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LOT 109 | The Great Vintages of Latour

Featured on live auction at 7:17 pm

This lot gives one lucky bidder the opportunity to sample some of the best vintages Château Latour has to offer, painting a picture of how much has (and hasn’t) changed in the nearly-six decades covered in this collection.

Lot Details

While Bordeaux is synonymous with the best wines of the world, Château Latour is synonymous with the best wines of Bordeaux. With legendary First Growth heritage that is steeped in history dating back to the 1300s, Latour has long been one of the most coveted names in wine. While Latour makes legendary wines in the best vintages, it is this estate’s consistent ability to turn out exceptional wines in off vintages that makes it stand out from its peers.

Arguably the most age-worthy of the First Growth producers, this lot gives one lucky bidder the opportunity to sample some of the best vintages the producer has to offer, painting a picture of how much has (and hasn’t) changed in the nearly-six decades covered in this collection. No other producer has been described by critics as will last forever or can cellar one hundred years alongside drinkable now. Bid now and witness first-hand the extraordinary longevity, consistency, and brilliance of Château Latour.

• Château Latour 1966 (96 Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate)
  • The wine of the vintage, the 1966 Latour is a classic, old style Bordeaux that has required decades to become drinkable. A dark, opaque garnet color is followed by a fabulous nose of cedar, sweet leather, black fruits, prunes, and roasted walnuts, refreshing underlying acidity, sweet but noticeable tannin, and a spicy finish. This powerful, vigorous, immensely impressive, concentrated Latour has reached its plateau of maturity, where it will remain for another 10-20 years.
• Château Latour 1975 (93 Decanter)
  • Excellent, the standout wine of this lineup; hugely soft tannins and evident purity and integrity in the soft autumnal fruits, given extra complexity by notes of pencil lead and soft leather with crème de cassis on the finish. As with Les Forts de Latour, the wine would have been aged in new oak barrels, at least in part, and that has had an impact on how well it has aged. Henri Martin commented on September 26, as harvest was beginning, that the health of the grapes was superb, but that he felt the colour in the skins was a little lacking. He might have been pleasantly surprised by how well the colour has stood up to four decades of ageing, as this is one of the darkest and most complete on display. In the perfect window for drinking now, but honestly there is still no rush to consume.
• Château Latour 1996 (96 Wine Spectator, James Suckling)
  • Fabulous aromas of crushed raspberries, plums and blackberries. Mind-blowing nose. Full-bodied, with soft and silky tannins and a long caressing finish. Hard not to drink now, but leave it alone.
• Château Latour 1998 (92 Vinous, Neal Martin)
  • The 1998 Latour was in fact the first vintage I ever tasted en primeur at the château. It is Grand Vin a blend of 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot (compared to around 9% these days), 4% Cabernet Franc 1% Petit Verdot. It has an open-knit bouquet with notes of black fruit, iron, undergrowth and autumn leaves. You cannot help noticing its rusticity compared to present-day Latour. The palate is medium-bodied, well balanced, a tang of soy marking the entry, brambly red berry fruit and an almost Graves-like, tertiary, slightly short finish. It is a mid-weight Latour, one that I cannot envisage improving further but it will cruise at this level for the next decade.
• Château Latour 2005 (100 Wine Enthusiast)
  • A great wine, the summation of a great vintage in Bordeaux. The core of richness, the dense, bone-dry tannins, the black currants, red berries and black plum skins are the elements, but it’s the way they have been integrated that makes this such an impressive wine. There is great elegance as well, a fabulous counterpoint to such power. Cellar for at least 15 years, but this will keep forever.
• Château Latour 2009 (100 Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate)
  • A blend of 91.3% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8.7% Merlot with just under 14% natural alcohol, the 2009 Latour is basically a clone of the super 2003, only more structured and potentially more massive and long lived. An elixir of momentous proportions, it boasts a dense purple color as well as an extraordinarily flamboyant bouquet of black fruits, graphite, crushed rocks, subtle oak and a notion of wet steel. It hits the palate with a thundering concoction of thick, juicy blue and black fruits, lead pencil shavings and a chalky minerality. Full-bodied, but very fresh with a finish that lasts over a minute, this is one of the most remarkable young wines I have ever tasted. Will it last one-hundred years? No doubt about it. Can it be drunk in a decade? For sure. 

The 1966, 1975, and 1998  were purchased from auction. The 1996, 2005 and 2009 were all purchased on release from the winery. All have been stored in a 55 degree humidity-controlled cellar since delivery. 

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