its reputation and representation in the market. To achieve Grand Cru Classé status, a property must earn 14 out of the possible 20 points.  Because there is a detailed assessment of the soils, properties can have some but not all of their land classified. For example, Ch. Angélus had only 27 of its 39 hectares deemed worthy of Premier Grand Cru Classé A and Ch. Canon only has 24 of its 34 hectares classified as Premier Grand Cru Classé B. Why is Saint-Emilion’s classification controversial?  While the intention to try and create a classification system that was both dynamic and about the land was noble, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. There is much debate about the different factors that contribute to a property’s score, with the proportion tied to distribution and marketing a particular point of contention. With its constant evolution, this gives more room for controversy – with anyone demoted inevitably disgruntled. All in all, the result is a legal battleground, with accusations of undue influence and more.   The initial classification took three years to finalise, and it has since been re-drawn in 1969, 1986, 1996, 2006, 2012 and 2022. After the 2006 classification, five estates filed lawsuits against their demotion, while the 2012 only brought more cases to the courts.   Ahead of the 2022 classification, most of the Premier Grand Cru Classé A estates left the classification (Ch. Ausone, Ch. Angélus and Ch. Cheval Blanc), leaving just Ch. Pavie in the top rank of the classification, joined by Ch. Figeac in 2022. Read more about the classification’s recent controversies here. What about Saint-Emilion Grand Cru? Saint-Emilion Grand Cru is – confusingly – very different to Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé. This isn’t a classification but an appellation – one that has the exact same geographic area as Saint-Emilion AC.  Properties need to apply to be part of the classification but can otherwise make wine under the area’s two appellations – Saint-Emilion AC or Saint-Emilion Grand Cru AC.   “Grand Cru” status is not tied to the quality of the terroir but dictated by yields (a lower maximum of 40hl/ha), a higher minimum potential alcohol and longer minimum ageing requirements (only permitted to be bottled 16 months after harvest), and must be estate-bottled. The idea is that this leads to a higher-quality, richer wine. The current Saint-Emilion classification The latest iteration of the Saint-Emilion classification was announced in 2022, with just two properties sitting at Premier Grand Cru Classé A level and 12 at Premier Grand Cru Classé B, and 63 Grands Crus Classés. Find the full list of estates below. Premier Grand Cru Classé A Ch. Pavie   Ch. Figeac   Premier Grand Cru Classé B   Ch. Beau-Séjour Bécot  Ch. Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse  Ch. Bélair-Monange  Ch. Canon  Ch. Canon-la-Gaffelière  Ch. Larcis Ducasse  Ch. Pavie Macquin  Ch. Troplong Mondot  Ch. TrotteVieille  Ch. Valandraud Clos Fourtet  La Mondotte  Grand Cru Classé Ch. l’Arrosée   Ch. Balestard la Tonnelle  Ch. Barde-Haut  Ch. Bellefont-Belcier  Ch. Bellevue  Ch. Berliquet  Ch. Cadet-Bon  Ch. Cap de Mourlin  Ch. le Chatelet  Ch. Chauvin  Ch. Clos de Sarpe  Ch. la Clotte  Ch. la Commanderie  Ch. Corbin  Ch. Côte de Baleau  Ch. la Couspaude  Ch. Dassault  Ch. Destieux  Ch. la Dominique  Ch. Faugères  Ch. Faurie de Souchard  Ch. de Ferrand  Ch. Fleur Cardinale  Ch. La Fleur Morange Mathilde  Ch. Fombrauge  Ch. Fonplégade  Ch. Fonroque  Ch. Franc Mayne  Ch. Grand Corbin  Ch. Grand Corbin-Despagne  Ch. Grand Mayne  Ch. les Grandes Murailles  Ch. Grand-Pontet  Ch. Guadet  Ch. Haut Sarpe  Clos des Jacobins  Couvent des Jacobins  Ch. Jean Faure  Ch. Laniote  Ch. Larmande  Ch. Laroque  Ch. Laroze Clos la Madeleine   Ch. la Marzelle  Ch. Monbousquet  Ch. Moulin du Cadet  Clos de l’Oratoire  Ch. Pavie Decesse  Ch. Peby Faugères  Ch. Petit Faurie de Soutard  Ch. de Pressac  Ch. le Prieuré  Ch. Quinault l’Enclos  Ch. Ripeau  Ch. Rochebelle  Ch. Saint-Georges-Cote-Pavie  Clos Saint-Martin  Ch. Sansonnet  Ch. la Serre  Ch. Soutard  Ch. Tertre Daugay  Ch. la Tour Figeac  Ch. Villemaurine  Ch. Yon-Figeac   Read more about Bordeaux or browse all Bordeaux listings 

Bordeaux’s Right Bank wasn’t classified in 1855, but Saint-Emilion introduced its equivalent system in 1955, ranking the appellation’s best properties. Here’s everything you need to know about the Saint-Emilion classification, how properties are ranked – and why it’s so controversial

Everything you need to know about the Saint-Emilion classification – the official ranking of this Right Bank appellation’s top wine estates

Your guide to the Saint-Emilion classification

Xiao-Li Meng, Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics at Harvard and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Data Science Review, was inspired by a student to combine wine and statistics—leading to insights far beyond what they ever expected.

