Tasting Notes by John Salvi MW and Charles Metcalfe MW

2006 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Barrel-sample brought from the château – Dense red-purple colour. The fruit on the nose is bright and berry-laden, with great finesse. The palate is stylish as ever, with lovely red-fruited length and dense, ripe tannins. It seems like a Lafite for the long haul.   95
Charles Metcalfe

2003 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour: Fine, bright, young, vivid and purple edged.

Nose:  Hugely perfumed and exotic.  No question that this comes from a hot year.  The oak is perfectly integrated and the wine has good freshness, which was difficult to achieve with such heat.  Quite spicy and with perfumed red/black fruits.

Palate:  Intense, concentrated and rich.  Particularly so for Lafite who is classically the epitome of restraint and refinement.  There is lovely purity of very ripe fruit, which has remained vibrant.  None the les it will mature quite quickly because of the great ripeness.  An opulent wine and a delicious one but in no way a classical Bordeaux, Pauillac or Lafite.   ( JS )

Lovely mid-red-purple colour. The nose is brightly ripe, almost jammy, and still showing a lot of oak aroma. The palate has bright, jammy fruit, with good acidity and dense, ripe tannins. It’s very good, bright and stylish – a lovely wine in a difficult vintage, with the trademark Lafite elegance and fruit
sweetness.  95 . ( CM )

2000 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Fine, bright, young and youthful.  Almost purple edge.

Nose:  This is huge and assails one at once.  Generous, open and ripe, but perfectly contained and restrained.  Wonderful freshness in the acidity, but none the less great intensity of deep, ripe fruit.

Palate:  Great Wine!  Sturdy and strongly structured.  Deliciously spicy.  It can be almost stern at moments, but its generous nature takes over.  It is a little like an Adonis.  Superbly elegantly constructed and the flesh on the bones is elegance personified. It is still very young indeed and a lot of its great qualities need refining, but it has a truly splendid future.  Start to look at it again in 5 years time! ( JS )

 Splendidly rich purple-red colour, just shading lighter at the edge. The nose is dark and intense, with roasted notes and big fruit volume, restrained at present. The palate is dark and roasted-ripe, with firm tannins and lovely texture. It opens to show a young, gorgeous Lafite, just coming into the spring of its development, sweet-fruited, elegant and sexy. 97 ( CM )

1999 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Dense mid-red, with no sign of paling at the rim. The nose is ripe and complex, with ripe berry fruits, sweetness and elegance. The palate is bright yet dense, and amazingly accessible. Ripe velvety tannins caress the tongue, but reassure with their density. It’s already lovely, but really needs another few years to show the developed Lafite character.     96     (CM ) 

1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  relatively light and beginning to brown.  Attractive but rather mature colour.

Nose:  Surprisingly mature.  It was not a typical vintage in Bordeaux, the wines being riper and richer than usual.  This shows clearly.  1989 was also unusually ripe, but turned out to be more concentrated and is developing more slowly along more classical lines. It is excellent but perhaps not great.

Palate.  Maturing fast.  It will not make the old bones that the 1989 will and I am not sure that it is not at its best now.  Begin to drink it and enjoy over the next few years.  Fruit, deep fruit, is its greatest asset.  The tannins are still very firm but do not get in the way.  Big wine, which avoids the faults of most 190s by excellent wine making.  Rich and full.     ( JS)

Clear mid-red colour, lightening to the edge. This is the first of the Lafites in this line-up to show more bottle-aged complexity. The nose has some of the aspects of great, traditional Pauillacs, blackcurrant fruit shading to black olive, a whiff of something animal. On the palate, the blackcurrant fruit reasserts itself, with deep, dark tannins, and dark chocolate and black olive complexity. Maturing, but still very dense and solid.            94    ( CM )

1985 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Mature colour.  Deep and intense, with a young, only just browning edge.

Nose:  Generous and gentle Cabernet.  Deeply fruited, open and fragrant.  This is lovely fresh and perfumed fruit, not too ripe but complex and fine due to excellent hang time before picking.

