Château Haut-Brion, a First Growth wine producer in Pessac just outside the city of Bordeaux, is the only wine with the Pessac-Leognan appellation. Dividing its property among both red and white grapes, the Château devotes nearly 120 acres to red varietals, with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon surpassing Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot in production, and an additional 7 acres to their signature white varietals, Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc. Grapes were grown in the region as far back as the Roman Empire, with the first known cultivation documentation dated 1423. Haut-Brion has the distinction of being the first recorded First Growth wine imported to the United States. During his trip to Bordeaux in 1787, Thomas Jefferson visited the Château, fell in love, and swiftly purchased six cases of the wine for shipment to his estate in Monticello, Virginia. Finally, Château Haut-Brion is a trailblazer in balancing old traditions with new technologies to create the perfect product. While harvesting is always done by hand, new and innovative plant grafting and cloning have been used to optimize quality. The result? A truly spectacular and intense wine that may be, according to critic Robert Parker, “the world’s most aromatically complex.”