Lafite-Rothschild 1899

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5* Michael Broadbent
Eight notes. Even in a vintage like this, Lafite sold their wine in bulk (by the tonneau, four barriques yielding approximately 100 dozen bottles) to Bordeaux négociants for bottling and shipping on to other merchants. The first I tasted, in 1971, had been bottled by Louis Mortier: light, refined, beautiful flavor. The same year, ‘Château Lafite Grand Vin’ could have been a Harvey’s Bristol bottling. It was a lovely, gentle, cedary and elegant wine. In 1978 at a Heublein pre-sale tasting, two bottles from the Ten Broeck mansion, New york, curiously labelled ‘Mise d’A.G. & E.Rothschild’, one low and ‘blown’, the other quiet good, ‘a little tart, but clean’! An exquisite bottle at the Overton tasting in 1979 and a rather varnishy one at Lloyd Flatt’s in 1988. More recently, a spectacular, recorked, Double Magnum: fragrant, gentle, beautifully balanced. Last noted at Eigensatz’s tasting, May 1999. 

The Château Lafite estate run by the Rothschilds is, with its 100 hectares of cultivated land, the largest of the main Pauillac vineyards.

It is located in the highest part of the area and the view from its château, with its conical towers that appear on the label, takes in the banks of the River Gironde, which flows nearby. The wines are a blend of four different varieties of grape – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petite Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Lafite matures slightly earlier than other Premier Cru wines in the region on account of the generous amounts of Merlot used, and it is this that also makes the wine more delicate and subtle than those wines which are completely dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Lafite has a soul, a beautiful, generous, kindly soul. Lafite turns bare earth into heaven. Lafite is harmony, a harmony between man and nature, because without our magnificent winegrowers, nothing would be accomplished.”
Baron Eric de Rothschild 

Of the five Premier Cru wines in the region, Château Lafite to my mind has managed to produce the year’s best wine in many of the top years in 1900th centrury. The times I have spent in the company of a 1934, 1953, 1959, 1982 and 1986 have been unforgettable. And it was then that I always remembered how many wine critics fondly describe Lafite as ‘the perfection of elegance’.

Vineyard soil: fine gravel mixed with aeolien sands on a bedrock of tertiary limestone
Production area: 103 ha
Grape varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon (71%), Merlot (25%), Cabernet Franc (3%) and Petit Verdot (1%)
Average age of vines: 30 years
Harvest method: hand picked
Winemaking: the vinification is nowadays done with all the sophisticated instruments which modern oenology has created. Fermentation takes place in large oak vats in which the musts remain for 18 to 25 days.
Ageing: the wines are aged entirely in new barrels for 18 to 24 months. During this time,the wine is racked 7 times and is fined with the whites of 6 eggs per barrel. Only certain vats are selected to make the Grand Vin, Lafite. The others are used to make the second wine of Lafite, the “Carruades de Lafite”.