"Enormous colour, thick black graphite wine. Huge dry extract, this may be fine but will take a generation to flesh up and fill out. High acid. Tannins are enormous. 15 years before it will be approachable! Very dry but very fine.
98-100 Points, Robert Parker: "This exceptionally rich, thick Lafite came in with the highest level of natural alcohol (13.5%) ever achieved at Lafite Rothschild. To put that in its proper context, the 2009 and 2005 were 13.3% and in the hottest Bordeaux summer ever recorded in over 200 years, the 2003 achieved 12.8%. A blend of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Merlot, all harvested between October 9 and 14, the 2010 exhibits an extraordinarily dense color, an unctuous texture and sweet black currant fruit intermixed with graphite, charcoal and truffle notes. A director Charles Chevalier told me, between July and the October harvest, Bordeaux had its driest weather since 1949, but it never got excessively hot. Hence the tiny berries, freshness and extraordinary precision of Lafite Rothschild. This superb effort will undoubtedly shut down slightly once it is bottled despite a pH of 3.8. It needs no building up because much of Lafite Rothschild has now become an obsession with the wealthy Chinese and most of it will undoubtedly be consumed before it ever hits its prime. Ideally, it should be cellared for 10-15 years and drunk over the following 50+ years."
Jancis Robinson MW : 19"
The celebrated growth of Lafite is of remote origin and very ancient renown. It occupies the finest crests in Pauillac, a region the Latin poet Ausonius spoke of as early as the year 325 B.C. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Seigneurs of Lafite were the high administrators of justice in this country. It was through the officers of their choice that they exercised this right until 1789. The great qualities shown by their wines earned them the sobriquet 'Princes of the Vines'. The bouquet of Lafite wines is very suave and of incomparable delicacy; its savor brings together at the same time the taste of almonds and the scent of violets without it being possible to distinguish whether the one dominates the other. Lafite was very fashionable at the king’s table in the time of Louis XV. It had a place of honor at the banquets held by marshal de Richelieu, and Mme de Pompadour always poured some at her little suppers. After having been the property of the de Ségur family, it belonged to Mr. de Pichard, president of the Parliament of Guienne, until the end of the 18th c. Unfortunately, he was not spared by the upheaval of the revolution and was guillotined in Paris on 12 Messidor in the year II (30 June 1794). After having been made a property of the state, the domain of Lafite was acquired by Dutch owners.
In 1868, it was purchased by Baron James de Rothschild and still belongs to his heirs. The wines of Lafite have always been produced with the same zealous care. They keep their reputation untarnished and still dazzle the world as they once did the Court in Versailles. Château Lafite Rothschild also produces a second label called Carruades de Lafite. ©Conseil des Vins du Medoc
