"95 points, James Suckling,
"Chocolatey, cedary oak with truffles and tobacco here. While there is a lot of oak to flatter at this stage, it still delivers restraint, bearing and class.
Keep smelling and you'll find scented, dark lead pencil, meaty spices, fine blackberries and a hint of tar.
Ripe and rich, but nuanced, with more complexity that takes time to fully uncoil.
Really silky, precise and polished tannins, loaded with some fruit sweetness on the palate, then extending to the finish that lasts a minute"
95 points, Tim Atkin
"A very impressive red in its own right. Malbec-based with 34% Cabernet Sauvignon for company, followed by ageing
in 50% new wood, it’s an inky, structured, nuanced pan-Mendoza blend, showing plum, blackberry and cassis flavours and firm, ageworthy tannins.""
What happens when two people, both focussed on producing wine of the highest order but on different continents, get together and decide to make wine together? Well, we have just tasted the results and they are stunning. What you literally get is all the winemaking skill, the hand-crafted care and attention to detail of a first class wine, applied to different grapes grown in warmer conditions.
The idea of forming a partnership between Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) and the Catena family was first mooted in 1998. Initial enthusiasm quickly became a concrete plan to produce a single wine that would combine French and Argentine cultures and the two signature grapes of each producer, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Catena family has produced wine for three generations. Consequently, it was able to draw on its vast knowledge of the high altitude terroirs of the Mendoza region as well as its passion for Malbec. DBR (Lafite) contributed its centuries-old skills in growing, vinifying and ageing great Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as its know-how in blending different grape varieties to produce one wine that is greater than the sum of its parts.