From wine tastings to data science, Xiao-Li Meng explores how statistics reveals simplicity in complexity – one glass, experiment, and insight at a time.

Wine, statistics & serendipity: A Harvard journey

Seeking simplicity in statistics, complexity in wine, and everything else in fortune cookies

Ch. Haut-Brion is one of the oldest and best-known names in fine wine. The Bordeaux First Growth estate was created by Jean de Pontac, back in 1533, and its wines were among the first to be exported. Records detail 169 bottles of the wine (then as “Hobriono”) served to guests in 1660 by King Charles II. Just a few years later, on 10th April 1663, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that he had drunk “a sort of French wine called Ho-Bryan [sic] that hath a good and most particular taste I never met with”.   
While Ch. Haut-Brion is the oldest known estate in Bordeaux to bottle and label its wine as a Grand Cru, bearing both name and terroir – the name “Haut-Brion” has an historic attachment to a fair few other winemaking estates in the Graves region. The name Haut-Brion roughly translates as hillock and refers to the raised gravel hills found in the surrounding vineyards. It is these distinct raised, Günzian gravel soils that have provided such ideal conditions for grape growing over the last 500 years or so – providing the vines with much-needed drainage in Bordeaux’s marshy flatlands. Below the deep gravel lies a bedrock of clay which locks in the moisture, releasing it only when required in the drier summer months. This terroir is the secret behind the vineyards’ historic levels of consistency. 
Other famous châteaux that share the Haut-Brion name are all situated in the Graves region, just south of Bordeaux’s city centre. Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, situated immediately across the road from Ch. Haut-Brion, with neighbouring vineyards, is the most famous, while Ch. les Carmes Haut-Brion is situated just to its north and Ch. la Tour Haut-Brion to its south.
Controversially Ch. Larrivet Haut-Brion is not close to the other properties, but further south, near Ch. Smith Haut Lafitte. The property changed its name from La Rivette to Ch. Haut-Brion Larrivet in 1874, and it was only following a lawsuit, filed by Ch. Haut-Brion in 1949, that the château was forced to change its name to Larrivet Haut-Brion. (Neither Les Carmes de Haut-Brion or Larrivet Haut-Brion have a connection to Ch. Haut-Brion and the wider Clarence Dillon portfolio.) 
Today, Ch. Haut-Brion and neighbouring Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion are the two flagship estates of Domaine Clarence Dillon. Clarence Dillon was an American immigrant, who made his fortune as a financial broker on Wall Street in the 1920s. With French ancestors and a passion for French gastronomy (which included him taking an introductory course at the famous Paris cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu), he spent much of his spare time in France. In 1935, he eventually persuaded the current owner, André Gilbert, to sell him Ch. Haut-Brion, his favourite wine estate, and the property has remained in Dillon the family ever since. 
Clarence Dillon’s granddaughter, Joan Dillon, and her second husband Philippe de Noailles, Duke of Mouchy, expanded their holdings in the region, when they purchased Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion and Ch. la Tour Haut-Brion in 1983. It was following this acquisition that some famous neighbouring châteaux were absorbed into the portfolio and some wines discontinued, with the fruit instead used for Haut-Brion or La Mission Haut-Brion. 
The range as it stood in 1983 included the Grand Vins Haut-Brion and Haut-Brion Blanc, La Mission Haut-Brion and their famous white wine, Laville Haut-Brion. In addition to this, Ch. Haut-Brion produced a second red wine called Bahans Haut-Brion and a second white wine called Les Plantiers Haut-Brion. At Ch. La Mission Haut-Brion they produced a second red wine called La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion and also the red wine of Ch. la Tour Haut-Brion. 
In 2008 the fourth generation of the Clarence Dillon family, Prince Robert de Luxembourg took control of the estate, and a flurry of name changes took place, however the fruit sources have remained stable. From the 2008 vintage, Les Plantiers Haut-Brion was renamed La Clarté de Haut-Brion, while Bahans Haut-Brion became Le Clarence de Haut-Brion from the 2007 vintage. Laville Haut-Brion, La Mission’s famed white wine, was returned back to La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc from the 2009 vintage. 
For the Prince, the name changes were mainly a way to simplify the range for collectors. In fact, La Mission’s top white had originally been called La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc when first produced in 1923, however the winery didn’t feel the quality was on a par with the red and so changed the name to Laville Haut-Brion (after the lieu-dit where the white grapes were grown) in the 1930s. Bahans Haut-Brion had also taken its name from its lieu-dit; the name change reflected that it had become a second wine, not a cuvée from a separate vineyard (and paid tribute to Prince Robert’s gread-grandfather). 
Perhaps the biggest casualty in the development of the Haut-Brion properties was the discontinuation of Ch. la Tour Haut-Brion – with the last vintage 2005. Before Clarence Dillon bought the property in 1983, a portion of the grapes of the four-hectare estate went into the Grand Vin of La Mission Haut-Brion, while the rest was bottled as La Tour Haut-Brion.  Clarence Dillon bottled fruit from all four hectares of the property separately for a time, and it gained its own strong following – known for consistently producing memorable, age-worthy wines that defied its relatively low price point. But, in 2005, Domaine Clarence Dillon decided to put all the fruit into the second wine of La Mission Haut-Brion – La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion – and Ch. La Tour Haut-Brion was no more. 
Between the 1950s and 2012, an additional wine – Domaine de la Passion Haut-Brion or Domaine Allary Haut-Brion – was made. The wine has an interesting story, relating to a parcel of vines in the heart of the Haut-Brion vineyard, but owned by the Allary family. The Allary family didn’t make wine, but rented the vines to Haut-Brion, who paid them back by bottling some wine – which otherwise would have been Haut-Brion’s Grand Vin or second wine – under a special label, Domaine de la Passion Haut-Brion.  This was produced from 1954 to 1978. In 1979, EU law forbid the same wine to be bottled under a different label, so between 1979 and 2007, the fruit from these vines went into the second wine of Haut-Brion (then known as Bahans Haut-Brion). From 2008, the Allary family took back control of the vines and produced their own wine. Made by a different winemaking team managed by Stéphane Derenoncourt, the wine was bottled under a new label, Domaine Allary Haut-Brion. This lasted just five vintages until 2012, when Clarence Dillon finally bought the land from the family and the wine was discontinued. 
In 2011, the fourth generation of the Dillon family, Prince Robert de Luxemburg, branched out beyond the Graves region to buy Ch. Tertre Daugay in Saint-Emilion along with the vineyards of neighbouring Ch. l’Arrosée. From the two estates, he created Quintus. Ideally situated next to Ch. Bélair-Monange and Ch. Angélus, the vineyards are situated on a limestone hillock in the south-western end of the Saint-Emilion plateau.  In 2021, Domaine Clarence Dillon bought Ch. Grand Pontet, another 14 hectares of top Saint-Emilion terroir to further expand the Quintus estate. With the viticulture and winemaking at Quintus all under the control of the talented Haut-Brion team, it’s not surprising that Quintus has quickly gained its own following of collectors. Alongside the Grand Vin, a second wine Le Dragon de Quintus (first produced in 2011) and a third wine Saint-Emilion de Quintus (first produced in 2014) are made.