Palate:  Maturing perfectly.  Opening up.  Balanced, deeply fruited and spicy.  This is a rich and full bodied Lafite with firm tannins and a fine balance of strength, suppleness and elegance.  A complex wine with layer after layer of flavours and pleasures.     ( JS )

1983 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Fine, mature colour, gently becoming tinged with brow.  Most attractive.

Nose:  Mature claret.  Lovely right now!  Mature nose of fine, ripe, perfectly healthy fruit, fragrant, lightly spicy and delicate yet strong.  Lovely balancing, fresh acidity.

Palate:  The wine follows the palate.  Perfect grapes turned into perfect wine, pure and delicious.  Complex yet easily accessible.  Great balance between fruit, acidity and alcohol.  Silky tannins, totally integrated.  Again very much a Lafite but given an added touch of richness by the high percentage
of Merlot. ( JS )

Château Lafite-Rothschild – Mid-red colour, lightening to brick at the edge. (This is the first wine where I wonder if my late arrival at the main tasting has left the wine more developed than it might have been when first poured.) The nose has sweet, ripe fruit, and seems to be slightly drying out. This is confirmed by the palate, which has good, ripe, sweet fruit and firm tannins, but is definitely drying out and fading. 87  ( CM )

Mid-red colour, lightening to brick at the edge. (This is the first wine where I wonder if my late arrival at the main tasting has left the wine more developed than it might have been when first poured.) The nose has sweet, ripe fruit, and seems to be slightly drying out. This is confirmed by the palate, which has good, ripe, sweet fruit and firm tannins, but is definitely drying out and fading. 87   ( CM )

1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Fine and bright and still youthful for its age.

Nose:  Above all this wine shows elegance rather than power.  It is intensely Lafite.  There is a delicious purity of fruit and clean lines.  The spice, like everything else in this wine, is gentle and controlled.  Lovely!

Palate:  To me the is a perfect expression of Lafite.  Elegance, controlled strength, balance, purity and length.  It is also classical Bordeaux and a perfect example of the best of the 1982 vintage.  Harmony.  No more needs to be said.  Great Wine and no hurry at all to drink it!    ( JS )

Clear garnet-red colour. The nose is rich and sweet, with confit fruits predominating, and a definite dried fig character. The palate is gloriously limpid, with soft tannins flowing over the tongue. Behind this silky texture is the sweet, figgy fruit, perfectly balanced by bright acidity. The overall impression is of sweet fruit, but there’s understated structure supporting the whole. 97 (CM ) 

1976 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Delicate, mature, well aged, browning and delightful colour.

Nose:  Personally, I adore 1976.  This is not universal.  It is all elegance, purity and finesse on the nose.  Fragrant and exhilarating.  Fresh.

Palate:  Not too much, not too little but just right.  Palate follows the nose with gracious elegance in a finely balanced and delicious Lafite.  There is not so much flesh but it is beautifully proportioned.  There is still excellent freshness. The tannins are perfectly present but invisible.   It does not show its age and will remain a truly beautiful glass of wine for a long time. ( JS )

 Reddish-brown colour, with a rich, dense centre. The nose is complex and savoury, with dried fig concentration. The palate still shows the firm tannins of the vintage, and the fruit flavours have changed from fresh berries to dried figs and raisin. This still has a firm, masculine character, with the structure still in place, and the fruit beginning to fade.     92    ( CM )

1971 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  This is old wine on the colour.  Only decanted a few minutes before serving to keep as young as possible.

Nose:  Fragile.  Delicate and frail.  Has finesse still, but little depth or power.  The fruit is very mature, some would say old.  Exotic touches given by age, but I a low register.

