Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion is a 12-acre estate in Pessac, in the Pessac-Leognan appellation of Bordeaux. It was founded in 1584, when a 101-year-old aristocrat decided to give part of his estate to a community of friars called Les Carmes. They owned the vineyard until the French Revolution and it is today owned by the La Patromoniale of Group Pichet, a large real estate concern. Vineyards are planted to 50% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The estate makes only about 4,000 bottles annually of its flagship Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion, and Robert M. Parker Jr. has called it “a tiny gem of an estate (that) offers superb wines…They owe their extraordinary finesse as well as explosive aromatics to their relatively high percentage of Cabernet Franc.”