These various lost properties and wines are becoming harder to find, but offer a fascinating way to explore the full DNA of the modern-day Haut-Brion, La Mission Haut-Brion and Quintus. 
Your quick guide to the Haut-Brion wines
 Allary Haut-Brion (Domaine): made between 2008 and 2012 by a separate winemaking team from a parcel of vines in the heart of the Haut-Brion site (which is now owned by Haut-Brion) Bahans Haut-Brion: the second wine of Ch. Haut-Brion, first made in 1976 and renamed Le Clarence de Haut-Brion from the 2007 vintage Haut-Brion: the Grand Vin (red) of Ch. Haut-Brion, which dates back to the 16th century Haut-Brion Blanc: the Grand Vin (white) of Ch. Haut-Brion, first made in 1916  La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion: La Mission Haut-Brion’s second wine, introduced in 1991 La Clarté de Haut-Brion: the name for the second white wine of Ch. Haut-Brion from the 2008 vintage (previously Les Plantiers Haut-Brion Blanc) La Mission Haut-Brion: the Grand Vin (red) of Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion which has been made since the 16th century La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc: the Grand Vin (white) of Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, first made in 1923 under this name, before being renamed Laville Haut-Brion in the 1930s, and reclaiming its name once more from 2009  La Passion Haut-Brion (Domaine de): a bottling of Haut-Brion or Bahans Haut-Brion under a different label (from 1955 to its last vintage in 1978) La Tour Haut-Brion: a separate property owned by Clarence Dillon since 1983 (last vintage 2005); the fruit is now used for La Mission Haut-Brion’s second wine, La Chapelle de la Mission Haut-Brion Laville Haut-Brion: the Grand Vin (white) of Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, renamed la Mission Haut-Brion Blanc in 2009 (as it was originally known when first made, prior to the 1930s) Le Clarence de Haut-Brion: the name for Ch. Haut-Brion’s second (red) wine since the 2007 vintage (previously known as Bahans Haut-Brion) Les Plantiers Haut-Brion Blanc: the second white wine of Ch. Haut-Brion, renamed La Clarté de Haut-Brion from the 2008 vintage Explore all current listings of Ch. Haut-Brion, Ch. La Mission Haut-Brion, Quintus, La Passion Haut-Brion and La Tour Haut-Brion or read more Editorial 

Since the Clarence Dillon family bought Ch. Haut-Brion in 1935 and neighbouring Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion and La Tour Haut-Brion 48 years later, the properties have become some of Bordeaux’s most collectable. We explore the genealogy of these illustrious estates – and their lost wines 

Exploring the genealogy of the Bordeaux First Growth Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion and its siblings La Tour Haut-Brion

The lost wines of Haut-Brion

Daugay

Saint-Emilion

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