Palate:  Light, with some gracious notes of old wine.  Light and in many ways delicious if you enjoy old claret.  No point in keeping this any longer.  This could be described as a delicious lunchtime claret, but avoid serving it with roast grouse!     ( JS )

Light tawny colour (not encouraging). The nose has savoury interest, but has lost what fruit it once had. The palate confirms this, savoury, light and tiring, with a definite hint of oxidation.  79      ( CM )

1970 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Fine, quite light, vivid and brilliant colour.

Nose:  Fragrant and above all very fresh.  The nose is almost exotic.  Fills the nasal passages and is spicy.  Lasts a long time but towards the end the acidity creeps up and finally predominates.

Palate:  Opens with intense generosity on the first mouth-feel.  Then, gradually but inexorably, the acidity makes itself felt more and more.  It begins to crush the fruit, which in its turn is beginning to lose its prime freshness.  It is not one of the better structured Lafites.  This is odd because at harvest Lafite found both quality and abundance and said that such a vintage only happened once every 30 years.  In the final analysis this wine is showing signs of age.  It will not get better and needs drinking.   ( JS )

1962 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  This was hard to decant.  Although it had been standing up quietly the sediment was so light that it would not settle.  Therefore not brilliant in the glass but a mature, gently browning and classical 1962 colour.

Nose:  This belies the colour.  Wonderful, classical, pure and fragrant fruit in a mature register.  No real spice but lots of fragrance.

Palate:  balance, purity and elegance.  Still fresh.  We seem to repeat these words so often but then we are talking about Lafite!  Still deliciously fresh on the palate.  Long in the mouth and with a lingering aftertaste.  I have heard this wine described in terms of baskets of fruits and flowers.  This is not necessary!  This is a gracious and elegant result of the most careful vinification and ageing of healthy, ripe and perfect grapes.   ( JS )

Lightish-red colour with a slightly tawny aspect. The very gentle wines of 1962 came after the great 1961s, and have always lived in their shadow. But the very sweetness and gentleness of the 1962 fruit is still evident in the almost syrupy character of the nose here. This wine has survived astonishingly well, with a palate showing wonderfully cedary elegance, and notes of herb, mint and dried fig. It has the savoury flavours you’d expect in a more mature wine, but an amazing elegance and length.  93     ( CM )

1961 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  To me rather surprisingly light.  Not old or brown but just not as deep as I expected.

Nose:  This is a wine which starts slowly on both the nose and palate.  On the nose it then gradually opens up and reveals more and more and becomes more and more generous.  Finally it is remarkably intense, with fruit, freshness and spice.

Palate:  As for the nose one thinks “is this not light”?  But NO!  Roll it around on the tongue; inhale, swallow and gradually the flavours grow stronger and stronger.  Deep, noble and integrated tannins, deep rich fruit at the core of the wine, spice and leather.  This great vintage, from the great Chateau of Lafite, is the perfect example of the iron fist in the velvet glove.  It has everything.  Great wine for now and for the foreseeable future.   ( JS )

Clear red-tawny colour. The nose has typical 1961 intensity, bright and lively. This follows through onto the palate, with rich, dried fig and cedar flavours. Tannins are very firm, acidity is bright and supporting. This almost seems to need more time! It’s holding still, daring the taster to wait longer. And I’m sure it will deliver yet another level of positive evolution.    97   ( CM )

1957 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  Pale old claret colour:

Nose:  Not exciting.  Certainly the least good wine of the day.  It never was an exceptional vintage and here the nose is adequate and pleasant but not much more.  Some fruit, not very fresh.

Palate:  A pretty good measure of oxidation.  Old on the palate and with the acidity creeping up and taking over on the end.  Also the age shows the wine drying out.  This drying out taste has a taste rather like tannin and shows that the fruit is fading – or has faded.  A good example of a fading wine, too old for most palates.  At least it does not yet have the sweetness of death!   ( JS )

Tawny colour, with a rich reddish tint. A lovely nose, graceful and savoury, with a hint of mint. The palate still shows the very firm tannins of 1957, and the acidity is high. But it still has the hallmark Lafite sweet-fruited elegance. Those tannins and the high acidity have kept this alive for 50 years, and it’s still delicious.     90    ( CM )

1959 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  A deeper colour than the 1961 and at the same stage of evolution, if not a touch younger! Nose:  As we drank this together with the 1961, the comparison was fascinating.  Here the strength, depth and density were more immediate and striking.  Also it stays that way throughout the time it spends in the mouth and going down the throat.  Here we see Cabernet showing its prime characteristics – leather, cigar box etc.  Intensely Pauillac also.

Palate:  This wine is a sort of Adonis.  It has a splendid structure and the flesh on the bones is superbly shapely and elegant.  Many preferred it even to the 1961!  This wine has harmony, balance, length, fruit, charm, power – everything!  Surely this says it all.  A very great wine which was magnificent drinking tonight but which will give consummate pleasure for many year to come.  At the same time it is a model Lafite of which they can be intensely proud.   ( JS )

Dark, mid-red, with a rich centre and a brick edge. This has an evolved nose, of rich, dried fruits, with a slightly dangerous edge. The palate is extraordinary, with notes of leather and old wood. But it’s big and rich, with a wonderful opulent, exotic side. Even though it has more evolved flavours than the 1961, it has huge concentration and structure, and should last very well.  98 ( CM )

1953 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  A fine pale colour, showing exactly the colour that it should for its age.  Note that the colours of Lafite are rarely too deep or black – they are fine and controlled.

Nose:  Wonderful fragrance.  Note the perfect amount of gentle extraction to give the finest and purest fragrances from perfectly ripe but not in any way over-ripe grapes.  Spicy and with superb purity of fruit.  Complex and noble.

Palate:  For me this was perhaps, by a shade, the greatest wine of all.  It deserves 100 points.  It is total balance, total purity, and total harmony.  It is long, complex, with layer upon layer of flavours and subtleties.  It is powerful is the way that a gentle and refined aristocrat is powerful.  It is also tender and fresh and loving.  Could anybody ask for anything more in a wine?  Truly a great Lafite.   ( JS )

 Château Lafite-Rothschild – I tasted two bottles, one much livelier than the other. The lesser was a pale tawny in colour, with an ethereal shadow of a nose and the skeletal grace of a catwalk model. The better had some red in the tawny colour, and a haunting, perfumed fragrance. The palate was exotic and graceful, with flavours of preserved Elvas plums and cedar, and firm tannins still holding everything in place. Astonishing wine, with sweet-fruited length. 97 (CM)

1949 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  The fine colour of ancient claret.  Pale and brown.

Nose:  This is great stuff.  Fully mature claret with a nose of aged but beautifully preserved fruit.  Some people compare this to the 1947!  It has less power, but a lot of the grace.  One can hardly still call it fresh, but it still has a vital sort of purity.

Palate:  This is a lovely old thing, but it is old.  Like a graceful and frail old lady, you can see the beauty that she must have had when young.  It still has a clinging and delicate fragrance which translates into sweet nuttiness on the palate.  There is great purity.  Oxidising slowly and gracefully.  Anybody who finds this old and past its best is welcome to send it to me!   ( JS)

Clear, reddish-tawny colour. A marvellously candied, particularly sweet-fruited nose, with notes of cedar and jam. The palate shows a rich, generous, candied wine, a true child of the very hot summer of 1949. It has firm tannins, fresh acidity and wonderful, ripe, herby, cedar and blackcurrant flavours. This has kept phenomenally well, and is still vibrant and fresh, a real pleasure to taste.    96   ( CM )

1929 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Colour:  This has the very beautiful colour of old Bordeaux.  Pale yet luminous.

Nose:  Wonderfully alive and fresh.  At 77 years old it is fresher than I am at 70!  There is still fruit, which if not vibrant has an astonishing freshness.  Ageing with grace.

Palate:  As for the nose.  Quite remarkable!  It is still almost rich and the fruit still seems fresh.  It was not as easy as it should have been to tell it from the 1953.  However, in the final analysis, the acidity is now increasing and begins to show on the end palate.  If you are fortunate to still have some of this then drink it and enjoy its wonderful attributes now, but there is no point in keeping it any longer.  Magnificent old Lafite.   ( JS )

Mid-red with notes of tawny. The nose is rich-fruited, sweet and beautiful. Tannins are graceful but firm, with flavours of cedar and blackcurrant. It’s elegant but opulent wine, rich and sweet-fruited, with astonishing length and fragrance.   98     ( CM )

1887 Chateau Lafite Rothschild

Three bottles were opened at the table just before serving.  They opened totally differently.  One was dead and was not used.  One had lost its colour and was very pale indeed.  One still has a good, quite deep colour.  The one with the colour was, quite naturally, the best and was used for this tasting note.

Colour:  Very old and brown but still well pigmented and beautifully clear.

Nose:  Quite remarkable.  This one bottle was in fine condition and still had traces of fruit.  Unfortunately none of the magnificence of the 1870or 1865, but this was a period of recovery from mildew and this vintage was not bottled by the Chateau but by a Bordeaux Négociant.

Palate:  A very tired and sick old man on his deathbed.  A shadow.  Strangely, the sweetness of death has still not descended upon it!  At least this was both instructive and fascinating    ( JS )

The colour is tawny, with just a hint of red. A truly amazing nose, ripe, savoury and cedary, still with a hint of blackcurrant. This must have been a monster of a wine! It still has firm tannins and good acidity, and the flavours range from the brilliantly unexpected blackcurrant fruit to cedar, herbs and liquorice. One bottle was much less good than the other, but the good one showed us an amazing glimpse of Bordeaux history, still gloriously drinkable after 120 years! 93 ( CM )  

1976 Chateau d’YQUEM

Colour:  Fine and young and brilliant gold.

Nose.  Fine caramel and lightly toasted brown sugar.  Unusually for Yquem, a slight dry moment in the middle-mouth which adds to the freshness and elegance.

Palate:  Long, smooth, gentle and yet rich.  This is an Yquem in finesse and florality rather than in power and liquorous intensity.  Elegant, pure and delicious.  

1997 RIEUSSEC

Colour:  Fine brilliant gold. 

Nose:  What a wine!  Textbook botrytis fills the nasal passages.  Pure and beautiful caramel and lightly toasted Demerara sugar.  On the nose it is opulent and wonderful.

Palate:  Fabulous wine.  One of the greats!  The acidity is lemony, piercing and pure.  This gives the superb botrytised fruit such a lift that, in spite of its richness and sweetness, the wine is airy and supremely fresh.  This is great wine.  It can be drunk now with intense pleasure, but it will also be a fine glass of wine in 100 years time!  The yield was only 15 hectolitres per hectare, but the result was worth every drop of it.   ( JS )

2001 CARRUADES

Colour: 

Deep and youthful.  Vivid and brilliant with an almost purple rim.

Nose:  Very fresh.  Excellent acidity.  Quite spicy and with nice ripe, clean fruit

Palate:  Ripe and juicy fruit, almost plumy but certainly not jammy.  Totally ripe, but NOT over-ripe grapes.  Some spice and pleasant freshness. Palate:  Long in the mouth and finishing strongly with fine fruit and then a long and lingering aftertaste.  This is a well structured, balanced and complete 200, maturing steadily and promising a fine bottle in the future.  It is pretty good now!  ( JS )

1995 DUHART MILON

Colour :  Fine colour.  The edge is just tingeing brown to show its 12 years of age.

Nose:  Quite delicate.  Has a certain finesse and elegance and not the austerity that I always associate with Duhart.  Gentle and clean fruit.  None the less the cabernet is fully dominant.

Palate:  This follows the nose and the Cabernet predominates with leathery and cigar box notes.  It is well balanced and has good firm, but totally integrated, tannins.  This all means that it can age for a long time to great advantage.
( JS )